Some of the natives were loyal still. There were men like Risaldar
Mahommed Khan, who would have died ten deaths ten times over rather
than be false in one particular to the British Government. It was
these men who helped to make intercommunication possible, for they
could carry messages and sometimes get through unsuspected where
a British soldier would have been shot before he had ridden half
a mile. Their loyalty was put to the utmost test in that hour, for
they can not have believed that the British force could win. They
knew the extent of what was out against them and knew, too, what
their fate would be in the event of capture or defeat. There would
be direr, slower vengeance wreaked on them than on the alien British.
But they had eaten British salt and pledged their word, and nothing
short of death could free them from it. There was not a shred of
self interest to actuate them; there could not have been. Their
given word was law and there it ended.
There were isolated commands, like that at Jundhra, that were too
far away to strike at Delhi and too large and too efficient to be
shut in by the mutineers.
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