They will want to be off to Lucknow or Delhi, where they will know more how things are going, and where, no doubt, they reckon upon obtaining posts of importance and increased possessions under the new order of things.

Therefore, I think, they, as well as the Sepoys, are likely, if they find the task longer and more difficult than they expect, to be ready to grant terms.

I have no great faith in native oaths.

Still they might be kept.
"Captain Forster's proposal I regard as altogether impracticable.

We are something like two hundred and fifty miles from the nearest British post where we could hope to find refuge, and with the horses carrying double, the troopers at our heels directly we start, and the country hostile, I see no chance whatever, not a vestige of one, of our getting safely away.
"But there is a third alternative by which some might escape; it is, that we should make our way out on foot, break up into parties of twos and threes; steal or fight our way through the sentries, and then for each party to shift for itself, making its way as best it can, traveling by night and lying up in woods or plantations by day; getting food at times from friendly natives, and subsisting, for the most part, upon what might be gathered in the fields.