In its midst, tight-packed in a roaring babel-din
of many-colored markets, stood a stone-walled palace, built once by
a Hindu king to commemorate a victory over Moslems, added to by a
Moslem Nizam, to celebrate his conquest of the Hindus and added to
once again by the Honorable East India Company, to make a suitable
barracks for its native troops.
From the rat-infested slums, from the hot shadows and the mazy
back-bazaars, from temples, store-houses, shops, and from the
sin-steeped underworld, there screamed and surged and swept the
many-graded, many-minded polyglot rebellion-spume. A quarter of
a million underdogs had turned against their masters. A hundred
factions and as many more religions, all had one common end in view--
to loot. All were agreed on one thing--that the first stage of the
game must be to turn Jailpore and, after Jailpore, India, into a
charnel-house.
Around and around the burning palace the mob screamed and swept
uncontrolled. Moslem looted Hindu, and Hindu Moslem. Armed sepoys,
with the blood of their British officers fresh-soaked on their British
uniforms, and the unspent pay of "John Company" still jingling in
their pockets, danced weird, wild devil-dances through the streets,
clearing their way, when they saw fit, with cold steel or wanton volleys.
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