१८५७ का स्वातन्त्र्य समर (वीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर - अंग्रेजों द्वारा छपने से पूर्व प्रतिबन्धित महाग्रन्थ)

DELHI
patriotic women of the Meerut bazaars, who taunted the
soldiers and goaded them on to release their comrades.
have added one more honourable episode to our history.
But the Meerut Sepoys, by their rising, unconsciously put
their brethren in unforeseen confusion by warning the
enemy beforehand !² All the Sepoys at Delhi were Indian.
They too had become restless since the heroic martyrdom
of Mangal Panday. But the Emperor Bahadur Shah and
the Empress Zinat Mahal had tactfully restrained them.
Just at this moment, a message from the Meerut branch
of the Society was delivered to the Delhi branch, “ We
are coming to-morrow ; make the necessary preparations!”
Hardly had this unexpected and strange message been
delivered at Delhi when two thousand Sepoys were al-
ready on the march from Meerut, shouting, “ Delhi !
Delhi !” Night herself was then sleepless. How could
she sleep amidst the terrible noise produced by thousands
of horses stamping and neighing, the clanging of swords
and bayonets, and the fierce shouts and secret whisperings
of the marching revolutionaries ? When day dawned,
the Sepoys were astonished to find that the Meerut
artillery had not been following them. The Sepoys
forgot all the fatigues of the night and, without

parts of India had found the English unprepared but few of our
people would have escaped the swift destruction. It would then have
been the hard task of the British nation to reconquer India or else
to suffer our Eastern empire to pass into an ignominious tradition.”
Malleson, Vol. V. “The calamitous revolt at Meerut was, how-
ever, of signal service to us in one respect : inasmuch as it was a
premature outbreak which disarranged the preconcerted plan of
simultaneous mutiny of Sepoys all over the country, settled to take
place on Sunday, the 31st of May, 1857.’—White’s History, page 17.
2. “From this combined and simultaneous massacre on the
31st of May, 1857, we were, humanly speaking, saved by the frail
ones of the bazaar. The mine had been prepared and the train
had been laid, and it was not intended to light the slow match for
another three weeks. The spark which fell from the female lips
ignited it at once and the night of the 10th of May saw the com-
mencement of the tragedy never before witnessed since India passed
under British sway.”—J. C. Wilson's Official Narrative.
117