Despite their protestations, however, the execution of all the hostages was decided upon.

From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 206.

The proposal to kill the hostages seems to have been strongly condemned by the women of Nana Sahib's household who. threatened to throw themselves out of a high window if any further murders were committed and who, in the meantime, refused all food and drink.

Despite their protestations, however, the execution of all the hostages was decided upon. First three Englishmen from Fatehgarh, who had been placed in the house a few days previously, together with the merchant Greenway, Greenway's son, and a boy of fourteen, were brought out and shot dead by a squad of sepoys. Then it was announced that the women would also be shot. But the sepoy guard protested; they would not kill the memsahibs. And when the order came to shoot the prisoners, they appear to have put their muskets through the windows of the various rooms and fired them into the ceilings. Exasperated by their behaviour, 'the Begum' went to fetch some less fastidious men who would not shrink from the necessary task of executing Christians. She returned with five, two Hindu peasants, two Mohammedan butchers, and a man wearing the red uniform of Nana Sahib's bodyguard who was said to be her lover. These men entered the house from which shrieks of terror and screams of pain were presently heard. One of the butchers came out with a broken sword, went over to the hotel and returned with a new one. By nightfall the screaming had stopped but groans continued long after the executioners had left and the doors had been closed.

'The hotel where Nana had his quarters was within fifty yards of this house,' J. W. Sherer wrote in his official report, 'and I am credibly informed that he ordered a nautch and passed the evening with singing and dancing. Early next morning orders were given for the Beebeegurgh to be cleared.'

'The bodies were dragged out, most of them by the hair of the head,' according to one witness. 'Those who had clothes worth taking were stripped. Some of the women were alive. I cannot say how many; but three could speak. They prayed for the sake of God that an end might be put to their sufferings.'

Most of the dead bodies were thrown into a well, and so, Sherer thought, were some of those still living. Sherer also believed that, when the well was full, the rest of the corpses were dropped into the Ganges.