Part 41 (1/2)
”I hear that you have just arrived,” he said.
”Yes; I rode in but half an hour ago.”
”Where are you going?”
”To Sambol. There seems no chance of fighting, at present; and I therefore left the army to pay a visit, for a day or two, to some friends. My man has just prepared a meal. Will you share it with me?”
”I will, with pleasure,” the officer said, ”for I have ridden from Muttra, and may have to wait an hour before my supper is ready for me. What may be your name?”
”Puntojee. And yours?”
”Wisnas.”
The officer unbuckled his sword, and seated himself on the ground, the room being entirely unfurnished.
”Were you in that affair, when we chased the English dogs from beyond the mountains to Agra?”
”Yes, I was in it; and never wish to campaign in such weather again. I was wet through for three weeks; and hardly feel that I have got dry, yet.”
”They are brave fellows, those Sepoys in the English service.”
”They are, indeed,” Harry agreed. ”It seemed that we must destroy them; and yet they withstood our attacks, weary and exhausted as they must have been. The worst of it was that, after all our exertions, there was no booty to be obtained.”
”Yes, that was bad. One doesn't feel so disposed to risk one's life, when there is nothing to be gained. We did not even succeed in capturing their treasure chest. If we could have brought our infantry up, we should have destroyed them; but they had to march at the same rate as the guns; and in such weather they could get along but slowly, for it often required the bullocks of four guns to drag one through those quagmires.
”That was where the English had the advantage over us. The road was, no doubt, bad enough for them; it was infinitely worse for us, after they had cut it up in pa.s.sing.
”It was a mistake when Scindia began to form regiments of infantry, and Holkar and the Peishwa imitated him. Before that, we had India at our mercy. What power could withstand a hundred thousand hors.e.m.e.n, here today, there tomorrow? Then, we had it in our power to waste all the country, and to starve out the fortresses from Cuttack to the north. Our territory extended from the great mountains on the east, to the sea in the west.
”Now we can only move at the pace of footmen; and while, formerly, no infantry would venture to withstand our charge; now, as you see, a handful of Sepoys set us at defiance, repulsed our charges, and gained Agra simply because our guns and infantry could not arrive to help us.”
”There can be no doubt that you are right,” Harry agreed; ”but I cannot blame Scindia and Holkar for forming regiments of infantry, trained by foreign officers. They had seen how the regiments so raised, by the English, had won great victories in the Carnatic and Bengal; and they did not think at that time that, ere long, they might become formidable to the Mahrattas. Scindia and Holkar raised their regiments, not to fight against the strangers, but against each other. It was their mutual hostility that so diminished the strength of the Mahrattas. When dogs fight dogs, the wild boar ravages the land.”
”It is true enough,” the other said. ”As a nation we might have ruled Asia but, divided among ourselves, wasting our forces against each other, we have allowed the stranger to wrest province after province from us.
”Now, I will go out and see that the men have all got quarters, and that the people of the village are feeding them, as they should. In truth, we have been having a bad time, lately.”
”Yes, indeed; I thought myself lucky, sometimes, to get a handful of grain after twenty hours in the saddle.
”It cannot be helped, comrade. We must drive the strangers back towards Allahabad; recover Benares, Agra, and Delhi; and then we shall be able to rest in peace, for a time, before we settle accounts with Scindia, and the others who have made a disgraceful peace with the English. We shall never have peace in the Deccan till we sack and destroy Bombay, and force the last Englishman to take to his s.h.i.+ps.”
Harry started with Abdool before daybreak the next morning and, riding all day, reached Delhi late in the evening. Putting up the horses, he proceeded to the house occupied by Colonel Ochterlony, the Resident.
”Will you tell the colonel,” he said, ”that I am an officer with despatches from General Lake?”
He was at once shown in. Colonel Burns, the commander of the garrison, was with the Resident. Neither was surprised that the messenger should be a native, for they knew the difficulties a British officer would encounter in travelling from Agra.
”I have ridden with a despatch for you, Colonel, from General Lake. I am Captain Lindsay, and have the honour of serving on the general's staff.”
”I am glad to see you, sir,” Ochterlony said, kindly. ”Your name is pretty well known, to all of us, as that of an officer who has successfully carried out several dangerous enterprises; and this cannot have been one of the most dangerous of them, for indeed, in that disguise I do not think that anyone would entertain the slightest suspicion that you are not what you appear to be.