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

HAVELOCK
After the unanimous resolution that these prisoners, along
with the traitors who carried the correspondence, should
all be killed, the dreadful meeting of the dreadful night
adjourned. Next day, the spies and the Englishmen were
dragged out of the prison and made to stand in a line.
At first, the spies were decapitated with swords, in the
presence of Nana Sahib himself ; then, the Englishmen
were shot. When Nana Sahib left the place, people came
up to the corpses and mocked, “ This is the Governor of
Madras ; this of Bombay, and this of Bengal.”
When this grim mockery was going on here, the order was
sent to the Sepoys at Bibigarh to kill all the inmates.
When the warders would not dare to do it, it was resolved
to bring someone of greater mettle as regards cruelty.
The chief wardress of Bibigarh, Begum Sahib, sent a man
to the butcher quarter of the Cawnpore city. In the
evening, some butchers, brandishing naked swords and big
knives in their hands, entered the prison gesticulating in
rage. They entered about evening and came out when
it was just beginning to be dark. But, in that short space
of time, there was a regular stream of red blood within
the prison ! As soon as they entered, they stabbed right
and left and killed about one hundred and fifty English
women and children ! The room was a lake of blood with
pieces of human flesh swimming in it. When they went
in, the butchers walked on the ground ; but when they
came out, they had to wade through blood. The night
was wailing with the screams of the half-dead, the deep
groans of the dying, and the piteous cries of a few children
who escaped on account of their size in the general massa-
cre. About dawn, the unfortunate creatures were dragged
out of Bibigarh prison and pushed into a neighbouring
well. A couple of children, so long crushed under the
weight of the dead bodies, got out near the well and began
running away. A blow threw them also dead on the heap
of the dead. Men drank water so long from the well, but
the well now drank human blood. As the English had
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