sewars who pressed behind us. Daintry,
who was as brave as a lion, bade his followers
fall back, and advanced. I tried in vain to
dissuade him, knowing how little fit he was
to conciliate. But he persisted, and so in
among them we went.

"You have won great honours by our
valour," cried the irregulars to Daintry,
"and you have oppressed us since the foe
was conquered. Now we will serve no more.
We ask our discharge. Give it us."

A parley ensued. Daintry would yield
nothing. The affair was hopeless. The brigadier
retired, to give me a chance of
persuasion.

"Now, sahibs and comrades," said I, "you
know me, and I understand you. I cannot
treat with armed mutineers, but go and pile
your arms before my house, and I pledge
you my honour as an English officer, you
shall have your discharge."

After a long discussion, I won them over
to this, and they were already moving from
the hill-top, when the brigadier returned.
Briefly I explained the bargain, and asked
him to ratify the compact, and end the affair.
Daintry electrified me by exclaiming in
Hindustanee: "No! the others may have their
discharge, but I'll punish the cursed
ringleaders!"

In one moment, all my diplomacy was
rent to pieces. Sabres, carbines, pistols,
menaced us on all sides.

"Are the other regiments to be trusted?"
asked I, at last.

"Yes! " cried Daintry suddenly; "ride
and bring them up, and we'll pepper this
swarthy scum."

He spoke in English, so was not understood.
I started on my errand; but, by some
strange infatuation, Daintry remained in the
heart of the mob. Hard by, was a road,
winding between two lofty banks. I was
scarcely in it, when I met the leading files
of a mounted column, commanded by one of
Daintry's sons-in-law. The colonel had
turned his regiment out on hearing of the
mutiny. I lifted my hand as a signal. The
trumpeters raised their instruments, and
sounded the call to trot. The blast was
answered by a pistol-shot, a wild cry, and a
random volley of carbines from the crowd of
mutineers on the hill I had left. Wheeling,
I rode back at full gallop, the regiment
pelting at my heels. The mutineers fired again,
but harmlessly, and then broke and ran.
Many were cut down, speared, or trampled:
others were driven into the jungles, where they
perished miserably, between fevers and wild
beasts. Few, probably, reached their homes
again.

We found Daintry on the ground, still
breathing, but in desperate case.

"O!" said the poor fellow, as I knelt by
him, "I wish I had taken your advice;
forgive me, my boy. They've murdered me."

When the trumpet sounded, the ringleader
had clutched Daintry's bridle, and, as his
horse reared, shot him with a pistol. While
on the ground, he had received sixteen
ghastly sabre-cuts from blades of razor
keenness; yet he lived thirty hours, to the wonder
of every surgeon in the cantonments,
though he never spoke after the first five
minutes. The regiment was disbanded, its
name was blotted out of the Company's books,
and the matter was hushed up; a proceeding,
as recent events show, about as sensible
as screwing down a safety-valve to guard
against explosions.

Surely, we may make some use of the
follies of the past, to serve as beacons for the
future; and surely those have much to
answer for, who are prevented by a foolish
punctilio from exposing the true causes of the
rottenness of our Indian civil and military
system.

A QUEEN'S REVENGE.

THE name of Gustavus Adolphus, the
faithful Protestant, the great general, and
the good king of Sweden, has been long since
rendered familiar to readers of history. We
all know how this renowned warrior and
monarch was beloved by his soldiers and
subjects, how successfully he fought through
a long and fearful war, and how nobly he
died on tile field of battle. With his death,
however, the interest of the English reader
in Swedish affairs seems to terminate. Those
who have followed the narrative of his life
carefully to the end, may remember that he
left behind him an only child—a daughter
named Christina; but of the character of
this child, and of her extraordinary adventures
after she grew to womanhood, the
public in England is, for the most part,
entirely ignorant. In the popular historical
and romantic literature of France, Queen
Christina is a prominent and a notorious
character. In the literature of this country
she has, hitherto, been allowed but little
chance of making her way to the notice of
the world at large.

And yet, the life of this woman is in itself
a romance. At six years old she was Queen
of Sweden, with the famous Oxenstiern for
guardian. This great and good man governed
the kingdom in her name until she had lived
through her minority. Four years after her
coronation she, of her own accord, abdicated
her rights in favour of her cousin, Charles
Gustavus. Young and beautiful, the most
learned and most accomplished woman of her
time, she resolutely turned her back on the
throne of her inheritance, and, publicly
betraying her dislike of the empty pomp and
irksome restraint of royalty, set forth to
wander through civilised Europe in the
character of an independent traveller who
was resolved to see all varieties of men and
manners, to collect all the knowledge which
the widest experience could give her, and to