seven o'clock in the evening of
Sunday, the 10th of May
As they are breaking up , ask all the officers to come round to the messroom ; I will meet them there , and we can talk the matter over ; but let the ladies have one more quiet night ; they will want all their strength and fortitude for what is to come . '' And so , clearing their brows , they went into the house and listened to the music , and joined in the talk until ten o'clock struck and every one got up to go , and so ended the last happy evening at Sandynugghur . The next morning brought the news of the rising at Delhi , but it was not till two days later that letters giving any details of these terrible events arrived , and the full extent of the awful calamity was known . The flame broke out at Meerut at seven o'clock in the evening of Sunday , the 10th of May . On the previous day a punishment parade had been held to witness the military degradation of a number of men of the Third Native Cavalry , who had been guilty of mutinous conduct in respect to the cartridges . The native regiments at the station consisted of the Third Cavalry , the Eleventh and Twentieth Infantry ; there were also in garrison the Sixtieth Rifles , the Sixth Dragoon Guards , and two batteries of artillery ; a force amply sufficient , if properly handled , to have crushed the native troops , and to have nipped the mutiny in the bud . Unhappily , they were not well handled .