The evidence was black--in black on white--written by a black-hearted schemer, and delivered by a big, fat black man, who was utterly road-weary, to the commissioner in person.
The sepoy mutiny that had been planned so carefully had started to take charge too soon.

News had arrived of native regiments whose officers had been obliged against their will to disarm and disband them, and the loyalty of other regiments was seriously called in question.
But the men whose blindness was responsible for the possibility of mutiny were only made blinder by the evidence of coming trouble.

With a dozen courses open to them, any one of which might have saved the situation, they deliberately chose a thirteenth--two-forked toboggan-slide into destruction.

To prove their misjudged confidence in the native army, they actually disbanded the irregulars led by Byng the Brigadier--removed the European soldiers wherever possible from ammunition-magazine guard-duty, replacing them with native companies--and reprimanded the men whose clear sight showed them how events were shaping.
They reprimanded Byng, as though depriving him of his command were not enough.

When he protested, as he had a right to do, they showed him Jaimihr's letter.
"Mahommed Gunga told you, did he?
Look at this!" The letter, most concisely and pointedly written, considering the indirect phraseology and caution of the East, deliberately accused Mahommed Gunga and a certain Alwa, together with all the Rangars of a whole province, of scheming with Maharajah Howrah to overthrow the British rule.