Their mud wall and their
barracks were in ruins, their provisions were at the point of exhaustion,
they had done all that the brave could do, they had conquered an
honorable compromise,--their forces had been fearfully reduced by
casualties and by disease, they were not able to continue the contest
longer. They came forth helpless but suspecting no treachery, the Nana's
host closed around them, and at a signal from a trumpet the massacre
began. About two hundred women and children were spared--for the
present--but all the men except three or four were killed. Among the
incidents of the massacre quoted by Sir G. O. Trevelyan, is this:
"When, after the lapse of some twenty minutes, the dead began to
outnumber the living;--when the fire slackened, as the marks grew
few and far between; then the troopers who had been drawn up to the
right of the temple plunged into the river, sabre between teeth, and
pistol in hand. Thereupon two half-caste Christian women, the wives
of musicians in the band of the Fifty-sixth, witnessed a scene which
should not be related at second-hand.
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