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CHAPTER VIII.
TREACHERY AND ATROCITIES AT CAWNPORE

No other events connected with the Revolt in India made so deep an impression on the public mind, or produced so utter an astonishment and dismay, as those relating to Cawnpore – the treachery of an arch-villain, and the sufferings that resulted therefrom. The mystery that for so many weeks veiled the fate of the victims heightened the painful interest; for none in England knew how the troubles in May gave rise to the miseries in June, and these to the horrors of July, until nearly all were dead who could faithfully have recorded the progress of events. Now that the main incidents are known, they come upon the reader almost with the force of a tragic drama; associating themselves in succession with five scenes – the intrenchment, the boats, the ghat, the house of slaughter, the well – the intensity deepening as the plot advances towards its end.

So unutterably revolting were the indignities to which some of the unfortunates were subjected, at Cawnpore as at other places, that no one dared to speak or write fully of them; even men, hardy and world-worn men, almost shrank from whispering the details to each other. Vague generalities of language were employed, in sheer dismay lest the use of precise words should lift too high the veil that hid the hideous scene. So much was this felt, so much were the facts understated, that persons of unblemished moral character almost regretted the reticence of the press. A nobleman held in very high estimation, the Earl of Shaftesbury, on one occasion expressed at a public meeting a wish that the daily journals would proceed one stage further in making the mournful tale known: on the ground that Englishmen, by learning more of the real truth, would appreciate more fully the sufferings of our countrymen and countrywomen, the heroism and Christian patience with which those sufferings were borne, and the necessity for (not vengeance, but) retributive justice on those who had ordered and executed the devilish barbarities. It is not a trifling compliment to the delicacy of the English press, that a Christian nobleman should thus have suggested less scruple, less reserve, in the treatment of a most trying subject. In every narrative of these mournful events, the reader feels, and must continue to feel, that the worst is left unsaid.

The first matters to treat are – the locality in which, and the native chieftain by whom, these wrongs were inflicted. Cawnpore, a terrible word to English readers, is the name both of a district and of its chief town. The district, a part of the Doab or delta between the Ganges and the Jumna, is included within the government of the Northwestern Provinces. The city of Cawnpore is on the right bank of the Ganges, about two hundred and seventy miles below Delhi; and the river flows down nearly a thousand miles below this point to Calcutta; the land-distance, however, from Cawnpore to Calcutta is between six and seven hundred miles. The Ganges here is sometimes more than a mile in width at and soon after the rainy season, and is at such time very difficult to be crossed by bodies of troops. Cawnpore is an important city to the British in India, both commercially and in a military sense. The ghat or landing-place, in peaceful times, is a scene of great liveliness and bustle. When Skinner was there, ‘Every description of vessel that can be imagined was collected along the bank. The pinnace, which with its three masts and neat rigging might have passed for a ship; budgerows, the clumsiest of all clumsy things, with their sterns several times higher than their bows; the bauleahs, ugly enough, but lightly skimming along like gondolas compared with the heavy craft around them; the drifting haystacks, which the country-boats appear to be when at a distance, with their native crews straining every nerve upon their summits, and cheering themselves with a wild and not unfrequently a sweet song; panswees shooting swiftly down the stream, with one person only on board, who sits at the head, steering with his right hand, rowing with his foot, and in the left hand holding his pipe. A ferry-boat constantly plying across the stream adds to the variety of the scene, by its motley collection of passengers – travellers, merchants, fakeers, camels, bullocks, and horses – all crowded together. The vessels fastened to the shore are so closely packed, that they appear to be one mass, and, from their thatched roofs and low entrances, might easily pass for a floating village.’ Cawnpore is (or rather was) remarkable in its military arrangements. The cantonment, six miles long by half a mile broad, often contained, before the Revolt, a native population of fifty thousand persons, besides sixty thousand in the city itself, irrespective of military and Europeans. The native infantry of the station encamped here in the cool part of the year, when there were regular streets and squares of canvas stretching over an immense space; each regiment was provided with its bazaar; in the rear and far beyond the lines, were the bivouacs of every kind of camp-followers, in immense numbers. All these, with many hundred bungalows or lodges of officers and European residents, gave great animation to the cantonment. The bungalows, though tiled or thatched, were here, as in other parts of India, large and commodious; each standing pleasantly in the midst of its compound or enclosure, richly planted with grapes, peaches, mangoes, shaddocks, plantains, melons, oranges, limes, guavas, and other fruits especially acceptable in a hot climate. There was accommodation for seven thousand troops, but the number actually stationed there was generally much less. In accordance with the Company’s regulations, the English military officers, whether of European or native regiments, always resided within the cantonment where their services were required; while the civilians, although residing chiefly in the suburbs, had their offices and places of business within the city itself. There were thus, to some extent, two sets of English residents.

The next point to render clear is, the position of the man who so fatally influenced the affairs at Cawnpore in the summer months of 1857. Nena Sahib was his name to an English eye and tongue, and as Nena Sahib he will ever be execrated; but that was his titular or honorary, not his real name, which appears to have been Dhundu Punt or Dhoondhoopunt. When called the Nena or Náná, the Nena Sahib, the Peishwa, the Maharajah, the Nena Bahadoor, he was recognised by one of his oriental titles of honour. Let him to us be the Nena Sahib. There was a motive, however inadequate in the estimate of persons possessing a spark of human feeling, for the black treachery and monstrous cruelty of this man. He had a quarrel with the East India Company: a quarrel which the Company had nearly forgotten, but not he. The disagreement arose out of the prevalent Eastern custom of adoption, in default of legitimate male heirs. Bithoor, a town six or eight miles from Cawnpore, and within the same district, had long been the residence of the chief of the Mahrattas or Peishwa, with whom, as with other native princes, the Company had had many negotiations and treaties. Bithoor itself, a town of about fourteen thousand inhabitants, possesses numerous Hindoo temples, and several ghats or flights of steps giving access to the Ganges, to which the Brahmins and their followers frequently resort for the purpose of ritual ablution. The place is not without fortification, but it does not take rank among the strongholds of India. The last chief, Maharajah Bajee Rao Peishwa, died in 1851; and in consequence of that event, a jaghire or estate, near the town, which had been bestowed upon him during pleasure by the Company, lapsed to the government, and was subjected to the general regulations in force in Cawnpore. Being sonless, he had adopted a son, or indeed two sons – not merely to inherit the vast wealth which belonged to him independently of the arrangements with the Company, but also to perform certain filial duties which high-caste Hindoos deem it necessary to their religion that a son should perform. This adoption was legal so far as concerned the Peishwa’s personal property; but the Company would not admit its validity in relation to a pension of £50,000 per annum which he had been in the habit of receiving. A slight obscurity in the wording of an official document led to some doubt on this matter. On the 1st of June 1818, Sir John Malcolm, on the part of the Company, signed a treaty with Bajee Rao, granting a pension to the rajah and his family. This has since been interpreted, by the Bithoor intriguers, as a perpetual grant to the heirs; but there is abundant evidence that Sir John and the Company meant the pension to be for Bajee Rao’s life only, to be shared by his family then living. Nine years afterwards, namely, in 1827, Bajee Rao adopted two children, Suddchoo Rao and Dhundu Punt, the one four years and the other two years and a half old; they were the sons of two Brahmins, natives of the Deccan, who had come to reside at Bithoor about a year before. There is no evidence that Bajee Rao ever considered these two adopted sons, or either of them, entitled to a continuance of the Company’s pension; although Dhundu Punt may very possibly have thrown out frequent hints, to sound the Company on this subject. It has been supposed that when the old King of Delhi was reproclaimed after the Meerut outbreak, he offered to acknowledge the Nena Sahib, Dhundu Punt, as the proper successor of the Peishwa of Bithoor, on condition of receiving his aid and allegiance. This was probably true, but would not suffice, without the incentive of private animosity, to account for his subsequent actions. So little was known of him in England when the Revolt began, that doubt prevailed whether he was really the adopted son of Bajee Rao; some writers asserting that that honour had been conferred upon another Dhundu Punt, and that the Nena himself was the eldest son of the rajah’s subadar, Ramchunder Punt.

If hatred ruled his heart during the six years from 1851 to 1857, he must indeed have been a consummate hypocrite; for the English were always courteously received by him at his petty court, and generally came away impressed in his favour – impressed, however, at the same time, with a conviction that he entertained a sort of hope that the Queen of England would graciously befriend him in his contest with the Calcutta government, the Court of Directors, and the Board of Control, all of whom disputed his adoptive claims. He had a curious taste for mingling the English with the oriental in his palace at Bithoor. An English traveller, who visited him a few years before the Revolt, and was received with an amount of flattery that appeared to have a good deal of shrewd calculation in it, found the rooms set apart for him decked with English furniture arranged in the most incongruous manner – a chest of drawers and a toilet-table in the sitting-room; a piano and a card-table in the bedroom; tent-tables and camp-stools in the same room with elegant drawing-room tables and chairs; a costly clock by the side of cheap japan candlesticks; good prints from Landseer’s pictures, in juxtaposition with sixpenny coloured plates of Wellington and Napoleon; sacred prints, and prints of ballet-girls and Epsom winners – all kinds were mingled indiscriminately, as if simply to make a show. The guest was most struck by the oriental compliments he received from the Nena, and by the odd attempt to provide English furniture where English habits and customs were so little known; yet there were not wanting dark tints to the picture. He heard rumours ‘that two women of rank were kept in a den not far from my apartments, and treated like wild beasts; and that a third, a beautiful young creature, had recently been bricked up in a wall, for no other fault than attempting to escape.’ An agent of the Nena, one Azimullah, resided some time in London, about the year 1855; he came to England to advocate the Nena’s claims, and managed to ingratiate himself with many persons moving in the upper circles of society, by his manifest abilities, his winning grace, his courtesy to all with whom he came into relation. Yet there were strange fits of moody silence observable in him; and when the failure of his mission became evident, he was heard to throw out dark mysterious threats, which were disregarded at the time, but were brought vividly to recollection afterwards, when the deeds of his master forced themselves into notice.

It will presently be seen that Nena Sahib, whatever were his thoughts at the time, did not depart, when the Revolt commenced, from his usual demeanour towards the English; he was courteous to them, and was always courteously saluted by them when he rode past.

How interesting it is – nay, how affecting – to trace the mode in which the unfortunate Europeans at Cawnpore became gradually shut out from communication with the external world; neither knowing what was occurring east and west of them, nor able to communicate news of their own sufferings! In May, messages and letters passed to and from them; in June, authentic intelligence was superseded by painful rumours; in July, a deadly silence was followed by a horrible revelation.

When the Meerut and Delhi outbreaks occurred, the attention of the civil and military authorities was turned to the importance of securing Cawnpore: because of its native troops, its store of ammunition, its large treasury, its considerable English population, and its position on the Ganges and the great road. Sir Henry Lawrence, knowing that Sir Hugh Wheeler’s force in European troops was weak, sent him fifty English infantry in the third week in May, and also sent the aid (aid as it was hoped to be) of two squadrons of Oude irregular horse. But Lucknow could ill spare these armed men, and hence the telegrams already briefly adverted to. First, Lawrence to Canning: ‘Cawnpore to be reinforced with all speed. When may her Majesty’s 84th be expected?’ Then Canning to Lawrence: ‘It is impossible to place a wing of Europeans at Cawnpore in less time than twenty-five days.’ Then Wheeler to Canning: ‘All is quiet here, but impossible to say how long it will continue so.’ Next a telegram from Benares, announcing that every possible exertion would be made to send on troops to Cawnpore as fast as they came from Calcutta. Then, on the 25th, Wheeler telegraphed to Canning: ‘Passed anxious night and day, in consequence of a report on very good authority that there would be an outbreak during one or the other. All possible preparations to meet it, but I rejoice to say that none occurred.’ On this, Lawrence sent his earnest message recommending the establishment of ekah dâks – anything at any expense – to carry troops on to Cawnpore. Towards the close of the month, about seventy men of the Queen’s 84th reached the city; and Sir Hugh telegraphed ‘All quiet:’ at the same time making very evident the existence of anxiety on his mind concerning his prospects. The governor-general telegraphed to him: ‘Your anxious position is well understood; and no means have been neglected to give you aid.’ On another day Sir Hugh telegraphed: ‘All quiet still, but I feel by no means certain it will continue so. The civil and military are depending entirely upon me for advice and assistance.’ He announced to Lawrence that he had been obliged to send irregular cavalry to clear the roads of insurgent ruffians; and added, ‘Europeans are arriving but very slowly here.’ The dilemma and doubt were painful to all; for Viscount Canning had few troops to send up from Calcutta, and no facilities for sending them rapidly; while, on the other hand, he did not know that death had cut off General Anson ere an advance could be made to Delhi and Cawnpore from the northwest. Hence such telegrams as the following from Canning to Anson: ‘Cawnpore and Lucknow are severely pressed, and the country between Delhi and Cawnpore is passing into the hands of the rebels. It is of the utmost importance to prevent this, and to relieve Cawnpore; but nothing but rapid action will do this… It is impossible to overrate the importance of shewing European troops between Delhi and Cawnpore.’ Sir Hugh Wheeler’s anxieties did not relate wholly to Cawnpore; he knew that a wide region depended on that city for its continuance in loyalty. By the 2d of June only ninety European troops had reached him. On the next day he telegraphed that the population was much excited, and that unfavourable reports were coming in from the districts between Cawnpore and Lucknow. To make matters worse, Lawrence was becoming weak at the last-named place, and Wheeler sent him fifty-two of his highly cherished English troops – a number that shews how precious, from its scarcity, this military element was regarded by the two commanders. ‘This leaves me weak,’ said Wheeler; and well might he say so. Then occurred the cutting of the telegraph wires on all sides of Cawnpore, and the stoppage of the dâk-runners. After this, all was doubt and mystery, for it was only by stealthy means that letters and messages could leave or enter that city. By degrees there reached the Company’s officers at Lucknow, Allahabad, and Benares, indirect news telling of disaster – of a rebellious rising of the native troops at Cawnpore; of the mutineers being aided and abetted by the Nena Sahib of Bithoor; of all the Europeans taking refuge in an intrenched barrack; of the forlorn band being regularly besieged in that spot; of terrible sufferings being endured; and of the soldiers and civilians, the women and children, being brought to death by numerous privations. The commissioner at Benares, when these rumours of disaster reached him, telegraphed to Calcutta: ‘May God Almighty defend Cawnpore; for no help can we afford.’ And so it was throughout June – Benares, Allahabad, Lucknow, Agra, all were equally unable to send aid to the beleaguered garrison. Gradually the messages became fewer, and the rumours darker; escaped fugitives and native messengers came in stealthily to one or other of the neighbouring towns; and men talked of a massacre at Cawnpore of English fugitives from Futtehgur, of another massacre of English in boats bound for Calcutta, of women and children placed in confinement, and of Nena Sahib’s cruelty.

Such was the condition of Cawnpore as viewed from without, by those who could necessarily know but little of the truth. Let us now enter and trace the course of events as experienced by the sufferers themselves.

There is abundant evidence that, previous to the actual outbreak at Cawnpore, the native troops – consisting of the 1st, 53d, and 56th B. N. I., and the 2d native cavalry – were much agitated by the rumours of mutiny elsewhere; and that the European inhabitants felt sensibly the paucity of English soldiers at that place. A lady, the wife of the magistrate and collector of Cawnpore – one of those who, with all her family, were barbarously slaughtered in cold blood a few weeks afterwards – writing to her friends on the 15th of May, said: ‘Cawnpore is quiet, and the regiments here are stanch; but there is no saying that they would remain long so if they came in contact with some of their mutinous brethren. We have only about a hundred European soldiers here altogether, and six guns… Down-country, from Meerut to Dinapore, there is but one regiment of Europeans, of which we have a hundred.’ Nevertheless, although the sepoys at Cawnpore were restless, an impression prevailed that, even if they joined in the mutiny, and marched off to Delhi, they would not inflict any injury on the military commander, Sir Hugh Wheeler, or the other English officers, who were much respected by them. The general thought it right to obtain correct though secret information from spies who mixed among the men in the cantonment; and these spies reported that the three infantry regiments, except a few refractory sepoys, appeared well disposed towards the government; whereas the 2d native cavalry, discontented and surly, had sent their families to their homes, to be out of danger, and were in the habit of holding nightly meetings or punchayets (a kind of jury of five persons, one of the Hindoo institutions of very ancient formation), in their lines, to concert measures of insubordination. These troopers endeavoured to bring over the foot regiments to a scheme for rising in revolt, seizing the government treasure, marching off to Delhi, and presenting that treasure to the newly restored Mogul as a token of their allegiance. The European inhabitants were numerous; for they comprised not only the officers and civilians with their families, but European merchants, missionaries, engineers, pensioners, &c., and also many nonresidents, who had either come to Cawnpore from parts of the country supposed to be less protected, or had been stopped there on their way up-country by the mutineers in the Doab. These, relying on the report concerning the apparently favourable feeling among the native infantry, made no immediate attempt to quit the place. Sir Hugh Wheeler, however, did not deem it consistent with his duty to remain unprepared. Cawnpore is built on a dead level, without stronghold or place of refuge, and could not long be held against a rebel besieging force; the cantonment was at a considerable distance; and the general resolved on making some sort of defensive arrangement irrespective both of the city and the cantonment. He secured sufficient boats to convey the whole of the Europeans down the Ganges if danger should appear; and he formed a plan for protection at night in an intrenched position. This stronghold, if so it may be called, afterwards rendered memorable as ‘the Intrenchment,’ was a square plot of ground on the grand military parade, measuring about two hundred yards in each direction; within it were two barrack hospitals, a few other buildings, and a well; while the boundary was formed by a trench and parapet or breastwork of earth, intended to be armed and defended in case of attack. The intrenchment was entirely distinct both from the city and from the cantonment, and was further from the Ganges than either of them, about a quarter of a mile out of the Allahabad and Cawnpore high road. On the side of it furthest from the river were several barracks in course of construction. It was not intended that the European civilians should at once enter the intrenchment, but that they should regard that spot as a place of shelter in time of need. Sir Hugh brought into this place a supply of grain, rice, salt, sugar, tea, coffee, rum, beer, &c., calculated at thirty days’ consumption for one thousand persons. He gave orders to the assistant-commissary to blow up the magazine if a mutiny should take place; while the collector was instructed to convey all the Company’s cash, estimated at ten or twelve lacs of rupees, from the treasury in the city to the cantonment – an instruction which, as we shall see, he was able only to obey in part. As another precaution, the executive commissariat and pay-officers, with all their records and chests, were removed into bungalows adjacent to the intrenchment. There is reason to believe that the ringleaders among the native troops sought to terrify the rest into mutiny by representing that the digging, which had been seen actively in progress at the intrenchment, was the beginning of the construction of a series of mines, intended to blow them all up.

One of the most painful considerations associated with these events in May was, that the heartless man who afterwards wrought such misery was trustingly relied upon as a friend. The magistrate’s wife, in a series of letters before adverted to, wrote under date May 16th: ‘Should the native troops here mutiny, we should either go into cantonments, or to a place called Bithoor, where the Peishwa’s successor resides. He is a great friend of C – ‘s [the magistrate’s], and is a man of enormous wealth and influence; and he has assured C – that we should all be quite safe there. I myself would much prefer going to the cantonment, to be with the other ladies; but C – thinks it would be better for me and our precious children to be at Bithoor.’ Again, on the 18th: ‘If there should be an outbreak here, dearest C – has made all the necessary arrangements for me and the children to go to Bithoor. He will go there himself, and, with the aid of the rajah, to whose house we are going, he will collect and head a force of fifteen hundred fighting-men, and bring them into Cawnpore to take the insurgents by surprise. This is a plan of their own, and is quite a secret; for the object of it is to come on the mutineers unawares.’ Here, then, in the month of May, was Nena Sahib plotting with the English against the mutineers. It was on the 20th that Sir Hugh, rendered uneasy by the symptoms around, sent to Lucknow for three hundred European soldiers; but as Sir Henry Lawrence could hardly spare one-sixth of that number, arrangements were made for accommodating as many English families as possible in the cantonment, and for fitting up the intrenchment as a place of refuge. On the 21st, the magistrate, with Wheeler’s consent, wrote to the Nena, begging him to send the aid of a few of his Mahratta troops. The native soldiers being hutted in the cantonment, and the few English soldiers barracked in the intrenchment, it was speedily determined that – while the English officers should sleep at the cantonment, to avoid shewing distrust of the native troops – their wives and families, and most of the civilians, should remain at night in the intrenchment, under protection of English soldiers. On the first night of this arrangement, ‘there were an immense number of ladies and gentlemen assembled in the intrenchment; and oh! what an anxious night it was! The children added much to our distress and anxiety,’ said the lady whose letters were lately quoted; ‘it was some hours before I could get them to sleep. I did not lie down the whole night. Extraordinary it was, and most providential too, that we had a thunderstorm that night, with a good deal of rain, which cooled the air a little; had it not been for this, we should have suffered much more.’ An English officer, in relation to this same night, said: ‘Nearly all the ladies in the station were roused out of their houses, and hurried off to the barracks. The scene in the morning you can imagine. They were all huddled together in a small building, just as they had left their houses. On each side were the guns drawn up; the men had been kept standing by them all night through the rain, expecting an instant attack. There are few people now in the station but believe this attack had been intended, and had merely been delayed on finding us so well prepared.’ On the last day of the month – a day that seems to have ended all communication from this hapless lady to her friends in England – she wrote: ‘We are now almost in a state of siege. We sleep every night in a tent pitched by the barracks, with guns behind and before. We are intrenched, and are busy getting in a month’s provisions in case of scarcity. For the first four or five nights, we scarcely closed our eyes… Last night, the sepoys of the 1st regiment threatened to mutiny, and poor Mrs Ewart was in dreadful distress when Colonel Ewart went to sleep in the lines, according to orders; and he himself fully expected to be killed before morning; but, thank God, all passed off quietly. The general remains in the barracks day and night, to be at hand if anything should happen. We still pass the day at the Ewarts’ house; but at night every one returns to the barracks, which is a wretched place… Poor Mrs – has quite lost her reason from terror and excitement. Oh! it is a hard trial to bear, and almost too much; but the sight of the children gives us strength and courage.’

Colonel Ewart, mentioned in the above paragraph, and Major Hillersdon, were the commandants of the 1st and 53d native regiments, respectively; they lived in pleasant bungalows outside Cawnpore; but at this perilous time they slept near their men in the cantonment, while their families took refuge within the intrenchment. Mrs Ewart – destined, like the magistrate’s wife, to be in a few weeks numbered among the outraged and slaughtered – wrote like her of the miseries of their position, even at that early period of their privation. Speaking of the interior of the intrenchment, she said: ‘We have a tent, which is, of course, more private and comfortable for the night; and at present there is no occasion to spend days as well as nights there, though many people do so. This is fortunate, since the weather is fearfully hot. God grant that we may not be exposed to such suffering as a confinement within that intrenchment must entail; even should we be able to bear it, I know not how our poor little ones could go through the trial.’ The general feelings of the English in the place towards the close of May cannot be better conveyed than in the following words: ‘We are living face to face with great and awful realities – life and property most insecure, enemies within our camp, treachery and distrust everywhere. We can scarcely believe in the change which has so suddenly overcast all the pleasant repose and enjoyment of life. We are almost in a state of siege, with dangers all around us – some seen, some hidden… Major Hillersdon joins us daily at our four o’clock dinner, and we stay together till half-past seven, when we go to our melancholy night-quarters, behind guns and intrenchments. My husband betakes himself to his couch in the midst of his sepoys; and you can fancy the sort of nights we have to pass. These are real trials, but we have not experienced much actual physical suffering yet.’ In another letter she further described the intrenchment and barracks as they were at night: ‘We returned to those melancholy night-quarters. Oh, such a scene! Men, officers, women and children, beds and chairs, all mingled together inside and outside the barracks; some talking or even laughing, some very frightened, some defiant, others despairing. Such sickening sights these for peaceful women; and the miserable reflection that all is caused not by open foes, but by the treachery of those we had fed and pampered, honoured and trusted, for so many years.’ Colonel Ewart, in probably the last letter received from him by his friends in England, wrote on the 31st: ‘The treasury, containing some ten or twelve lacs of rupees, is situated five miles from the cantonment. It has hitherto been thought inexpedient to bring the treasure into the cantonment; but the general has now resolved on making the attempt to-morrow. Please God, he will succeed. He is an excellent officer, very determined, self-possessed in the midst of danger, fearless of responsibility – that terrible bugbear that paralyses so many men in command.’ This was the character generally given to Sir Hugh Wheeler, who was much liked and trusted. The state of suspense in which the officers themselves were placed, not knowing whether revolt and outrage would speedily mark the conduct of regiments that had up to that moment remained faithful, was well expressed in a letter written by one of the infantry officers: ‘I only wish that I might get orders to go out with my regiment, or alone with my company, against some of the mutineers; so that we could put the men to the test, and see whether they really mean to stick to us or not, and end this state of suspense.’