THE RED YEAR

A STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY

 

BY

LOUIS TRACY

AUTHOR OF
“THE WINGS OF THE MORNING,” “THE PILLAR OF
LIGHT,” “THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS,”
ETC., ETC.

 

 

NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1907

By EDWARD J. CLODE

Entered at Stationers’ Hall

CONTENTS

The Red Year

CHAPTER I

THE MESHES OF THE NET

On a day in January, 1857, a sepoy was sitting by a well in the cantonment of Dum-Dum, near Calcutta. Though he wore the uniform of John Company, and his rank was the lowest in the native army, he carried on his forehead the caste-marks of the Brahmin. In a word, he was more than noble, being of sacred birth, and the Hindu officers of his regiment, if they were not heaven-born Brahmins, would grovel before him in secret, though he must obey their slightest order on parade or in the field.

To him approached a Lascar.

“Brother,” said the newcomer, “lend me your brass pot, so that I may drink, for I have walked far in the sun.”

The sepoy started as though a snake had stung him. Lascars, the sailor-men of India, were notoriously free-and-easy in their manners. Yet how came it that even a low-caste mongrel of a Lascar should offer such an overt insult to a Brahmin!

“Do you not know, swine-begotten, that your hog’s lips would contaminate my lotah?” asked he, putting the scorn of centuries into the words.