"I saw that many of the ladies were wounded," says one who watched them go by. "Their clothes had blood on them. Two were badly hurt, and had their heads bound up with handkerchiefs. Some were wet, covered with mud and blood; and some had their dresses torn, but all had clothes. I saw one or two children without clothes. There were no men in the party, but only some boys of twelve or thirteen years of age." Another eye-witness remarks: "The ladies' clothing was wet and soiled, and some of them were barefoot. Many were wounded. Two of them I observed well, as being wounded in the leg and under the arm." To such a plight had come the bloom which once, fresh from the breezes of home, charmed and puzzled Calcutta; and the toilettes whose importation and inspection supplied matter for a month's conjecture, and a week's happy occupation. Where were now the tact, the cultivation, and all the indefinable graces of refined womanhood? Simplicity and affectation, amiability and pride, coquetry and reserve, discretion and sweet susceptibility, were here confounded in a dull uniformity of woe.
Four Englishwomen, and three others of mixed parentage, were appropriated and carried off by the soldiers of the Second Cavalry; a corps which, now that the fighting was over, never lost an opportunity of distinguishing itself. These men were summoned into the presence of the Nana, who remonstrated with them at some length, and insisted that the whole seven should be restored without delay. It may be that he regarded his prisoners as hostages, and was unwilling that they should be scattered about in places where he could not lay his hand upon them at the precise moment when his life or power might be at stake. All obeyed promptly, with the exception of Ali Khan, a young trooper, described as of "a fair complexion; height about five feet seven inches; long nose; dark eyes; wears a beard and small moustache." This fellow had selected, as his share of the booty, the youngest daughter of Sir Hugh. He must have been one of a pair who were observed "leading away from the boats a lady on horseback. She wore a green chintz gown, which appeared to be wet. She seemed to be eighteen or nineteen years of age." Ali Khan now contrived to spread a report that his victim flung herself down a well, after killing her captor, his wife, and his three children. His device met with extraordinary success. In Hindostan it is never a very difficult matter to find witnesses who will swear to anything; and, before long, a private in the Second began to remember that he had been passing his comrade's door when Miss Wheeler came out, with a sword in her hand, and said: "Go in and see how nicely I have rubbed the Corporal's feet." Another individual, blessed with an elastic memory, had been present at the dragging of the well, and had seen "Missy Baba taken out, dead and swollen." The impudent fabrication was generally accepted in the city and the cantonments; and met with ready credence in England, where the imaginations of men were excited by a series of prurient and ghastly fictions. Under one shape or another the incident long went the round of provincial theatres, and sensation magazines, and popular lectures illustrated with dissolving views. Meanwhile the poor girl was living quietly in the family of her master under a Mahomedan name. Our police made diligent inquiries, which resulted in a strong conviction that she had accompanied the flight of the rebels, and, after being hurried about from camping-ground to camping-ground, had met a natural death in a corner of Nepaul. She was by no means of pure English blood. To some the very statement of the fact may appear heartless, but truth demands that it should be made.