The girls pleaded for the women. "We bear them no ill-feeling," they said.
"They are very ignorant; they only acted as they were taught."

"Well, well," said the major, "we will take the jewels alone; they are a
fair loot."

Another hour and the troops were already well on their way on the Delhi
road. The good luck which had attended them so far followed them to the
end. Anxious to avoid an encounter with the enemy, they took an even more
circuitous route than that by which they had come, and on the fourth
afternoon after leaving rode into Meerut, where their arrival after the
long and successful expedition created quite an excitement. A comfortable
house was found for the girls, with some old friends of the major, who
resided permanently at Meerut; as for the major and his troops, they
prepared to accompany the column which was on the point of marching
against Delhi.




CHAPTER VII.

DELHI.


Never did a government or a people meet a terrible disaster with a more
undaunted front than that displayed by the government and British
population of India when the full extent of the peril caused by the rising
of the Sepoys was first clearly understood. By the rising of Delhi, and of
the whole country down to Allahabad, the northern part of India was