The mutineers were seized
with a panic, and rushed away in the darkness; but the leaders and most
of their followers were pursued and arrested by the native infantry and
cavalry, and confined pending trial. Subsequently it transpired that the
native regiments sympathized with the mutineers, and would have shown it
but for their dread of Sir Henry Lawrence and the Europeans. The
energetic action of Lawrence sufficed to maintain order for another
month in Oudh. Meanwhile the Thirty-fourth Native Infantry was disbanded
at Barrackpur, and again it was hoped that the disaffection was stayed.
The demon of mutiny was only scotched. Within a week of the outbreak at
Lucknow, the great military station of Meerut was in a blaze. Meerut was
only forty miles from Delhi, and the largest cantonment in India. There
were three regiments of sepoys, two of infantry and one of cavalry; but
there were enough Europeans to scatter four times the number; namely, a
battalion of the Sixtieth Rifles, a regiment of Dragoon Guards known as
the "Carabineers," two troops of horse-artillery, and a light
field-battery.
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