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

THE ERUPTION
Azimullah, with a wink in his eye, retorted, " Well, you
can just call it 'the castle of despair.' "
One day towards the evening, a young gallant Englishman,
under the influence of drink, shot a Sepoy. The shot
missed but the Sepoy brought a case against the culprit.
According to usual custom, the soldier culprit was declared
not guilty and released, the reason given being that the
gun went off while the accused was intoxicated! This
decision was the customary one, but alas! the times
had changed! ⁴
At this insult, the whole Lashkar began to mutter among
themselves, " Alright, our guns will also soon go off! "
This became an exciting catch-word among the Sepoys.
When they saw each other, they would say, " Well, now
our guns are to go off, aren't they?" The sarcastic greet-
ing became common in the army. However, they decided
to suppress their anger for the time and not to be hastened
into a premature rising as at Meerut.
To add fuel to the fire, the dead bodies of an Englishman
and his wife were carried down the Ganges to Cawnpore.
This testimony of the rising, in a city somewhere up the
river, began to hold a terrible conversation with the city
of Cawnpore. Oh! Ganges, how many more of the impure
loads have you to carry before you send them to their
ocean home! The English had now been so often deceived
by the cry of " The wolf! The wolf!!" that they were
frequently slumbering when the wolf was really to come.
On the 1st of June, Sir Hugh Wheeler wrote to Lord
4. Trevelyan says:—" The Sepoys, familiar as they were with
the brutality of low Europeans and the vagaries of military justice
would at a less critical season have expressed small surprise either
at the outrage or the decision. But, now, their blood was up and
their pride awake, and they were not inclined to overrate the
privileges of an Anglo-Saxon or the sagacity of the military tribu-
nal."—Cawnpore, page 93.
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