path: root/1935-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1935 ***
THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF
MAJOR GAHAGAN

Etc. Etc.


by William Makepeace Thackeray




Contents

 CHAPTER I: “TRUTH IS STRANGE, STRANGER THAN FICTION”
 CHAPTER II: ALLYGHUR AND LASWAREE
 CHAPTER III: A PEEP INTO SPAIN—ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN AND SERVICES OF THE AHMEDNUGGAR IRREGULARS
 CHAPTER IV: THE INDIAN CAMP—THE SORTIE FROM THE FORT
 CHAPTER V: THE ISSUE OF MY INTERVIEW WITH MY WIFE
 CHAPTER VI: FAMINE IN THE GARRISON
 CHAPTER VII: THE ESCAPE
 CHAPTER VIII: THE CAPTIVE
 CHAPTER IX: SURPRISE OF FUTTYGHUR
 Footnotes:




CHAPTER I
“Truth is strange, Stranger than fiction.”


I think it but right that in making my appearance before the public I
should at once acquaint them with my titles and name. My card, as I
leave it at the houses of the nobility, my friends, is as follows:—

MAJOR GOLIAH O’GRADY GAHAGAN, H.E.I.C.S.,
          _Commanding Battalion of
                    Irregular Horse_,
                              AHMEDNUGGAR.

Seeing, I say, this simple visiting ticket, the world will avoid any of
those awkward mistakes as to my person, which have been so frequent of
late. There has been no end to the blunders regarding this humble title
of mine, and the confusion thereby created. When I published my volume
of poems, for instance, the _Morning Post_ newspaper remarked “that the
Lyrics of the Heart, by Miss Gahagan, may be ranked among the sweetest
flowrets of the present spring season.” The _Quarterly Review_,
commenting upon my “Observations on the Pons Asinorum” (4to, London,
1836), called me “Doctor Gahagan,” and so on. It was time to put an end
to these mistakes, and I have taken the above simple remedy.

I was urged to it by a very exalted personage. Dining in August last at
the palace of the T-l-r-es at Paris, the lovely young Duch-ss of Orl-ns
(who, though she does not speak English, understands it as well as I
do), said to me in the softest Teutonic, “Lieber Herr Major, haben sie
den Ahmednuggarischen-jager-battalion gelassen?” “Warum denn?” said I,
quite astonished at her R—l H—ss’s question. The P-cess then spoke of
some trifle from my pen, which was simply signed Goliah Gahagan.

There was, unluckily, a dead silence as H.R.H. put this question.

“Comment donc?” said H.M. Lo-is Ph-l-ppe, looking gravely at Count
Molé; “le cher Major a quitté l’armée! Nicolas donc sera maître de
l’Inde!” H. M- and the Pr. M-n-ster pursued their conversation in a low
tone, and left me, as may be imagined, in a dreadful state of
confusion. I blushed and stuttered, and murmured out a few incoherent
words to explain—but it would not do—I could not recover my equanimity
during the course of the dinner; and while endeavouring to help an
English duke, my neighbour, to _poulet à l’Austerlitz_, fairly sent
seven mushrooms and three large greasy _croûtes_ over his whiskers and
shirt-frill. Another laugh at my expense. “Ah! M. le Major,” said the
Q— of the B-lg—ns, archly, “vous n’aurez jamais votre brevet de
Colonel.” Her M-y’s joke will be better understood when I state that
his Grace is the brother of a Minister.

I am not at liberty to violate the sanctity of private life, by
mentioning the names of the parties concerned in this little anecdote.
I only wish to have it understood that I am a gentleman, and live at
least in _decent_ society. _Verbum sat_.

But to be serious. I am obliged always to write the name of Goliah in
full, to distinguish me from my brother, Gregory Gahagan, who was also
a Major (in the King’s service), and whom I killed in a duel, as the
public most likely knows. Poor Greg! a very trivial dispute was the
cause of our quarrel, which never would have originated but for the
similarity of our names. The circumstance was this: I had been lucky
enough to render the Nawaub of Lucknow some trifling service (in the
notorious affair of Choprasjee Muckjee), and his Highness sent down a
gold toothpick-case directed to Captain G. Gahagan, which I of course
thought was for me: my brother madly claimed it; we fought, and the
consequence was, that in about three minutes he received a slash in the
right side (cut 6), which effectually did his business:- he was a good
swordsman enough—I was THE BEST in the universe. The most ridiculous
part of the affair is, that the toothpick-case was his, after all—he
had left it on the Nawaub’s table at tiffin. I can’t conceive what
madness prompted him to fight about such a paltry bauble; he had much
better have yielded it at once, when he saw I was determined to have
it. From this slight specimen of my adventures, the reader will
perceive that my life has been one of no ordinary interest; and, in
fact, I may say that I have led a more remarkable life than any man in
the service—I have been at more pitched battles, led more forlorn
hopes, had more success among the fair sex, drunk harder, read more,
been a handsomer man than any officer now serving Her Majesty.

When I first went to India in 1802, I was a raw cornet of seventeen,
with blazing red hair, six feet four in height, athletic at all kinds
of exercises, owing money to my tailor and everybody else who would
trust me, possessing an Irish brogue, and my full pay of £120 a year. I
need not say that with all these advantages I did that which a number
of clever fellows have done before me—I fell in love, and proposed to
marry immediately.

But how to overcome the difficulty?—It is true that I loved Julia
Jowler—loved her to madness; but her father intended her for a Member
of Council at least, and not for a beggarly Irish ensign. It was,
however, my fate to make the passage to India (on board of the “Samuel
Snob” East Indiaman, Captain Duffy) with this lovely creature, and my
misfortune instantaneously to fall in love with her. We were not out of
the Channel before I adored her, worshipped the deck which she trod
upon, kissed a thousand times the cuddy-chair on which she used to sit.
The same madness fell on every man in the ship. The two mates fought
about her at the Cape; the surgeon, a sober pious Scotchman, from
disappointed affection, took so dreadfully to drinking as to threaten
spontaneous combustion; and old Colonel Lilywhite, carrying his wife
and seven daughters to Bengal, swore that he would have a divorce from
Mrs. L., and made an attempt at suicide; the captain himself told me,
with tears in his eyes, that he hated his hitherto-adored Mrs. Duffy,
although he had had nineteen children by her.

We used to call her the witch—there was magic in her beauty and in her
voice. I was spell-bound when I looked at her, and stark staring mad
when she looked at me! O lustrous black eyes!—O glossy night-black
ringlets!—O lips!—O dainty frocks of white muslin!—O tiny kid
slippers!—though old and gouty, Gahagan sees you still! I recollect,
off Ascension, she looked at me in her particular way one day at
dinner, just as I happened to be blowing on a piece of scalding hot
green fat. I was stupefied at once—I thrust the entire morsel (about
half a pound) into my mouth. I made no attempt to swallow, or to
masticate it, but left it there for many minutes, burning, burning! I
had no skin to my palate for seven weeks after, and lived on rice-water
during the rest of the voyage. The anecdote is trivial, but it shows
the power of Julia Jowler over me.

The writers of marine novels have so exhausted the subject of storms,
shipwrecks, mutinies, engagements, sea-sickness, and so forth, that
(although I have experienced each of these in many varieties) I think
it quite unnecessary to recount such trifling adventures; suffice it to
say, that during our five months’ _trajet_, my mad passion for Julia
daily increased; so did the captain’s and the surgeon’s; so did Colonel
Lilywhite’s; so did the doctor’s, the mate’s—that of most part of the
passengers, and a considerable number of the crew. For myself, I
swore—ensign as I was—I would win her for my wife; I vowed that I would
make her glorious with my sword—that as soon as I had made a favourable
impression on my commanding officer (which I did not doubt to create),
I would lay open to him the state of my affections, and demand his
daughter’s hand. With such sentimental outpourings did our voyage
continue and conclude.

We landed at the Sunderbunds on a grilling hot day in December 1802,
and then for the moment Julia and I separated. She was carried off to
her papa’s arms in a palankeen, surrounded by at least forty
hookahbadars; whilst the poor cornet, attended but by two dandies and a
solitary beasty (by which unnatural name these blackamoors are called),
made his way humbly to join the regiment at headquarters.

The —th Regiment of Bengal Cavalry, then under the command of
Lieut.-Colonel Julius Jowler, C.B., was known throughout Asia and
Europe by the proud title of the Bundelcund Invincibles—so great was
its character for bravery, so remarkable were its services in that
delightful district of India. Major Sir George Gutch was next in
command, and Tom Thrupp, as kind a fellow as ever ran a Mahratta
through the body, was second Major. We were on the eve of that
remarkable war which was speedily to spread throughout the whole of
India, to call forth the valour of a Wellesley, and the indomitable
gallantry of a Gahagan; which was illustrated by our victories at
Ahmednuggar (where I was the first over the barricade at the storming
of the Pettah); at Argaum, where I slew with my own sword twenty-three
matchlock-men, and cut a dromedary in two; and by that terrible day of
Assaye, where Wellesley would have been beaten but for me—me alone: I
headed nineteen charges of cavalry, took (aided by only four men of my
own troop) seventeen field-pieces, killing the scoundrelly French
artillerymen; on that day I had eleven elephants shot under me, and
carried away Scindiah’s nose- ring with a pistol-ball. Wellesley is a
Duke and a Marshal, I but a simple Major of Irregulars. Such is fortune
and war! But my feelings carry me away from my narrative, which had
better proceed with more order.

On arriving, I say, at our barracks at Dum Dum, I for the first time
put on the beautiful uniform of the Invincibles: a light blue
swallow-tailed jacket with silver lace and wings, ornamented with about
3,000 sugar-loaf buttons, rhubarb-coloured leather inexpressibles
(tights), and red morocco boots with silver spurs and tassels, set off
to admiration the handsome persons of the officers of our corps. We
wore powder in those days; and a regulation pigtail of seventeen
inches, a brass helmet surrounded by leopard skin, with a bearskin top
and a horsetail feather, gave the head a fierce and chivalrous
appearance, which is far more easily imagined than described.

Attired in this magnificent costume, I first presented myself before
Colonel Jowler. He was habited in a manner precisely similar, but not
being more than five feet in height, and weighing at least fifteen
stone, the dress he wore did not become him quite so much as slimmer
and taller men. Flanked by his tall Majors, Thrupp and Gutch, he looked
like a stumpy skittle-ball between two attenuated skittles. The plump
little Colonel received me with vast cordiality, and I speedily became
a prime favourite with himself and the other officers of the corps.
Jowler was the most hospitable of men; and gratifying my appetite and
my love together, I continually partook of his dinners, and feasted on
the sweet presence of Julia.

I can see now, what I would not and could not perceive in those early
days, that this Miss Jowler—on whom I had lavished my first and warmest
love, whom I had endowed with all perfection and purity—was no better
than a little impudent flirt, who played with my feelings, because
during the monotony of a sea voyage she had no other toy to play with;
and who deserted others for me, and me for others, just as her whim or
her interest might guide her. She had not been three weeks at
headquarters when half the regiment was in love with her. Each and all
of the candidates had some favour to boast of, or some encouraging
hopes on which to build. It was the scene of the “Samuel Snob” over
again, only heightened in interest by a number of duels. The following
list will give the reader a notion of some of them:—

1. Cornet Gahagan . . . Ensign Hicks, of the Sappers and Miners. Hicks
received a ball in his jaw, and was half choked by a quantity of
carroty whisker forced down his throat with the ball.

2. Captain Macgillicuddy, B.N.I. Cornet Gahagan. I was run through the
body, but the sword passed between the ribs, and injured me very
slightly.

3. Captain Macgillicuddy, B.N.I. Mr. Mulligatawny, B.C.S., Deputy-
Assistant Vice Sub-Controller of the Boggleywollah Indigo grounds,
Ramgolly branch.

Macgillicuddy should have stuck to sword’s play, and he might have come
off in his second duel as well as in his first; as it was, the civilian
placed a ball and a part of Mac’s gold repeater in his stomach. A
remarkable circumstance attended this shot, an account of which I sent
home to the “Philosophical Transactions:” the surgeon had extracted the
ball, and was going off, thinking that all was well, when the gold
repeater struck thirteen in poor Macgillicuddy’s abdomen. I suppose
that the works must have been disarranged in some way by the bullet,
for the repeater was one of Barraud’s, never known to fail before, and
the circumstance occurred at _seven_ o’clock.[1]

I could continue, almost _ad infinitum_, an account of the wars which
this Helen occasioned, but the above three specimens will, I should
think, satisfy the peaceful reader. I delight not in scenes of blood,
Heaven knows, but I was compelled in the course of a few weeks, and for
the sake of this one woman, to fight nine duels myself, and I know that
four times as many more took place concerning her.

I forgot to say that Jowler’s wife was a half-caste woman, who had been
born and bred entirely in India, and whom the Colonel had married from
the house of her mother, a native. There were some singular rumours
abroad regarding this latter lady’s history: it was reported that she
was the daughter of a native Rajah, and had been carried off by a poor
English subaltern in Lord Clive’s time. The young man was killed very
soon after, and left his child with its mother. The black Prince
forgave his daughter and bequeathed to her a handsome sum of money. I
suppose that it was on this account that Jowler married Mrs. J., a
creature who had not, I do believe, a Christian name, or a single
Christian quality: she was a hideous, bloated, yellow creature, with a
beard, black teeth, and red eyes: she was fat, lying, ugly, and
stingy—she hated and was hated by all the world, and by her jolly
husband as devoutly as by any other. She did not pass a month in the
year with him, but spent most of her time with her native friends. I
wonder how she could have given birth to so lovely a creature as her
daughter. This woman was of course with the Colonel when Julia arrived,
and the spice of the devil in her daughter’s composition was most
carefully nourished and fed by her. If Julia had been a flirt before,
she was a downright jilt now; she set the whole cantonment by the ears;
she made wives jealous and husbands miserable; she caused all those
duels of which I have discoursed already, and yet such was the
fascination of THE WITCH that I still thought her an angel. I made
court to the nasty mother in order to be near the daughter; and I
listened untiringly to Jowler’s interminable dull stories, because I
was occupied all the time in watching the graceful movements of Miss
Julia.

But the trumpet of war was soon ringing in our ears; and on the
battle-field Gahagan is a man! The Bundelcund Invincibles received
orders to march, and Jowler, Hector-like, donned his helmet and
prepared to part from his Andromache. And now arose his perplexity:
what must be done with his daughter, his Julia? He knew his wife’s
peculiarities of living, and did not much care to trust his daughter to
her keeping; but in vain he tried to find her an asylum among the
respectable ladies of his regiment. Lady Gutch offered to receive her,
but would have nothing to do with Mrs. Jowler; the surgeon’s wife, Mrs.
Sawbone, would have neither mother nor daughter: there was no help for
it, Julia and her mother must have a house together, and Jowler knew
that his wife would fill it with her odious blackamoor friends.

I could not, however, go forth satisfied to the campaign until I
learned from Julia my fate. I watched twenty opportunities to see her
alone, and wandered about the Colonel’s bungalow as an informer does
about a public-house, marking the incomings and the outgoings of the
family, and longing to seize the moment when Miss Jowler, unbiassed by
her mother or her papa, might listen, perhaps, to my eloquence, and
melt at the tale of my love.

But it would not do—old Jowler seemed to have taken all of a sudden to
such a fit of domesticity, that there was no finding him out of doors,
and his rhubarb-coloured wife (I believe that her skin gave the first
idea of our regimental breeches), who before had been gadding
ceaselessly abroad, and poking her broad nose into every _ménage_ in
the cantonment, stopped faithfully at home with her spouse. My only
chance was to beard the old couple in their den, and ask them at once
for their _cub_.

So I called one day at tiffin:- old Jowler was always happy to have my
company at this meal; it amused him, he said, to see me drink Hodgson’s
pale ale (I drank two hundred and thirty-four dozen the first year I
was in Bengal)—and it was no small piece of fun, certainly, to see old
Mrs. Jowler attack the currie-bhaut;—she was exactly the colour of it,
as I have had already the honour to remark, and she swallowed the
mixture with a gusto which was never equalled, except by my poor friend
Dando _à propos d’huîtres_. She consumed the first three platefuls with
a fork and spoon, like a Christian; but as she warmed to her work, the
old hag would throw away her silver implements, and dragging the dishes
towards her, go to work with her hands, flip the rice into her mouth
with her fingers, and stow away a quantity of eatables sufficient for a
sepoy company. But why do I diverge from the main point of my story?

Julia, then, Jowler, and Mrs. J., were at luncheon; the dear girl was
in the act to _sabler_ a glass of Hodgson as I entered. “How do you do,
Mr. Gagin?” said the old hag, leeringly. “Eat a bit o’
currie-bhaut,”—and she thrust the dish towards me, securing a heap as
it passed. “What! Gagy my boy, how do, how do?” said the fat Colonel.
“What! run through the body?—got well again—have some Hodgson—run
through your body too!”—and at this, I may say, coarse joke (alluding
to the fact that in these hot climates the ale oozes out as it were
from the pores of the skin) old Jowler laughed: a host of swarthy
chobdars, kitmatgars, sices, consomahs, and bobbychies laughed too, as
they provided me, unasked, with the grateful fluid. Swallowing six
tumblers of it, I paused nervously for a moment, and then said -

“Bobbachy, consomah, ballybaloo hoga.”

The black ruffians took the hint, and retired.

“Colonel and Mrs. Jowler,” said I solemnly, “we are alone; and you,
Miss Jowler, you are alone too; that is—I mean—I take this opportunity
to—(another glass of ale, if you please)—to express, once for all,
before departing on a dangerous campaign”—(Julia turned pale)—“before
entering, I say, upon a war which may stretch in the dust my
high-raised hopes and me, to express my hopes while life still remains
to me, and to declare in the face of heaven, earth, and Colonel Jowler,
that I love you, Julia!” The Colonel, astonished, let fall a steel
fork, which stuck quivering for some minutes in the calf of my leg; but
I heeded not the paltry interruption. “Yes, by yon bright heaven,”
continued I, “I love you, Julia! I respect my commander, I esteem your
excellent and beauteous mother: tell me, before I leave you, if I may
hope for a return of my affection. Say that you love me, and I will do
such deeds in this coming war, as shall make you proud of the name of
your Gahagan.”

The old woman, as I delivered these touching words, stared, snapped,
and ground her teeth, like an enraged monkey. Julia was now red, now
white; the Colonel stretched forward, took the fork out of the calf of
my leg, wiped it, and then seized a bundle of letters which I had
remarked by his side.

“A cornet!” said he, in a voice choking with emotion; “a pitiful
beggarly Irish cornet aspire to the hand of Julia Jowler! Gag— Gahagan,
are you mad, or laughing at us? Look at these letters, young man—at
these letters, I say—one hundred and twenty-four epistles from every
part of India (not including one from the Governor-General, and six
from his brother, Colonel Wellesley)—one hundred and twenty-four
proposals for the hand of Miss Jowler! Cornet Gahagan,” he continued,
“I wish to think well of you: you are the bravest, the most modest,
and, perhaps, the handsomest man in our corps; but you have not got a
single rupee. You ask me for Julia, and you do not possess even an
anna!”—(Here the old rogue grinned, as if he had made a capital
pun.)—“No, no,” said he, waxing good-natured; “Gagy my boy, it is
nonsense! Julia love, retire with your mamma; this silly young
gentleman will remain and smoke a pipe with me.”

I took one: it was the bitterest chillum I ever smoked in my life.

I am not going to give here an account of my military services; they
will appear in my great national autobiography, in forty volumes, which
I am now preparing for the press. I was with my regiment in all
Wellesley’s brilliant campaigns; then taking dawk, I travelled across
the country north-eastward, and had the honour of fighting by the side
of Lord Lake at Laswaree, Degg, Furruckabad, Futtyghur, and Bhurtpore:
but I will not boast of my actions—the military man knows them, MY
SOVEREIGN appreciates them. If asked who was the bravest man of the
Indian army, there is not an officer belonging to it who would not cry
at once, GAHAGAN. The fact is, I was desperate: I cared not for life,
deprived of Julia Jowler.

With Julia’s stony looks ever before my eyes, her father’s stern
refusal in my ears, I did not care, at the close of the campaign, again
to seek her company or to press my suit. We were eighteen months on
service, marching and counter-marching, and fighting almost every other
day: to the world I did not seem altered; but the world only saw the
face, and not the seared and blighted heart within me. My valour,
always desperate, now reached to a pitch of cruelty; I tortured my
grooms and grass-cutters for the most trifling offence or error,—I
never in action spared a man,—I sheared off three hundred and nine
heads in the course of that single campaign.

Some influence, equally melancholy, seemed to have fallen upon poor old
Jowler. About six months after we had left Dum Dum, he received a
parcel of letters from Benares (whither his wife had retired with her
daughter), and so deeply did they seem to weigh upon his spirits, that
he ordered eleven men of his regiment to be flogged within two days;
but it was against the blacks that he chiefly turned his wrath. Our
fellows, in the heat and hurry of the campaign, were in the habit of
dealing rather roughly with their prisoners, to extract treasure from
them: they used to pull their nails out by the root, to boil them in
kedgeree pots, to flog them and dress their wounds with cayenne pepper,
and so on. Jowler, when he heard of these proceedings, which before had
always justly exasperated him (he was a humane and kind little man),
used now to smile fiercely and say, “D- the black scoundrels! Serve
them right, serve them right!”

One day, about a couple of miles in advance of the column, I had been
on a foraging-party with a few dragoons, and was returning peaceably to
camp, when of a sudden a troop of Mahrattas burst on us from a
neighbouring mango-tope, in which they had been hidden: in an instant
three of my men’s saddles were empty, and I was left with but seven
more to make head against at least thirty of these vagabond black
horsemen. I never saw in my life a nobler figure than the leader of the
troop—mounted on a splendid black Arab; he was as tall, very nearly, as
myself; he wore a steel cap and a shirt of mail, and carried a
beautiful French carbine, which had already done execution upon two of
my men. I saw that our only chance of safety lay in the destruction of
this man. I shouted to him in a voice of thunder (in the Hindustanee
tongue of course), “Stop, dog, if you dare, and encounter a man!”

In reply his lance came whirling in the air over my head, and mortally
transfixed poor Foggarty of ours, who was behind me. Grinding my teeth
and swearing horribly, I drew that scimitar which never yet failed its
blow,[2] and rushed at the Indian. He came down at full gallop, his own
sword making ten thousand gleaming circles in the air, shrieking his
cry of battle.

The contest did not last an instant. With my first blow I cut off his
sword-arm at the wrist; my second I levelled at his head. I said that
he wore a steel cap, with a gilt iron spike of six inches, and a hood
of chain mail. I rose in my stirrups and delivered “_St. George;_” my
sword caught the spike exactly on the point, split it sheer in two, cut
crashing through the steel cap and hood, and was only stopped by a ruby
which he wore in his back- plate. His head, cut clean in two between
the eyebrows and nostrils, even between the two front teeth, fell one
side on each shoulder, and he galloped on till his horse was stopped by
my men, who were not a little amused at the feat.

As I had expected, the remaining ruffians fled on seeing their leader’s
fate. I took home his helmet by way of curiosity, and we made a single
prisoner, who was instantly carried before old Jowler.

We asked the prisoner the name of the leader of the troop: he said it
was Chowder Loll.

“Chowder Loll!” shrieked Colonel Jowler. “O Fate! thy hand is here!” He
rushed wildly into his tent—the next day applied for leave of absence.
Gutch took the command of the regiment, and I saw him no more for some
time.

As I had distinguished myself not a little during the war, General Lake
sent me up with despatches to Calcutta, where Lord Wellesley received
me with the greatest distinction. Fancy my surprise, on going to a ball
at Government House, to meet my old friend Jowler; my trembling,
blushing, thrilling delight, when I saw Julia by his side!

Jowler seemed to blush too when he beheld me. I thought of my former
passages with his daughter. “Gagy my boy,” says he, shaking hands,
“glad to see you. Old friend, Julia—come to tiffin— Hodgson’s
pale—brave fellow Gagy.” Julia did not speak, but she turned ashy pale,
and fixed upon me her awful eyes! I fainted almost, and uttered some
incoherent words. Julia took my hand, gazed at me still, and said,
“Come!” Need I say I went?

I will not go over the pale ale and currie-bhaut again! but this I
know, that in half-an-hour I was as much in love as I ever had been:
and that in three weeks I—yes, I—was the accepted lover of Julia! I did
not pause to ask where were the one hundred and twenty-four offers? why
I, refused before, should be accepted now? I only felt that I loved
her, and was happy!

One night, one memorable night, I could not sleep, and, with a lover’s
pardonable passion, wandered solitary through the City of Palaces until
I came to the house which contained my Julia. I peeped into the
compound—all was still; I looked into the verandah—all was dark, except
a light—yes, one light—and it was in Julia’s chamber! My heart throbbed
almost to stifling. I would—I _would_ advance, if but to gaze upon her
for a moment, and to bless her as she slept. I _did_ look, I _did_
advance; and, O Heaven! I saw a lamp burning, Mrs. Jow. in a
night-dress, with a very dark baby in her arms, and Julia looking
tenderly at an ayah, who was nursing another.

“Oh, Mamma,” said Julia, “what would that fool Gahagan say if he knew
all?”

“_He does know all!_” shouted I, springing forward, and tearing down
the tatties from the window. Mrs. Jow. ran shrieking out of the room,
Julia fainted, the cursed black children squalled, and their d-d nurse
fell on her knees, gabbling some infernal jargon of Hindustanee. Old
Jowler at this juncture entered with a candle and a drawn sword.

“Liar! scoundrel! deceiver!” shouted I. “Turn, ruffian, and defend
yourself!” But old Jowler, when he saw me, only whistled, looked at his
lifeless daughter, and slowly left the room.

Why continue the tale? I need not now account for Jowler’s gloom on
receiving his letters from Benares—for his exclamation upon the death
of the Indian chief—for his desire to marry his daughter: the woman I
was wooing was no longer Miss Julia Jowler, she was Mrs. Chowder Loll!




CHAPTER II
Allyghur and Laswaree


I sat down to write gravely and sadly, for (since the appearance of
some of my adventures in a monthly magazine) unprincipled men have
endeavoured to rob me of the only good I possess, to question the
statements that I make, and, themselves without a spark of honour or
good feeling, to steal from me that which is my sole wealth—my
character as a teller of THE TRUTH.

The reader will understand that it is to the illiberal strictures of a
profligate press I now allude; among the London journalists, none
(luckily for themselves) have dared to question the veracity of my
statements: they know me, and they know that I am _in London_. If I can
use the pen, I can also wield a more manly and terrible weapon, and
would answer their contradictions with my sword! No gold or gems adorn
the hilt of that war-worn scimitar; but there is blood upon the
blade—the blood of the enemies of my country, and the maligners of my
honest fame. There are others, however—the disgrace of a disgraceful
trade—who, borrowing from distance a despicable courage, have ventured
to assail me. The infamous editors of the _Kelso Champion_, the _Bungay
Beacon_, the _Tipperary Argus_, and the _Stoke Pogis Sentinel_, and
other dastardly organs of the provincial press, have, although
differing in politics, agreed upon this one point, and, with a
scoundrelly unanimity, vented a flood of abuse upon the revelations
made by me.

They say that I have assailed private characters, and wilfully
perverted history to blacken the reputation of public men. I ask, was
any one of these men in Bengal in the year 1803? Was any single
conductor of any one of these paltry prints ever in Bundelcund or the
Rohilla country? Does this _exquisite_ Tipperary scribe know the
difference between Hurrygurrybang and Burrumtollah? Not he! and
because, forsooth, in those strange and distant lands strange
circumstances have taken place, it is insinuated that the relater is a
liar: nay, that the very places themselves have no existence but in my
imagination. Fools!—but I will not waste my anger upon them, and
proceed to recount some other portions of my personal history.

It is, I presume, a fact which even _these_ scribbling assassins will
not venture to deny, that before the commencement of the campaign
against Scindiah, the English General formed a camp at Kanouge on the
Jumna, where he exercised that brilliant little army which was speedily
to perform such wonders in the Dooab. It will be as well to give a
slight account of the causes of a war which was speedily to rage
through some of the fairest portions of the Indian continent.

Shah Allum, the son of Shah Lollum, the descendant by the female line
of Nadir Shah (that celebrated Toorkomaun adventurer, who had well-nigh
hurled Bajazet and Selim the Second from the throne of Bagdad)—Shah
Allum, I say, although nominally the Emperor of Delhi, was in reality
the slave of the various warlike chieftains who lorded it by turns over
the country and the sovereign, until conquered and slain by some more
successful rebel. Chowder Loll Masolgee, Zubberdust Khan, Dowsunt Row
Scindiah, and the celebrated Bobbachy Jung Bahawder, had held for a
time complete mastery in Delhi. The second of these, a ruthless Afghan
soldier, had abruptly entered the capital; nor was he ejected from it
until he had seized upon the principal jewels, and likewise put out the
eyes of the last of the unfortunate family of Afrasiab. Scindiah came
to the rescue of the sightless Shah Allum, and though he destroyed his
oppressor, only increased his slavery; holding him in as painful a
bondage as he had suffered under the tyrannous Afghan.

As long as these heroes were battling among themselves, or as long
rather as it appeared that they had any strength to fight a battle, the
British Government, ever anxious to see its enemies by the ears, by no
means interfered in the contest. But the French Revolution broke out,
and a host of starving sans-culottes appeared among the various Indian
States, seeking for military service, and inflaming the minds of the
various native princes against the British East India Company. A number
of these entered into Scindiah’s ranks: one of them, Perron, was
commander of his army; and though that chief was as yet quite engaged
in his hereditary quarrel with Jeswunt Row Holkar, and never thought of
an invasion of the British territory, the Company all of a sudden
discovered that Shah Allum, his sovereign, was shamefully ill-used, and
determined to re-establish the ancient splendour of his throne.

Of course it was sheer benevolence for poor Shah Allum that prompted
our governors to take these kindly measures in his favour. I don’t know
how it happened that, at the end of the war, the poor Shah was not a
whit better off than at the beginning; and that though Holkar was
beaten, and Scindiah annihilated, Shah Allum was much such a puppet as
before. Somehow, in the hurry and confusion of this struggle, the
oyster remained with the British Government, who had so kindly offered
to dress it for the Emperor, while His Majesty was obliged to be
contented with the shell.

The force encamped at Kanouge bore the title of the Grand Army of the
Ganges and the Jumna; it consisted of eleven regiments of cavalry and
twelve battalions of infantry, and was commanded by General Lake in
person.

Well, on the 1st of September we stormed Perron’s camp at Allyghur; on
the fourth we took that fortress by assault; and as my name was
mentioned in general orders, I may as well quote the Commander-in-
Chief’s words regarding me—they will spare me the trouble of composing
my own eulogium:-

“The Commander-in-Chief is proud thus publicly to declare his high
sense of the gallantry of Lieutenant Gahagan, of the — Cavalry. In the
storming of the fortress, although unprovided with a single ladder, and
accompanied but by a few brave men, Lieutenant Gahagan succeeded in
escalading the inner and fourteenth wall of the place. Fourteen ditches
lined with sword-blades and poisoned chevaux-de- frise, fourteen walls
bristling with innumerable artillery and as smooth as looking-glasses,
were in turn triumphantly passed by that enterprising officer. His
course was to be traced by the heaps of slaughtered enemies lying thick
upon the platforms; and alas! by the corpses of most of the gallant men
who followed him! When at length he effected his lodgment, and the
dastardly enemy, who dared not to confront him with arms, let loose
upon him the tigers and lions of Scindiah’s menagerie, this meritorious
officer destroyed, with his own hand, four of the largest and most
ferocious animals, and the rest, awed by the indomitable majesty of
BRITISH VALOUR, shrank back to their dens. Thomas Higgory, a private,
and Runty Goss, havildar, were the only two who remained out of the
nine hundred who followed Lieutenant Gahagan. Honour to them! Honour
and tears for the brave men who perished on that awful day!”

I have copied this, word for word, from the _Bengal Hurkaru_ of
September 24, 1803: and anybody who has the slightest doubt as to the
statement, may refer to the paper itself.

And here I must pause to give thanks to Fortune, which so marvellously
preserved me, Sergeant-Major Higgory, and Runty Goss. Were I to say
that any valour of ours had carried us unhurt through this tremendous
combat, the reader would laugh me to scorn. No: though my narrative is
extraordinary, it is nevertheless authentic: and never never would I
sacrifice truth for the mere sake of effect. The fact is this:- the
citadel of Allyghur is situated upon a rock, about a thousand feet
above the level of the sea, and is surrounded by fourteen walls, as his
Excellency was good enough to remark in his despatch. A man who would
mount these without scaling-ladders, is an ass; he who would _say_ he
mounted them without such assistance, is a liar and a knave. We _had_
scaling- ladders at the commencement of the assault, although it was
quite impossible to carry them beyond the first line of batteries.
Mounted on them, however, as our troops were falling thick about me, I
saw that we must ignominiously retreat, unless some other help could be
found for our brave fellows to escalade the next wall. It was about
seventy feet high. I instantly turned the guns of wall _A_ on wall _B_,
and peppered the latter so as to make, not a breach, but a scaling
place; the men mounting in the holes made by the shot. By this simple
stratagem, I managed to pass each successive barrier—for to ascend a
wall which the General was pleased to call “as smooth as glass” is an
absurd impossibility: I seek to achieve none such:-

    “I dare do all that may become a man;
    Who dares do more, is neither more nor less.”

Of course, had the enemy’s guns been commonly well served, not one of
us would ever have been alive out of the three; but whether it was
owing to fright, or to the excessive smoke caused by so many pieces of
artillery, arrive we did. On the platforms, too, our work was not quite
so difficult as might be imagined—killing these fellows was sheer
butchery. As soon as we appeared, they all turned and fled
helter-skelter, and the reader may judge of their courage by the fact
that out of about seven hundred men killed by us, only forty had wounds
in front, the rest being bayoneted as they ran.

And beyond all other pieces of good fortune was the very letting out of
these tigers; which was the _dernier ressort_ of Bournonville, the
second commandant of the fort. I had observed this man (conspicuous for
a tricoloured scarf which he wore) upon every one of the walls as we
stormed them, and running away the very first among the fugitives. He
had all the keys of the gates; and in his tremor, as he opened the
menagerie portal, left the whole bunch in the door, which I seized when
the animals were overcome. Runty Goss then opened them one by one, our
troops entered, and the victorious standard of my country floated on
the walls of Allyghur!

When the General, accompanied by his staff, entered the last line of
fortifications, the brave old man raised me from the dead rhinoceros on
which I was seated, and pressed me to his breast. But the excitement
which had borne me through the fatigues and perils of that fearful day
failed all of a sudden, and I wept like a child upon his shoulder.

Promotion, in our army, goes unluckily by seniority; nor is it in the
power of the General-in-Chief to advance a Cæsar, if he finds him in
the capacity of a subaltern: _my_ reward for the above exploit was,
therefore, not very rich. His Excellency had a favourite horn snuff-box
(for, though exalted in station, he was in his habits most simple): of
this, and about a quarter of an ounce of high-dried Welsh, which he
always took, he made me a present, saying, in front of the line,
“Accept this, Mr. Gahagan, as a token of respect from the first to the
bravest officer in the army.”

Calculating the snuff to be worth a halfpenny, I should say that
fourpence was about the value of this gift: but it has at least this
good effect—it serves to convince any person who doubts my story, that
the facts of it are really true. I have left it at the office of my
publisher, along with the extract from the _Bengal Hurkaru_, and
anybody may examine both by applying in the counting- house of Mr.
Cunningham.[3] That once popular expression, or proverb, “Are you up to
snuff?” arose out of the above circumstance; for the officers of my
corps, none of whom, except myself, had ventured on the storming party,
used to twit me about this modest reward for my labours. Never mind!
when they want me to storm a fort _again_, I shall know better.

Well, immediately after the capture of this important fortress, Perron,
who had been the life and soul of Scindiah’s army, came in to us, with
his family and treasure, and was passed over to the French settlements
at Chandernagur. Bourquien took his command, and against him we now
moved. The morning of the 11th of September found us upon the plains of
Delhi.

It was a burning hot day, and we were all refreshing ourselves after
the morning’s march, when I, who was on the advanced picket along with
O’Gawler of the King’s Dragoons, was made aware of the enemy’s
neighbourhood in a very singular manner. O’Gawler and I were seated
under a little canopy of horse-cloths, which we had formed to shelter
us from the intolerable heat of the sun, and were discussing with great
delight a few Manilla cheroots, and a stone jar of the most exquisite,
cool, weak, refreshing sangaree. We had been playing cards the night
before, and O’Gawler had lost to me seven hundred rupees. I emptied the
last of the sangaree into the two pint tumblers out of which we were
drinking, and holding mine up, said, “Here’s better luck to you next
time, O’Gawler!”

As I spoke the words—whish!—a cannon-ball cut the tumbler clean out of
my hand, and plumped into poor O’Gawler’s stomach. It settled him
completely, and of course I never got my seven hundred rupees. Such are
the uncertainties of war!

To strap on my sabre and my accoutrements—to mount my Arab charger—to
drink off what O’Gawler had left of the sangaree—and to gallop to the
General, was the work of a moment. I found him as comfortably at tiffin
as if he were at his own house in London.

“General,” said I, as soon as I got into his paijamahs (or tent), “you
must leave your lunch if you want to fight the enemy.”

“The enemy—psha! Mr. Gahagan, the enemy is on the other side of the
river.”

“I can only tell your Excellency that the enemy’s guns will hardly
carry five miles, and that Cornet O’Gawler was this moment shot dead at
my side with a cannon-ball.”

“Ha! is it so?” said his Excellency, rising, and laying down the
drumstick of a grilled chicken. “Gentlemen, remember that the eyes of
Europe are upon us, and follow me!”

Each aide-de-camp started from table and seized his cocked hat; each
British heart beat high at the thoughts of the coming _mêlée_. We
mounted our horses, and galloped swiftly after the brave old General; I
not the last in the train, upon my famous black charger.

It was perfectly true, the enemy were posted in force within three
miles of our camp, and from a hillock in the advance to which we
galloped, we were enabled with our telescopes to see the whole of his
imposing line. Nothing can better describe it than this:-

    ___________________ A
  /....................
 /.
/.

- A is the enemy, and the dots represent the hundred and twenty pieces
of artillery which defended his line. He was moreover, entrenched; and
a wide morass in his front gave him an additional security.

His Excellency for a moment surveyed the line, and then said, turning
round to one of his aides-de-camp, “Order up Major-General Tinkler and
the cavalry.”

“_Here_, does your Excellency mean?” said the aide-de-camp, surprised,
for the enemy had perceived us, and the cannon-balls were flying about
as thick as peas.

“_Here, sir!_” said the old General, stamping with his foot in a
passion, and the A.D.C. shrugged his shoulders and galloped away. In
five minutes we heard the trumpets in our camp, and in twenty more the
greater part of the cavalry had joined us.

Up they came, five thousand men, their standards flapping in the air,
their long line of polished jack-boots gleaming in the golden sunlight.
“And now we are here,” said Major-General Sir Theophilus Tinkler, “what
next?” “Oh, d- it,” said the Commander-in-Chief, “charge,
charge—nothing like charging—galloping—guns—rascally black
scoundrels—charge, charge!” And then turning round to me (perhaps he
was glad to change the conversation), he said, “Lieutenant Gahagan, you
will stay with me.”

And well for him I did, for I do not hesitate to say that the battle
_was gained by me_. I do not mean to insult the reader by pretending
that any personal exertions of mine turned the day,— that I killed, for
instance, a regiment of cavalry or swallowed a battery of guns,—such
absurd tales would disgrace both the hearer and the teller. I, as is
well known, never say a single word which cannot be proved, and hate
more than all other vices the absurd sin of egotism: I simply mean that
my _advice_ to the General, at a quarter-past two o’clock in the
afternoon of that day, won this great triumph for the British army.

Gleig, Mill, and Thorn have all told the tale of this war, though
somehow they have omitted all mention of the hero of it. General Lake,
for the victory of that day, became Lord Lake of Laswaree. Laswaree!
and who, forsooth, was the real conqueror of Laswaree? I can lay my
hand upon my heart and say that _I_ was. If any proof is wanting of the
fact, let me give it at once, and from the highest military testimony
in the world—I mean that of the Emperor Napoleon.

In the month of March, 1817, I was passenger on board the “Prince
Regent,” Captain Harris, which touched at St. Helena on its passage
from Calcutta to England. In company with the other officers on board
the ship, I paid my respects to the illustrious exile of Longwood, who
received us in his garden, where he was walking about, in a nankeen
dress and a large broad-brimmed straw hat, with General Montholon,
Count Las Casas, and his son Emanuel, then a little boy; who I dare say
does not recollect me, but who nevertheless played with my sword-knot
and the tassels of my Hessian boots during the whole of our interview
with his Imperial Majesty.

Our names were read out (in a pretty accent, by the way!) by General
Montholon, and the Emperor, as each was pronounced, made a bow to the
owner of it, but did not vouchsafe a word. At last Montholon came to
mine. The Emperor looked me at once in the face, took his hands out of
his pockets, put them behind his back, and coming up to me smiling,
pronounced the following words:-

“Assaye, Delhi, Deeg, Futtyghur?”

I blushed, and, taking off my hat with a bow, said, “Sire, c’est moi.”

“Parbleu! je le savais bien,” said the Emperor, holding out his
snuff-box. “En usez-vous, Major?” I took a large pinch (which, with the
honour of speaking to so great a man, brought the tears into my eyes),
and he continued as nearly as possible in the following words:-

“Sir, you are known; you come of an heroic nation. Your third brother,
the Chef de Bataillon, Count Godfrey Gahagan, was in my Irish Brigade.”

_Gahagan_. “Sire, it is true. He and my countrymen in your Majesty’s
service stood under the green flag in the breach of Burgos, and beat
Wellington back. It was the only time, as your Majesty knows, that
Irishmen and Englishmen were beaten in that war.”

_Napoleon_ (_looking as if he would say, “D— your candour, Major
Gahagan”_). “Well, well; it was so. Your brother was a Count, and died
a General in my service.”

_Gahagan_. “He was found lying upon the bodies of nine-and-twenty
Cossacks at Borodino. They were all dead, and bore the Gahagan mark.”

_Napoleon_ (_to Montholon_). “C’est vrai, Montholon: je vous donne ma
parole d’honneur la plus sacrée, que c’est vrai. Ils ne sont pas
d’autres, ces terribles Ga’gans. You must know that Monsieur gained the
battle of Delhi as certainly as I did that of Austerlitz. In this way:—
Ce bélitre de Lor Lake, after calling up his cavalry, and placing them
in front of Holkar’s batteries, qui balayaient la plaine, was for
charging the enemy’s batteries with his horse, who would have been
écrasés, mitraillés, foudroyés to a man but for the cunning of ce grand
rogue que vous voyez.”

_Montholon_. “Coquin de Major, va!”

_Napoleon_. “Montholon! tais-toi. When Lord Lake, with his great
bull-headed English obstinacy, saw the _fâcheuse_ position into which
he had brought his troops, he was for dying on the spot, and would
infallibly have done so—and the loss of his army would have been the
ruin of the East India Company—and the ruin of the English East India
Company would have established my Empire (bah! it was a republic then!)
in the East—but that the man before us, Lieutenant Goliah Gahagan, was
riding at the side of General Lake.”

_Montholon_ (_with an accent of despair and fury_). “Gredin! cent mille
tonnerres de Dieu!”

_Napoleon_ (_benignantly_). “Calme-toi, mon fidèle ami. What will you?
It was fate. Gahagan, at the critical period of the battle, or rather
slaughter (for the English had not slain a man of the enemy), advised a
retreat.”

_Montholon_. “Le lâche! Un Français meurt, mais il ne recule jamais.”

_Napoleon_. “_Stupide!_ Don’t you see _why_ the retreat was ordered?—
don’t you know that it was a feint on the part of Gahagan to draw
Holkar from his impregnable entrenchments? Don’t you know that the
ignorant Indian fell into the snare, and issuing from behind the cover
of his guns, came down with his cavalry on the plains in pursuit of
Lake and his dragoons? Then it was that the Englishmen turned upon him;
the hardy children of the North swept down his feeble horsemen, bore
them back to their guns, which were useless, entered Holkar’s
entrenchments along with his troops, sabred the artillerymen at their
pieces, and won the battle of Delhi!”

As the Emperor spoke, his pale cheek glowed red, his eye flashed fire,
his deep clear voice rung as of old when he pointed out the enemy from
beneath the shadow of the Pyramids, or rallied his regiments to the
charge upon the death-strewn plain of Wagram. I have had many a proud
moment in my life, but never such a proud one as this; and I would
readily pardon the word “coward,” as applied to me by Montholon, in
consideration of the testimony which his master bore in my favour.

“Major,” said the Emperor to me in conclusion, “why had I not such a
man as you in my service? I would have made you a Prince and a
Marshal!” and here he fell into a reverie, of which I knew and
respected the purport. He was thinking, doubtless, that I might have
retrieved his fortunes; and indeed I have very little doubt that I
might.

Very soon after, coffee was brought by Monsieur Marchand, Napoleon’s
valet-de-chambre, and after partaking of that beverage, and talking
upon the politics of the day, the Emperor withdrew, leaving me deeply
impressed by the condescension he had shown in this remarkable
interview.




CHAPTER III
A Peep into Spain—Account of the Origin and Services of the Ahmednuggar
Irregulars


HEADQUARTERS, MORELLA: _September_ 15, 1838

I have been here for some months, along with my young friend Cabrera:
and in the hurry and bustle of war—daily on guard and in the batteries
for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, with fourteen severe wounds
and seven musket-balls in my body—it may be imagined that I have had
little time to think about the publication of my memoirs. _Inter arma
silent leges_—in the midst of fighting be hanged to writing! as the
poet says; and I never would have bothered myself with a pen, had not
common gratitude incited me to throw off a few pages.

Along with Oraa’s troops, who have of late been beleaguering this
place, there was a young Milesian gentleman, Mr. Toone O’Connor Emmett
Fitzgerald Sheeny by name, a law student, and a member of Gray’s Inn,
and what he called _Bay Ah_ of Trinity College, Dublin. Mr. Sheeny was
with the Queen’s people, not in a military capacity, but as
representative of an English journal; to which, for a trifling weekly
remuneration, he was in the habit of transmitting accounts of the
movements of the belligerents, and his own opinion of the politics of
Spain. Receiving, for the discharge of his duty, a couple of guineas a
week from the proprietors of the journal in question, he was enabled,
as I need scarcely say, to make such a show in Oraa’s camp as only a
Christino general officer, or at the very least a colonel of a
regiment, can afford to keep up.

In the famous sortie which we made upon the twenty-third, I was of
course among the foremost in the _mêlée_, and found myself, after a
good deal of slaughtering (which it would be as disagreeable as useless
to describe here), in the court of a small inn or podesta, which had
been made the headquarters of several Queenite officers during the
siege. The pesatero or landlord of the inn had been despatched by my
brave chapel-churies, with his fine family of children—the officers
quartered in the podesta had of course bolted; but one man remained,
and my fellows were on the point of cutting him into ten thousand
pieces with their borachios, when I arrived in the room time enough to
prevent the catastrophe. Seeing before me an individual in the costume
of a civilian—a white hat, a light blue satin cravat, embroidered with
butterflies and other quadrupeds, a green coat and brass buttons, and a
pair of blue plaid trousers, I recognised at once a countryman, and
interposed to save his life.

In an agonised brogue the unhappy young man was saying all that he
could to induce the chapel-churies to give up their intention of
slaughtering him; but it is very little likely that his protestations
would have had any effect upon them, had not I appeared in the room,
and shouted to the ruffians to hold their hand.

Seeing a general officer before them (I have the honour to hold that
rank in the service of His Catholic Majesty), and moreover one six feet
four in height, and armed with that terrible _cabecilla_ (a sword so
called, because it is five feet long) which is so well known among the
Spanish armies—seeing, I say, this figure, the fellows retired,
exclaiming, “Adios, corpo di bacco nosotros,” and so on, clearly
proving (by their words) that they would, if they dared, have immolated
the victim whom I had thus rescued from their fury. “Villains!” shouted
I, hearing them grumble, “away! quit the apartment!” Each man, sulkily
sheathing his sombrero, obeyed, and quitted the camarilla.

It was then that Mr. Sheeny detailed to me the particulars to which I
have briefly adverted; and, informing me at the same time that he had a
family in England who would feel obliged to me for his release, and
that his most intimate friend the English Ambassador would move heaven
and earth to revenge his fall, he directed my attention to a
portmanteau passably well filled, which he hoped would satisfy the
cupidity of my troops. I said, though with much regret, that I must
subject his person to a search; and hence arose the circumstance which
has called for what I fear you will consider a somewhat tedious
explanation. I found upon Mr. Sheeny’s person three sovereigns in
English money (which I have to this day), and singularly enough a copy
of the _New Monthly Magazine_, containing a portion of my adventures.
It was a toss-up whether I should let the poor young man be shot or no,
but this little circumstance saved his life. The gratified vanity of
authorship induced me to accept his portmanteau and valuables, and to
allow the poor wretch to go free. I put the Magazine in my coat-pocket,
and left him and the podesta.

The men, to my surprise, had quitted the building, and it was full time
for me to follow; for I found our sallying party, after committing
dreadful ravages in Oraa’s lines, were in full retreat upon the fort,
hotly pressed by a superior force of the enemy. I am pretty well known
and respected by the men of both parties in Spain (indeed I served for
some months on the Queen’s side before I came over to Don Carlos); and,
as it is my maxim never to give quarter, I never expect to receive it
when taken myself. On issuing from the podesta with Sheeny’s
portmanteau and my sword in my hand, I was a little disgusted and
annoyed to see our own men in a pretty good column retreating at
double-quick, and about four hundred yards beyond me, up the hill
leading to the fort; while on my left hand, and at only a hundred
yards, a troop of the Queenite lancers were clattering along the road.

I had got into the very middle of the road before I made this
discovery, so that the fellows had a full sight of me, and whizz! came
a bullet by my left whisker before I could say Jack Robinson. I looked
round—there were seventy of the accursed malvados at the least, and
within, as I said, a hundred yards. Were I to say that I stopped to
fight seventy men, you would write me down a fool or a liar: no, sir, I
did not fight, I ran away.

I am six feet four—my figure is as well known in the Spanish army as
that of the Count de Luchana, or my fierce little friend Cabrera
himself. “GAHAGAN!” shouted out half-a-dozen scoundrelly voices, and
fifty more shots came rattling after me. I was running— running as the
brave stag before the hounds—running as I have done a great number of
times before in my life, when there was no help for it but a race.

After I had run about five hundred yards, I saw that I had gained
nearly three upon our column in front, and that likewise the Christino
horsemen were left behind some hundred yards more; with the exception
of three, who were fearfully near me. The first was an officer without
a lance; he had fired both his pistols at me, and was twenty yards in
advance of his comrades; there was a similar distance between the two
lancers who rode behind him. I determined then to wait for No. 1, and
as he came up delivered cut 3 at his horse’s near leg—off it flew, and
down, as I expected, went horse and man. I had hardly time to pass my
sword through my prostrate enemy, when No. 2 was upon me. If I could
but get that fellow’s horse, thought I, I am safe; and I executed at
once the plan which I hoped was to effect my rescue.

I had, as I said, left the podesta with Sheeny’s portmanteau, and,
unwilling to part with some of the articles it contained—some shirts, a
bottle of whisky, a few cakes of Windsor soap, &c. &c.,— I had carried
it thus far on my shoulders, but now was compelled to sacrifice it
_malgré moi_. As the lancer came up, I dropped my sword from my right
hand, and hurled the portmanteau at his head, with aim so true, that he
fell back on his saddle like a sack, and thus when the horse galloped
up to me, I had no difficulty in dismounting the rider: the
whisky-bottle struck him over his right eye, and he was completely
stunned. To dash him from the saddle and spring myself into it, was the
work of a moment; indeed, the two combats had taken place in about a
fifth part of the time which it has taken the reader to peruse the
description. But in the rapidity of the last encounter, and the
mounting of my enemy’s horse, I had committed a very absurd oversight—I
was scampering away _without my sword!_ What was I to do?—to scamper
on, to be sure, and trust to the legs of my horse for safety!

The lancer behind me gained on me every moment, and I could hear his
horrid laugh as he neared me. I leaned forward jockey-fashion in my
saddle, and kicked, and urged, and flogged with my hand, but all in
vain. Closer—closer—the point of his lance was within two feet of my
back. Ah! ah! he delivered the point, and fancy my agony when I felt it
enter—through exactly fifty-nine pages of the _New Monthly Magazine_.
Had it not been for that Magazine, I should have been impaled without a
shadow of a doubt. Was I wrong in feeling gratitude? Had I not cause to
continue my contributions to that periodical?

When I got safe into Morella, along with the tail of the sallying
party, I was for the first time made acquainted with the ridiculous
result of the lancer’s thrust (as he delivered his lance, I must tell
you that a ball came whizz over my head from our fellows, and entering
at his nose, put a stop to _his_ lancing for the future). I hastened to
Cabrera’s quarter, and related to him some of my adventures during the
day.

“But, General,” said he, “you are standing. I beg you _chiudete
l’uscio_ (take a chair).”

I did so, and then for the first time was aware that there was some
foreign substance in the tail of my coat, which prevented my sitting at
ease. I drew out the Magazine which I had seized, and there, to my
wonder, _discovered the Christino lance_ twisted up like a fish-hook or
a pastoral crook.

“Ha! ha! ha!” said Cabrera (who is a notorious wag).

“Valdepeñas madrileños,” growled out Tristany.

“By my cachuca di caballero (upon my honour as a gentleman),” shrieked
out Ros d’Eroles, convulsed with laughter, “I will send it to the
Bishop of Leon for a crozier.”

“Gahagan has _consecrated_ it,” giggled out Ramon Cabrera; and so they
went on with their muchacas for an hour or more. But, when they heard
that the means of my salvation from the lance of the scoundrelly
Christino had been the Magazine containing my own history, their laugh
was changed into wonder. I read them (speaking Spanish more fluently
than English) every word of my story. “But how is this?” said Cabrera.
“You surely have other adventures to relate?”

“Excellent sir,” said I, “I have;” and that very evening, as we sat
over our cups of tertullia (sangaree), I continued my narrative in
nearly the following words:-

“I left off in the very middle of the battle of Delhi, which ended, as
everybody knows, in the complete triumph of the British arms. But who
gained the battle? Lord Lake is called Viscount Lake of Delhi and
Laswaree, while Major Gaha—nonsense, never mind _him_, never mind the
charge he executed when, sabre in hand, he leaped the six-foot wall in
the mouth of the roaring cannon, over the heads of the gleaming pikes;
when, with one hand seizing the sacred peishcush, or fish—which was the
banner always borne before Scindiah,—he, with his good sword, cut off
the trunk of the famous white elephant, which, shrieking with agony,
plunged madly into the Mahratta ranks, followed by his giant brethren,
tossing, like chaff before the wind, the affrighted kitmatgars. He,
meanwhile, now plunging into the midst of a battalion of consomahs, now
cleaving to the chine a screaming and ferocious bobbachee,[4] rushed
on, like the simoom across the red Zaharan plain, killing, with his own
hand, a hundred and forty-thr—but never mind—‘_alone he did it;_’
sufficient be it for him, however, that the victory was won: he cares
not for the empty honours which were awarded to more fortunate men!

“We marched after the battle to Delhi, where poor blind old Shah Allum
received us, and bestowed all kinds of honours and titles on our
General. As each of the officers passed before him, the Shah did not
fail to remark my person,[5] and was told my name.

“Lord Lake whispered to him my exploits, and the old man was so
delighted with the account of my victory over the elephant (whose trunk
I use to this day), that he said, ‘Let him be called GUJPUTI,’ or the
lord of elephants; and Gujputi was the name by which I was afterwards
familiarly known among the natives,—the men, that is. The women had a
softer appellation for me, and called me ‘Mushook,’ or charmer.

“Well, I shall not describe Delhi, which is doubtless well known to the
reader; nor the siege of Agra, to which place we went from Delhi; nor
the terrible day at Laswaree, which went nigh to finish the war.
Suffice it to say that we were victorious, and that I was wounded; as I
have invariably been in the two hundred and four occasions when I have
found myself in action. One point, however, became in the course of
this campaign _quite_ evident—_that something must be doen for
Gahagan_. The country cried shame, the King’s troops grumbled, the
sepoys openly murmured that their Gujputi was only a lieutenant, when
he had performed such signal services. What was to be done? Lord
Wellesley was in an evident quandary. ‘Gahagan,’ wrote he, ‘to be a
subaltern is evidently not your fate—_you were born for command;_ but
Lake and General Wellesley are good officers, they cannot be turned
out—I must make a post for you. What say you, my dear fellow, to a
corps of _irregular horse?_’

“It was thus that the famous corps of AHMEDNUGGAR IRREGULARS had its
origin; a guerilla force, it is true, but one which will long be
remembered in the annals of our Indian campaigns.

“As the commander of this regiment, I was allowed to settle the uniform
of the corps, as well as to select recruits. These were not wanting as
soon as my appointment was made known, but came flocking to my standard
a great deal faster than to the regular corps in the Company’s service.
I had European officers, of course, to command them, and a few of my
countrymen as sergeants; the rest were all natives, whom I chose of the
strongest and bravest men in India; chiefly Pitans, Afghans,
Hurrumzadehs, and Calliawns: for these are well known to be the most
warlike districts of our Indian territory.

“When on parade and in full uniform we made a singular and noble
appearance. I was always fond of dress; and, in this instance gave a
_carte blanche_ to my taste, and invented the most splendid costume
that ever perhaps decorated a soldier. I am, as I have stated already,
six feet four inches in height, and of matchless symmetry and
proportion. My hair and beard are of the most brilliant auburn, so
bright as scarcely to be distinguished at a distance from scarlet. My
eyes are bright blue, overshadowed by bushy eyebrows of the colour of
my hair, and a terrific gash of the deepest purple, which goes over the
forehead, the eyelid, and the cheek, and finishes at the ear, gives my
face a more strictly military appearance than can be conceived. When I
have been drinking (as is pretty often the case) this gash becomes ruby
bright, and as I have another which took off a piece of my under- lip,
and shows five of my front teeth, I leave you to imagine that ‘seldom
lighted on the earth’ (as the monster Burke remarked of one of his
unhappy victims) ‘a more extraordinary vision.’ I improved these
natural advantages; and, while in cantonment during the hot winds at
Chittybobbary, allowed my hair to grow very long, as did my beard,
which reached to my waist. It took me two hours daily to curl my hair
in ten thousand little corkscrew ringlets, which waved over my
shoulders, and to get my moustaches well round to the corners of my
eyelids. I dressed in loose scarlet trousers and red morocco boots, a
scarlet jacket, and a shawl of the same colour round my waist; a
scarlet turban three feet high, and decorated with a tuft of the
scarlet feathers of the flamingo, formed my head-dress, and I did not
allow myself a single ornament, except a small silver skull and
cross-bones in front of my turban. Two brace of pistols, a Malay
creese, and a tulwar, sharp on both sides, and very nearly six feet in
length, completed this elegant costume. My two flags were each
surmounted with a real skull and cross-bones, and ornamented one with a
black, and the other with a red beard (of enormous length, taken from
men slain in battle by me). On one flag were of course the arms of John
Company; on the other, an image of myself bestriding a prostrate
elephant, with the simple word ‘GUJPUTI’ written underneath in the
Nagaree, Persian, and Sanscrit characters. I rode my black horse, and
looked, by the immortal gods, like Mars. To me might be applied the
words which were written concerning handsome General Webb, in
Marlborough’s time:-

    “‘To noble danger he conducts the way,
    His great example all his troop obey,
    Before the front the Major sternly rides,
    With such an air as Mars to battle strides.
    Propitious Heaven must sure a hero save
    Like Paris handsome, and like Hector brave!’

“My officers (Captains Biggs and Mackanulty, Lieutenants Glogger,
Pappendick, Stuffle, &c. &c.) were dressed exactly in the same way, but
in yellow; and the men were similarly equipped, but in black. I have
seen many regiments since, and many ferocious-looking men, but the
Ahmednuggar Irregulars were more dreadful to the view than any set of
ruffians on which I ever set eyes. I would to Heaven that the Czar of
Muscovy had passed through Cabool and Lahore, and that I with my old
Ahmednuggars stood on a fair field to meet him! Bless you, bless you,
my swart companions in victory! through the mist of twenty years I hear
the booming of your war-cry, and mark the glitter of your scimitars as
ye rage in the thickest of the battle![6]

“But away with melancholy reminiscences. You may fancy what a figure
the Irregulars cut on a field-day—a line of five hundred black-faced,
black-dressed, black-horsed, black-bearded men—Biggs, Glogger, and the
other officers in yellow, galloping about the field like flashes of
lightning; myself enlightening them, red, solitary, and majestic, like
yon glorious orb in heaven.

“There are very few men, I presume, who have not heard of Holkar’s
sudden and gallant incursion into the Dooab, in the year 1804, when we
thought that the victory of Laswaree and the brilliant success at Deeg
had completely finished him. Taking ten thousand horse he broke up his
camp at Palimbang; and the first thing General Lake heard of him was,
that he was at Putna, then at Rumpooge, then at Doncaradam—he was, in
fact, in the very heart of our territory.

“The unfortunate part of the affair was this:- His Excellency,
despising the Mahratta chieftain, had allowed him to advance about two
thousand miles in his front, and knew not in the slightest degree where
to lay hold on him. Was he at Hazarubaug? was he at Bogly Gunge? nobody
knew, and for a considerable period the movements of Lake’s cavalry
were quite ambiguous, uncertain, promiscuous, and undetermined.

“Such, briefly, was the state of affairs in October 1804. At the
beginning of that month I had been wounded (a trifling scratch, cutting
off my left upper eyelid, a bit of my cheek, and my under- lip), and I
was obliged to leave Biggs in command of my Irregulars, whilst I
retired for my wounds to an English station at Furruckabad, _alias_
Futtyghur—it is, as every twopenny postman knows, at the apex of the
Dooab. We have there a cantonment, and thither I went for the mere sake
of the surgeon and the sticking- plaster.

“Furruckabad, then, is divided into two districts or towns: the lower
Cotwal, inhabited by the natives, and the upper (which is fortified
slightly, and has all along been called Futtyghur, meaning in
Hindustanee ‘the-favourite-resort-of-the-white-faced-
Feringhees-near-the-mango-tope-consecrated-to-Ram’), occupied by
Europeans. (It is astonishing, by the way, how comprehensive that
language is, and how much can be conveyed in one or two of the
commonest phrases.)

“Biggs, then, and my men were playing all sorts of wondrous pranks with
Lord Lake’s army, whilst I was detained an unwilling prisoner of health
at Futtyghur.

“An unwilling prisoner, however, I should not say. The cantonment at
Futtyghur contained that which would have made _any_ man a happy slave.
Woman, lovely woman, was there in abundance and variety! The fact is,
that, when the campaign commenced in 1803, the ladies of the army all
congregated to this place, where they were left, as it was supposed, in
safety. I might, like Homer, relate the names and qualities of all. I
may at least mention _some_ whose memory is still most dear to me.
There was -

“Mrs. Major-General Bulcher, wife of Bulcher of the Infantry.

“Miss Bulcher.

“MISS BELINDA BULCHER (whose name I beg the printer to place in large
capitals).

“Mrs. Colonel Vandegobbleschroy.

“Mrs. Major Macan and the four Misses Macan.

“The Honourable Mrs. Burgoo, Mrs. Flix, Hicks, Wicks, and many more too
numerous to mention. The flower of our camp was, however, collected
there, and the last words of Lord Lake to me, as I left him, were,
‘Gahagan, I commit those women to your charge. Guard them with your
life, watch over them with your honour, defend them with the matchless
power of your indomitable arm.’

“Futtyghur is, as I have said, a European station, and the pretty air
of the bungalows, amid the clustering topes of mango-trees, has often
ere this excited the admiration of the tourist and sketcher. On the
brow of a hill—the Burrumpooter river rolls majestically at its base;
and no spot, in a word, can be conceived more exquisitely arranged,
both by art and nature, as a favourite residence of the British fair.
Mrs. Bulcher, Mrs. Vandegobbleschroy, and the other married ladies
above mentioned, had each of them delightful bungalows and gardens in
the place, and between one cottage and another my time passed as
delightfully as can the hours of any man who is away from his darling
occupation of war.

“I was the commandant of the fort. It is a little insignificant pettah,
defended simply by a couple of gabions, a very ordinary counterscarp,
and a bomb-proof embrasure. On the top of this my flag was planted, and
the small garrison of forty men only were comfortably barracked off in
the casemates within. A surgeon and two chaplains (there were besides
three reverend gentlemen of amateur missions, who lived in the town),
completed, as I may say, the garrison of our little fortalice, which I
was left to defend and to command.

“On the night of the first of November, in the year 1804, I had invited
Mrs. Major-General Bulcher and her daughters, Mrs. Vandegobbleschroy,
and, indeed, all the ladies in the cantonment, to a little festival in
honour of the recovery of my health, of the commencement of the
shooting season, and indeed as a farewell visit, for it was my
intention to take dawk the very next morning and return to my regiment.
The three amateur missionaries whom I have mentioned, and some ladies
in the cantonment of very rigid religious principles, refused to appear
at my little party. They had better never have been born than have done
as they did: as you shall hear.

“We had been dancing merrily all night, and the supper (chiefly of the
delicate condor, the luscious adjutant, and other birds of a similar
kind, which I had shot in the course of the day) had been duly _fêted_
by every lady and gentleman present; when I took an opportunity to
retire on the ramparts, with the interesting and lovely Belinda
Bulcher. I was occupied, as the French say, in _conter_-ing
_fleurettes_ to this sweet young creature, when, all of a sudden, a
rocket was seen whizzing through the air, and a strong light was
visible in the valley below the little fort.

“‘What, fireworks! Captain Gahagan,’ said Belinda; ‘this is too
gallant.’

“‘Indeed, my dear Miss Bulcher,’ said I, ‘they are fireworks of which I
have no idea: perhaps our friends the missionaries—’

“‘Look, look!’ said Belinda, trembling, and clutching tightly hold of
my arm: ‘what do I see? yes—no—yes! it is—_our bungalow is in flames!_’

“It was true, the spacious bungalow occupied by Mrs. Major-General was
at that moment seen a prey to the devouring element—another and another
succeeded it—seven bungalows, before I could almost ejaculate the name
of Jack Robinson, were seen blazing brightly in the black midnight air!

“I seized my night-glass, and looking towards the spot where the
conflagration raged, what was my astonishment to see thousands of black
forms dancing round the fires; whilst by their lights I could observe
columns after columns of Indian horse, arriving and taking up their
ground in the very middle of the open square or tank, round which the
bungalows were built!

“‘Ho, warder!’ shouted I (while the frightened and trembling Belinda
clung closer to my side, and pressed the stalwart arm that encircled
her waist), ‘down with the drawbridge! see that your masolgees’ (small
tumbrels which are used in place of large artillery) ‘be well loaded:
you, sepoys, hasten and man the ravelin! you, choprasees, put out the
lights in the embrasures! we shall have warm work of it to-night, or my
name is not Goliah Gahagan.’

“The ladies, the guests (to the number of eighty-three), the sepoys,
choprasees, masolgees, and so on, had all crowded on the platform at
the sound of my shouting, and dreadful was the consternation, shrill
the screaming, occasioned by my words. The men stood irresolute and
mute with terror; the women, trembling, knew scarcely whither to fly
for refuge. ‘Who are yonder ruffians?’ said I. A hundred voices yelped
in reply—some said the Pindarees, some said the Mahrattas, some vowed
it was Scindiah, and others declared it was Holkar—no one knew.

“‘Is there any one here,’ said I, ‘who will venture to reconnoitre
yonder troops?’ There was a dead pause.

“‘A thousand tomauns to the man who will bring me news of yonder army!’
again I repeated. Still a dead silence. The fact was that Scindiah and
Holkar both were so notorious for their cruelty, that no one dared
venture to face the danger. ‘Oh for fifty of my brave Ahmednuggarees!’
thought I.

“‘Gentlemen,’ said I, ‘I see it—you are cowards—none of you dare
encounter the chance even of death. It is an encouraging prospect: know
you not that the ruffian Holkar, if it be he, will with to- morrow’s
dawn beleaguer our little fort, and throw thousands of men against our
walls? know you not that, if we are taken, there is no quarter, no
hope; death for us—and worse than death for these lovely ones assembled
here?’ Here the ladies shrieked and raised a howl as I have heard the
jackals on a summer’s evening. Belinda, my dear Belinda! flung both her
arms round me, and sobbed on my shoulder (or in my waistcoat-pocket
rather, for the little witch could reach no higher).

“‘Captain Gahagan,’ sobbed she, ‘_Go-Go-Goggle-iah!_’

“‘My soul’s adored!’ replied I.

“‘Swear to me one thing.’

“‘I swear.’

“‘That if—that if—the nasty, horrid, odious black Mah-ra-a-a- attahs
take the fort, you will put me out of their power.’

“I clasped the dear girl to my heart, and swore upon my sword that,
rather than she should incur the risk of dishonour, she should perish
by my own hand. This comforted her; and her mother, Mrs. Major-General
Bulcher, and her elder sister, who had not until now known a word of
our attachment, (indeed, but for these extraordinary circumstances, it
is probable that we ourselves should never have discovered it), were
under these painful circumstances made aware of my beloved Belinda’s
partiality for me. Having communicated thus her wish of
self-destruction, I thought her example a touching and excellent one,
and proposed to all the ladies that they should follow it, and that at
the entry of the enemy into the fort, and at a signal given by me, they
should one and all make away with themselves. Fancy my disgust when,
after making this proposition, not one of the ladies chose to accede to
it, and received it with the same chilling denial that my former
proposal to the garrison had met with.

“In the midst of this hurry and confusion, as if purposely to add to
it, a trumpet was heard at the gate of the fort, and one of the
sentinels came running to me, saying that a Mahratta soldier was before
the gate with a flag of truce!

“I went down, rightly conjecturing, as it turned out, that the party,
whoever they might be, had no artillery; and received at the point of
my sword a scroll of which the following is a translation.

“‘_To Goliah Gahagan Gujputi_.

“‘LORD OF ELEPHANTS, SIR,—I have the honour to inform you that I
arrived before this place at eight o’clock p.m. with ten thousand
cavalry under my orders. I have burned, since my arrival, seventeen
bungalows in Furruckabad and Futtyghur, and have likewise been under
the painful necessity of putting to death three clergymen (mollahs) and
seven English officers, whom I found in the village; the women have
been transferred to safe keeping in the harems of my officers and
myself.

    “‘As I know your courage and talents, I shall be very happy if you
    will surrender the fortress, and take service as a major-general
    (hookahbadar) in my army. Should my proposal not meet with your
    assent, I beg leave to state that to-morrow I shall storm the fort,
    and on taking it, shall put to death every male in the garrison,
    and every female above twenty years of age. For yourself I shall
    reserve a punishment, which for novelty and exquisite torture has,
    I flatter myself, hardly ever been exceeded. Awaiting the favour of
    a reply, I am, Sir,

“‘Your very obedient servant,

“‘JESWUNT ROW HOLKAR.

“‘CAMP BEFORE FUTTYGHUR: _September_ 1, 1804.

“‘R. S. V. P.’

“The officer who had brought this precious epistle (it is astonishing
how Holkar had aped the forms of English correspondence), an enormous
Pitan soldier, with a shirt of mail, and a steel cap and cape, round
which his turban wound, was leaning against the gate on his matchlock,
and whistling a national melody. I read the letter, and saw at once
there was no time to be lost. That man, thought I, must never go back
to Holkar. Were he to attack us now before we were prepared, the fort
would be his in half-an-hour.

“Tying my white pocket-handkerchief to a stick, I flung open the gate
and advanced to the officer: he was standing, I said, on the little
bridge across the moat. I made him a low salaam, after the fashion of
the country, and, as he bent forward to return the compliment, I am
sorry to say, I plunged forward, gave him a violent blow on the head,
which deprived him of all sensation, and then dragged him within the
wall, raising the drawbridge after me.

“I bore the body into my own apartment; there, swift as thought, I
stripped him of his turban, cammerbund, peijammahs, and papooshes, and,
putting them on myself, determined to go forth and reconnoitre the
enemy.”

Here I was obliged to stop, for Cabrera, Ros d’Eroles, and the rest of
the staff, were sound asleep! What I did in my reconnaissance, and how
I defended the fort of Futtyghur, I shall have the honour of telling on
another occasion.




CHAPTER IV
The Indian Camp—The Sortie from the Fort


HEADQUARTERS, MORELLA: _October_ 3, 1838

It is a balmy night. I hear the merry jingle of the tambourine, and the
cheery voices of the girls and peasants, as they dance beneath my
casement, under the shadow of the clustering vines. The laugh and song
pass gaily round, and even at this distance I can distinguish the
elegant form of Ramon Cabrera, as he whispers gay nothings in the ears
of the Andalusian girls, or joins in the thrilling chorus of Riego’s
hymn, which is ever and anon vociferated by the enthusiastic soldiery
of Carlos Quinto. I am alone, in the most inaccessible and most
bomb-proof tower of our little fortalice; the large casements are
open—the wind, as it enters, whispers in my ear its odorous
recollections of the orange grove and the myrtle bower. My torch (a
branch of the fragrant cedar-tree) flares and flickers in the midnight
breeze, and disperses its scent and burning splinters on my scroll and
the desk where I write—meet implements for a soldier’s authorship!—it
is _cartridge_ paper over which my pen runs so glibly, and a yawning
barrel of gunpowder forms my rough writing-table. Around me, below me,
above me, all—all is peace! I think, as I sit here so lonely, on my
country, England! and muse over the sweet and bitter recollections of
my early days! Let me resume my narrative, at the point where
(interrupted by the authoritative summons of war) I paused on the last
occasion.

I left off, I think—(for I am a thousand miles away from proof- sheets
as I write, and, were I not writing the simple TRUTH, must contradict
myself a thousand times in the course of my tale)—I think, I say, that
I left off at that period of my story, when, Holkar being before
Futtyghur, and I in command of that fortress, I had just been compelled
to make away with his messenger: and, dressed in the fallen Indian’s
accoutrements, went forth to reconnoitre the force, and, if possible,
to learn the intentions of the enemy. However much my figure might have
resembled that of the Pitan, and, disguised in his armour, might have
deceived the lynx- eyed Mahrattas, into whose camp I was about to
plunge, it was evident that a single glance at my fair face and auburn
beard would have undeceived the dullest blockhead in Holkar’s army.
Seizing, then, a bottle of Burgess’s walnut catsup, I dyed my face and
my hands, and, with the simple aid of a flask of Warren’s jet, I made
my hair and beard as black as ebony. The Indian’s helmet and chain hood
covered likewise a great part of my face, and I hoped thus, with luck,
impudence, and a complete command of all the Eastern dialects and
languages, from Burmah to Afghanistan, to pass scot- free through this
somewhat dangerous ordeal.

I had not the word of the night, it is true—but I trusted to good
fortune for that, and passed boldly out of the fortress, bearing the
flag of truce as before; I had scarcely passed on a couple of hundred
yards, when lo! a party of Indian horsemen, armed like him I had just
overcome, trotted towards me. One was leading a noble white charger,
and no sooner did he see me than, dismounting from his own horse, and
giving the rein to a companion, he advanced to meet me with the
charger; a second fellow likewise dismounted and followed the first:
one held the bridle of the horse, while the other (with a multitude of
salaams, aleikums, and other genuflexions) held the jewelled stirrup,
and kneeling, waited until I should mount.

I took the hint at once: the Indian who had come up to the fort was a
great man—that was evident; I walked on with a majestic air, gathered
up the velvet reins, and sprung into the magnificent high- peaked
saddle. “Buk, buk,” said I. “It is good. In the name of the forty-nine
Imaums, let us ride on.” And the whole party set off at a brisk trot, I
keeping silence, and thinking with no little trepidation of what I was
about to encounter.

As we rode along, I heard two of the men commenting upon my unusual
silence (for I suppose, I—that is the Indian—was a talkative officer).
“The lips of the Bahawder are closed,” said one. “Where are those birds
of Paradise, his long-tailed words? they are imprisoned between the
golden bars of his teeth!”

“Kush,” said his companion, “be quiet! Bobbachy Bahawder has seen the
dreadful Feringhee, Gahagan Khan Gujputi, the elephant-lord, whose
sword reaps the harvest of death; there is but one champion who can
wear the papooshes of the elephant-slayer—it is Bobbachy Bahawder!”

“You speak truly, Puneeree Muckun, the Bahawder ruminates on the words
of the unbeliever: he is an ostrich, and hatches the eggs of his
thoughts.”

“Bekhusm! on my nose be it! May the young birds, his actions, be strong
and swift in flight.”

“May they _digest iron!_” said Puneeree Muckun, who was evidently a wag
in his way.

“O—ho!” thought I, as suddenly the light flashed upon me. “It was,
then, the famous Bobbachy Bahawder whom I overcame just now! and he is
the man destined to stand in _my_ slippers, is he?” and I was at that
very moment standing in his own! Such are the chances and changes that
fall to the lot of the soldier!

I suppose everybody—everybody who has been in India, at least—has heard
the name of Bobbachy Bahawder: it is derived from the two Hindustanee
words—_bobbachy_, general; _bahawder_, artilleryman. He had entered
into Holkar’s service in the latter capacity, and had, by his merit and
his undaunted bravery in action, attained the dignity of the peacock’s
feather, which is only granted to noblemen of the first class; he was
married, moreover, to one of Holkar’s innumerable daughters; a match
which, according to the _Chronique Scandaleuse_, brought more of honour
than of pleasure to the poor Bobbachy. Gallant as he was in the field,
it was said that in the harem he was the veriest craven alive,
completely subjugated by his ugly and odious wife. In all matters of
importance the late Bahawder had been consulted by his prince, who had,
as it appears (knowing my character, and not caring to do anything rash
in his attack upon so formidable an enemy), sent forward the
unfortunate Pitan to reconnoitre the fort; he was to have done yet
more, as I learned from the attendant Puneeree Muckun, who was, I soon
found out, an old favourite with the Bobbachy—doubtless on account of
his honesty and love of repartee.

“The Bahawder’s lips are closed,” said he, at last, trotting up to me;
“has he not a word for old Puneeree Muckun?”

“Bismillah, mashallah, barikallah,” said I; which means, “My good
friend, what I have seen is not worth the trouble of relation, and
fills my bosom with the darkest forebodings.”

“You could not then see the Gujputi alone, and stab him with your
dagger?”

[Here was a pretty conspiracy!] “No, I saw him, but not alone; his
people were always with him.”

“Hurrumzadeh! it is a pity; we waited but the sound of your jogree
(whistle), and straightway would have galloped up and seized upon every
man, woman, and child in the fort: however, there are but a dozen men
in the garrison, and they have not provision for two days—they must
yield; and then hurrah for the moon-faces! Mashallah! I am told the
soldiers who first get in are to have their pick. How my old woman,
Rotee Muckun, will be surprised when I bring home a couple of Feringhee
wives,—ha! ha!”

“Fool!” said I, “be still!—twelve men in the garrison there are twelve
hundred! Gahagan himself is as good as a thousand men; and as for food,
I saw with my own eyes five hundred bullocks grazing in the courtyard
as I entered.” This _was_ a bouncer, I confess; but my object was to
deceive Puneeree Muckun, and give him as high a notion as possible of
the capabilities of defence which the besieged had.

“Pooch, pooch,” murmured the men; “it is a wonder of a fortress: we
shall never be able to take it until our guns come up.”

There was hope then! they had no battering-train. Ere this arrived I
trusted that Lord Lake would hear of our plight, and march down to
rescue us. Thus occupied in thought and conversation, we rode on until
the advanced sentinel challenged us, when old Puneeree gave the word,
and we passed on into the centre of Holkar’s camp.

It was a strange—a stirring sight! The camp-fires were lighted; and
round them—eating, reposing, talking, looking at the merry steps of the
dancing-girls, or listening to the stories of some Dhol Baut (or Indian
improvisatore)—were thousands of dusky soldiery. The camels and horses
were picketed under the banyan- trees, on which the ripe mango fruit
was growing, and offered them an excellent food. Towards the spot which
the golden fish and royal purdahs, floating in the wind, designated as
the tent of Holkar, led an immense avenue—of elephants! the finest
street, indeed, I ever saw. Each of the monstrous animals had a castle
on its back, armed with Mauritanian archers and the celebrated Persian
matchlock-men: it was the feeding time of these royal brutes, and the
grooms were observed bringing immense toffungs, or baskets, filled with
pine-apples, plantains, bananas, Indian corn, and cocoa-nuts, which
grow luxuriantly at all seasons of the year. We passed down this
extraordinary avenue—no less than three hundred and eighty-eight tails
did I count on each side—each tail appertaining to an elephant
twenty-five feet high—each elephant having a two-storied castle on its
back—each castle containing sleeping and eating rooms for the twelve
men that formed its garrison, and were keeping watch on the roof—each
roof bearing a flagstaff twenty feet long on its top, the crescent
glittering with a thousand gems, and round it the imperial
standard,—each standard of silk velvet and cloth-of-gold, bearing the
well-known device of Holkar, argent an or gules, between a sinople of
the first, a chevron truncated, wavy. I took nine of these myself in
the course of a very short time after, and shall be happy, when I come
to England, to show them to any gentleman who has a curiosity that way.
Through this gorgeous scene our little cavalcade passed, and at last we
arrived at the quarters occupied by Holkar.

That celebrated chieftain’s tents and followers were gathered round one
of the British bungalows which had escaped the flames, and which he
occupied during the siege. When I entered the large room where he sat,
I found him in the midst of a council of war; his chief generals and
viziers seated round him, each smoking his hookah, as is the common way
with these black fellows, before, at, and after breakfast, dinner,
supper, and bedtime. There was such a cloud raised by their smoke you
could hardly see a yard before you- -another piece of good-luck for
me—as it diminished the chances of my detection. When, with the
ordinary ceremonies, the kitmatgars and consomahs had explained to the
prince that Bobbachy Bahawder, the right eye of the Sun of the Universe
(as the ignorant heathens called me), had arrived from his mission,
Holkar immediately summoned me to the maidaun, or elevated platform, on
which he was seated in a luxurious easy-chair, and I, instantly taking
off my slippers, falling on my knees, and beating my head against the
ground ninety-nine times, proceeded, still on my knees, a hundred and
twenty feet through the room, and then up the twenty steps which led to
his maidaun—a silly, painful, and disgusting ceremony, which can only
be considered as a relic of barbarian darkness, which tears the knees
and shins to pieces, let alone the pantaloons. I recommend anybody who
goes to India, with the prospect of entering the service of the native
rajahs, to recollect my advice, and have them _well wadded_.

Well, the right eye of the Sun of the Universe scrambled as well as he
could up the steps of the maidaun (on which, in rows, smoking, as I
have said, the musnuds or general officers were seated), and I arrived
within speaking distance of Holkar, who instantly asked me the success
of my mission. The impetuous old man thereon poured out a multitude of
questions: “How many men are there in the fort?” said he; “how many
women? Is it victualled? have they ammunition? Did you see Gahagan
Sahib, the commander? did you kill him?”

All these questions Jeswunt Row Holkar puffed out with so many whiffs
of tobacco.

Taking a chillum myself, and raising about me such a cloud that, upon
my honour as a gentleman, no man at three yards’ distance could
perceive anything of me except the pillar of smoke in which I was
encompassed, I told Holkar, in Oriental language of course, the best
tale I could with regard to the fort.

“Sir,” said I, “to answer your last question first—that dreadful
Gujputi I have seen—and he is alive: he is eight feet, nearly, in
height; he can eat a bullock daily (of which he has seven hundred at
present in the compound, and swears that during the siege he will
content himself with only three a week): he has lost, in battle, his
left eye; and what is the consequence? O Ram Gunge” (O
thou-with-the-eye-as-bright-as-morning and-with-beard-as-black-as-
night), “Goliah Gujputi—NEVER SLEEPS!”

“Ah, you Ghorumsaug (you thief of the world),” said the Prince Vizier,
Saadut Alee Beg Bimbukchee—“it’s joking you are;”—and there was a
universal buzz through the room at the announcement of this bouncer.

“By the hundred and eleven incarnations of Vishnu,” said I, solemnly
(an oath which no Indian was ever known to break), “I swear that so it
is: so at least he told me, and I have good cause to know his power.
Gujputi is an enchanter: he is leagued with devils; he is invulnerable.
Look,” said I, unsheathing my dagger— and every eye turned instantly
towards me—“thrice did I stab him with this steel—in the back,
once—twice right through the heart; but he only laughed me to scorn,
and bade me tell Holkar that the steel was not yet forged which was to
inflict an injury upon him.”

I never saw a man in such a rage as Holkar was when I gave him this
somewhat imprudent message.

“Ah, lily-livered rogue!” shouted he out to me, “milk-blooded
unbeliever! pale-faced miscreant! lives he after insulting thy master
in thy presence? In the name of the Prophet, I spit on thee, defy thee,
abhor thee, degrade thee! Take that, thou liar of the universe! and
that—and that—and that!”

Such are the frightful excesses of barbaric minds! every time this old
man said, “Take that,” he flung some article near him at the head of
the undaunted Gahagan—his dagger, his sword, his carbine, his richly
ornamented pistols, his turban covered with jewels, worth a hundred
thousand crores of rupees—finally, his hookah, snake mouthpiece,
silver-bell, chillum and all—which went hissing over my head, and
flattening into a jelly the nose of the Grand Vizier.

“Yock muzzee! my nose is off,” said the old man, mildly. “Will you have
my life, O Holkar? it is thine likewise!” and no other word of
complaint escaped his lips.

Of all these missiles, though a pistol and carbine had gone off as the
ferocious Indian flung them at my head, and the naked scimitar,
fiercely but unadroitly thrown, had lopped off the limbs of one or two
of the musnuds as they sat trembling on their omrahs, yet, strange to
say, not a single weapon had hurt me. When the hubbub ceased, and the
unlucky wretches who had been the victims of this fit of rage had been
removed, Holkar’s good-humour somewhat returned, and he allowed me to
continue my account of the fort; which I did, not taking the slightest
notice of his burst of impatience: as indeed it would have been the
height of impoliteness to have done, for such accidents happened many
times in the day.

“It is well that the Bobbachy has returned,” snuffled out the poor
Grand Vizier, after I had explained to the Council the extraordinary
means of defence possessed by the garrison.

“Your star is bright, O Bahawder! for this very night we had resolved
upon an escalade of the fort, and we had sworn to put every one of the
infidel garrison to the edge of the sword.”

“But you have no battering train,” said I.

“Bah! we have a couple of ninety-six pounders, quite sufficient to blow
the gates open; and then, hey for a charge!” said Loll Mahommed, a
general of cavalry, who was a rival of Bobbachy’s, and contradicted,
therefore, every word I said. “In the name of Juggernaut, why wait for
the heavy artillery? Have we not swords? Have we not hearts? Mashallah!
Let cravens stay with Bobbachy, all true men will follow Loll Mahommed!
Allahhumdillah, Bismillah, Barikallah?”[7] and drawing his scimitar, he
waved it over his head, and shouted out his cry of battle. It was
repeated by many of the other omrahs; the sound of their cheers was
carried into the camp, and caught up by the men; the camels began to
cry, the horses to prance and neigh, the eight hundred elephants set up
a scream, the trumpeters and drummers clanged away at their
instruments. I never heard such a din before or after. How I trembled
for my little garrison when I heard the enthusiastic cries of this
innumerable host!

There was but one way for it. “Sir,” said I, addressing Holkar, “go out
to-night, and you go to certain death. Loll Mahommed has not seen the
fort as I have. Pass the gate if you please, and for what? to fall
before the fire of a hundred pieces of artillery; to storm another
gate, and then another, and then to be blown up, with Gahagan’s
garrison in the citadel. Who talks of courage? Were I not in your
august presence, O star of the faithful, I would crop Loll Mahommed’s
nose from his face, and wear his ears as an ornament in my own pugree!
Who is there here that knows not the difference between yonder
yellow-skinned coward and Gahagan Khan Guj—I mean Bobbachy Bahawder? I
am ready to fight one, two, three, or twenty of them, at broad-sword,
small-sword, single- stick, with fists if you please. By the holy
piper, fighting is like mate and dthrink to Ga—-to Bobbachy, I
mane—whoop! come on, you divvle, and I’ll bate the skin off your ugly
bones.”

This speech had very nearly proved fatal to me, for, when I am
agitated, I involuntarily adopt some of the phraseology peculiar to my
own country; which is so un-eastern, that, had there been any suspicion
as to my real character, detection must indubitably have ensued. As it
was, Holkar perceived nothing, but instantaneously stopped the dispute.
Loll Mahommed, however, evidently suspected something; for, as Holkar,
with a voice of thunder, shouted out; “Tomasha (silence),” Loll sprang
forward and gasped out -

“My lord! my lord! this is not Bob—”

But he could say no more. “Gag the slave!” screamed out Holkar,
stamping with fury; and a turban was instantly twisted round the poor
devil’s jaws. “Ho, furoshes! carry out Loll Mahommed Khan, give him a
hundred dozen on the soles of his feet, set him upon a white donkey,
and carry him round the camp, with an inscription before him: ‘This is
the way that Holkar rewards the talkative.’”

I breathed again; and ever as I heard each whack of the bamboo falling
on Loll Mahommed’s feet, I felt peace returning to my mind, and thanked
my stars that I was delivered of this danger.

“Vizier,” said Holkar, who enjoyed Loll’s roars amazingly, “I owe you a
reparation for your nose: kiss the hand of your prince, O Saadut Alee
Beg Bimbukchee! be from this day forth Zoheir u Dowlut!”

The good old man’s eyes filled with tears. “I can bear thy severity, O
Prince,” said he; “I cannot bear thy love. Was it not an honour that
your Highness did me just now when you condescended to pass over the
bridge of your slave’s nose?”

The phrase was by all voices pronounced to be very poetical. The Vizier
retired, crowned with his new honours, to bed. Holkar was in high
good-humour.

“Bobbachy,” said he, “thou, too, must pardon me. _A propos_, I have
news for thee. Your wife, the incomparable Puttee Rooge” (white and red
rose), “has arrived in camp.”

“My WIFE, my lord!” said I, aghast.

“Our daughter, the light of thine eyes! Go, my son; I see thou art wild
with joy. The Princess’s tents are set up close by mine, and I know
thou longest to join her.”

My wife? Here was a complication truly!




CHAPTER V
The Issue of my Interview with my Wife


I found Puneeree Muckun, with the rest of my attendants, waiting at the
gate, and they immediately conducted me to my own tents in the
neighbourhood. I have been in many dangerous predicaments before that
time and since, but I don’t care to deny that I felt in the present
instance such a throbbing of the heart as I never have experienced when
leading a forlorn hope, or marching up to a battery.

As soon as I entered the tents a host of menials sprang forward, some
to ease me of my armour, some to offer me refreshments, some with
hookahs, attar of roses (in great quart bottles), and the thousand
delicacies of Eastern life. I motioned them away. “I will wear my
armour,” said I; “I shall go forth to-night. Carry my duty to the
princess, and say I grieve that to-night I have not the time to see
her. Spread me a couch here, and bring me supper here: a jar of Persian
wine well cooled, a lamb stuffed with pistachio- nuts, a pillaw of a
couple of turkeys, a curried kid—anything. Begone! Give me a pipe;
leave me alone, and tell me when the meal is ready.”

I thought by these means to put off the fair Puttee Rooge, and hoped to
be able to escape without subjecting myself to the examination of her
curious eyes. After smoking for a while, an attendant came to tell me
that my supper was prepared in the inner apartment of the tent (I
suppose that the reader, if he be possessed of the commonest
intelligence, knows that the tents of the Indian grandees are made of
the finest Cashmere Shawls, and contain a dozen rooms at least, with
carpets, chimneys, and sash- windows complete). I entered, I say, into
an inner chamber, and there began with my fingers to devour my meal in
the Oriental fashion, taking, every now and then, a pull from the
wine-jar, which was cooling deliciously in another jar of snow.

I was just in the act of despatching the last morsel of a most savoury
stewed lamb and rice, which had formed my meal, when I heard a scuffle
of feet, a shrill clatter of female voices, and, the curtain being
flung open, in marched a lady accompanied by twelve slaves, with moon
faces and slim waists, lovely as the houris in Paradise.

The lady herself, to do her justice, was as great a contrast to her
attendants as could possibly be: she was crooked, old, of the
complexion of molasses, and rendered a thousand times more ugly by the
tawdry dress and the blazing jewels with which she was covered. A line
of yellow chalk drawn from her forehead to the tip of her nose (which
was further ornamented by an immense glittering nose- ring), her
eyelids painted bright red, and a large dab of the same colour on her
chin, showed she was not of the Mussulman, but the Brahmin faith—and of
a very high caste: you could see that by her eyes. My mind was
instantaneously made up as to my line of action.

The male attendants had of course quitted the apartment, as they heard
the well-known sound of her voice. It would have been death to them to
have remained and looked in her face. The females ranged themselves
round their mistress, as she squatted down opposite to me.

“And is this,” said she, “a welcome, O Khan! after six months’ absence,
for the most unfortunate and loving wife in all the world? Is this
lamb, O glutton! half so tender as thy spouse? Is this wine, O sot!
half so sweet as her looks?”

I saw the storm was brewing—her slaves, to whom she turned, kept up a
kind of chorus:-

“Oh, the faithless one!” cried they. “Oh, the rascal, the false one,
who has no eye for beauty, and no heart for love, like the Khanum’s!”

“A lamb is not so sweet as love,” said I gravely; “but a lamb has a
good temper: a wine-cup is not so intoxicating as a woman—but a
wine-cup has _no tongue_, O Khanum Gee!” and again I dipped my nose in
the soul-refreshing jar.

The sweet Puttee Rooge was not, however, to be put off by my repartees;
she and her maidens recommenced their chorus, and chattered and stormed
until I lost all patience.

“Retire, friends,” said I, “and leave me in peace.”

“Stir, on your peril!” cried the Khanum.

So, seeing there was no help for it but violence, I drew out my
pistols, cocked them, and said, “O houris! these pistols contain each
two balls: the daughter of Holkar bears a sacred life for me- -but for
you!—by all the saints of Hindustan, four of ye shall die if ye stay a
moment longer in my presence!” This was enough; the ladies gave a
shriek, and skurried out of the apartment like a covey of partridges on
the wing.

Now, then, was the time for action. My wife, or rather Bobbachy’s wife,
sat still, a little flurried by the unusual ferocity which her lord had
displayed in her presence. I seized her hand and, gripping it close,
whispered in her ear, to which I put the other pistol:- “O Khanum,
listen and scream not; the moment you scream, you die!” She was
completely beaten: she turned as pale as a woman could in her
situation, and said, “Speak, Bobbachy Bahawder, I am dumb.”

“Woman,” said I, taking off my helmet, and removing the chain cape
which had covered almost the whole of my face—“_I am not thy husband_—I
am the slayer of elephants, the world-renowned GAHAGAN!”

As I said this, and as the long ringlets of red hair fell over my
shoulders (contrasting strangely with my dyed face and beard), I formed
one of the finest pictures that can possibly be conceived, and I
recommend it as a subject to Mr. Heath, for the next “Book of Beauty.”

“Wretch!” said she, “what wouldst thou?”

“You black-faced fiend,” said I, “raise but your voice, and you are
dead!”

“And afterwards,” said she, “do you suppose that _you_ can escape? The
torments of hell are not so terrible as the tortures that Holkar will
invent for thee.”

“Tortures, madam?” answered I, coolly. “Fiddlesticks! You will neither
betray me, nor will I be put to the torture: on the contrary, you will
give me your best jewels and facilitate my escape to the fort. Don’t
grind your teeth and swear at me. Listen, madam: you know this dress
and these arms;—they are the arms of your husband, Bobbachy
Bahawder—_my prisoner_. He now lies in yonder fort, and if I do not
return before daylight, at _sunrise he dies:_ and then, when they send
his corpse back to Holkar, what will you, _his widow_, do?

“Oh!” said she, shuddering, “spare me, spare me!”

“I’ll tell you what you will do. You will have the pleasure of dying
along with him—of _being roasted_, madam: an agonising death, from
which your father cannot save you, to which he will be the first man to
condemn and conduct you. Ha! I see we understand each other, and you
will give me over the cash-box and jewels.” And so saying I threw
myself back with the calmest air imaginable, flinging the pistols over
to her. “Light me a pipe, my love,” said I, “and then go and hand me
over the dollars: do you hear?” You see I had her in my power—up a
tree, as the Americans say, and she very humbly lighted my pipe for me,
and then departed for the goods I spoke about.

What a thing is luck! If Loll Mahommed had not been made to take that
ride round the camp, I should infallibly have been lost.

My supper, my quarrel with the princess, and my pipe afterwards, had
occupied a couple of hours of my time. The princess returned from her
quest, and brought with her the box, containing valuables to the amount
of about three millions sterling. (I was cheated of them afterwards,
but have the box still, a plain deal one.) I was just about to take my
departure, when a tremendous knocking, shouting, and screaming was
heard at the entrance of the tent. It was Holkar himself, accompanied
by that cursed Loll Mahommed, who, after his punishment, found his
master restored to good-humour, and had communicated to him his firm
conviction that I was an impostor.

“Ho, Begum!” shouted he, in the ante-room (for he and his people could
not enter the women’s apartments), “speak, O my daughter! is your
husband returned?”

“Speak, madam,” said I, “or _remember the roasting_.”

“He is, Papa,” said the Begum.

“Are you sure? Ho! ho! ho!” (the old ruffian was laughing outside)—“are
you sure it is?—Ha! aha!—_he-e-e!_”

“Indeed it is he, and no other. I pray you, father, to go, and to pass
no more such shameless jests on your daughter. Have I ever seen the
face of any other man?” And hereat she began to weep as if her heart
would break—the deceitful minx!

Holkar’s laugh was instantly turned to fury. “Oh, you liar and eternal
thief!” said he, turning round (as I presume, for I could only hear) to
Loll Mahommed, “to make your prince eat such monstrous dirt as this!
Furoshes, seize this man. I dismiss him from my service, I degrade him
from his rank, I appropriate to myself all his property: and hark ye,
furoshes, GIVE HIM A HUNDRED DOZEN MORE!”

Again I heard the whacks of the bamboos, and peace flowed into my soul.

Just as morn began to break, two figures were seen to approach the
little fortress of Futtyghur: one was a woman wrapped closely in a
veil; the other a warrior, remarkable for the size and manly beauty of
his form, who carried in his hand a deal box of considerable size. The
warrior at the gate gave the word and was admitted; the woman returned
slowly to the Indian camp. Her name was Puttee Rooge; his was -

G. O’G. G., M.H.E.I.C.S.. C.I.H.A.




CHAPTER VI
Famine in the Garrison


Thus my dangers for the night being overcome, I hastened with my
precious box into my own apartment, which communicated with another,
where I had left my prisoner, with a guard to report if he should
recover, and to prevent his escape. My servant, Ghorumsaug, was one of
the guard. I called him, and the fellow came, looking very much
confused and frightened, as it seemed, at my appearance.

“Why, Ghorumsaug,” said I, “what makes thee look so pale, fellow?” (He
was as white as a sheet.) “It is thy master, dost thou not remember
him?” The man had seen me dress myself in the Pitan’s clothes, but was
not present when I had blacked my face and beard in the manner I have
described.

“O Bramah, Vishnu, and Mahomet!” cried the faithful fellow, “and do I
see my dear master disguised in this way? For Heaven’s sake let me rid
you of this odious black paint; for what will the ladies say in the
ballroom, if the beautiful Feringhee should appear amongst them with
his roses turned into coal?”

I am still one of the finest men in Europe, and at the time of which I
write, when only two-and-twenty, I confess I _was_ a little vain of my
personal appearance, and not very willing to appear before my dear
Belinda disguised like a blackamoor. I allowed Ghorumsaug to divest me
of the heathenish armour and habiliments which I wore; and having, with
a world of scrubbing and trouble, divested my face and beard of their
black tinge, I put on my own becoming uniform, and hastened to wait on
the ladies; hastened, I say,—although delayed would have been the
better word, for the operation of bleaching lasted at least two hours.

“How is the prisoner, Ghorumsaug?” said I, before leaving my apartment.

“He has recovered from the blow which the Lion dealt him; two men and
myself watch over him; and Macgillicuddy Sahib (the second in command)
has just been the rounds, and has seen that all was secure.”

I bade Ghorumsaug help me to put away my chest of treasure (my
exultation in taking it was so great that I could not help informing
him of its contents); and this done, I despatched him to his post near
the prisoner, while I prepared to sally forth and pay my respects to
the fair creatures under my protection. “What good after all have I
done,” thought I to myself, “in this expedition which I had so rashly
undertaken?” I had seen the renowned Holkar; I had been in the heart of
his camp; I knew the disposition of his troops, that there were eleven
thousand of them, and that he only waited for his guns to make a
regular attack on the fort. I had seen Puttee Rooge; I had robbed her
(I say _robbed_ her, and I don’t care what the reader or any other man
may think of the act) of a deal box, containing jewels to the amount of
three millions sterling, the property of herself and husband.

Three millions in money and jewels! And what the deuce were money and
jewels to me or to my poor garrison? Could my adorable Miss Bulcher eat
a fricassee of diamonds, or, Cleopatra-like, melt down pearls to her
tea? Could I, careless as I am about food, with a stomach that would
digest anything—(once, in Spain, I ate the leg of a horse during a
famine, and was so eager to swallow this morsel that I bolted the shoe,
as well as the hoof, and never felt the slightest inconvenience from
either)—could I, I say, expect to live long and well upon a ragout of
rupees, or a dish of stewed emeralds and rubies? With all the wealth of
Croesus before me I felt melancholy; and would have paid cheerfully its
weight in carats for a good honest round of boiled beef. Wealth,
wealth, what art thou? What is gold?—Soft metal. What are diamonds?—
Shining tinsel. The great wealth-winners, the only fame-achievers, the
sole objects worthy of a soldier’s consideration, are beefsteaks,
gunpowder, and cold iron.

The two latter means of competency we possessed; I had in my own
apartments a small store of gunpowder (keeping it under my own bed,
with a candle burning for fear of accidents); I had 14 pieces of
artillery (4 long 48’s and 4 carronades, 5 howitzers, and a long brass
mortar, for grape, which I had taken myself at the battle of Assaye),
and muskets for ten times my force. My garrison, as I have told the
reader in a previous number, consisted of 40 men, two chaplains, and a
surgeon; add to these my guests, 83 in number, of whom nine only were
gentlemen (in tights, powder, pigtails, and silk stockings, who had
come out merely for a dance, and found themselves in for a siege). Such
were our numbers:-

Troops and artillerymen        40
Ladies                         74
Other non-combatants           11
MAJOR-GENERAL O’G.GAHAGAN   1,000
                            1,125

I count myself good for a thousand, for so I was regularly rated in the
army: with this great benefit to it, that I only consumed as much as an
ordinary mortal. We were then, as far as the victuals went, 126 mouths;
as combatants we numbered 1,040 gallant men, with 12 guns and a fort,
against Holkar and his 12,000. No such alarming odds, if -

_If!_—ay, there was the rub—_if_ we had _shot_, as well as powder for
our guns; _if_ we had not only _men_ but _meat_. Of the former
commodity we had only three rounds for each piece. Of the latter, upon
my sacred honour, to feed 126 souls, we had but

    Two drumsticks of fowls, and a bone of ham.
    Fourteen bottles of ginger-beer.
    Of soda-water, four ditto.
    Two bottles of fine Spanish olives.
    Raspberry cream—the remainder of two dishes.
    Seven macaroons, lying in the puddle of a demolished trifle.
    Half a drum of best Turkey figs.
    Some bits of broken bread; two Dutch cheeses (whole); the crust of an
    old Stilton; and about an ounce of almonds and raisins.
    Three ham-sandwiches, and a pot of currant-jelly, and 197 bottles of
    brandy, rum, madeira, pale ale (my private stock); a couple of hard
    eggs for a salad, and a flask of Florence oil.

This was the provision for the whole garrison! The men after supper had
seized upon the relics of the repast, as they were carried off from the
table; and these were the miserable remnants I found and counted on my
return; taking good care to lock the door of the supper-room, and
treasure what little sustenance still remained in it.

When I appeared in the saloon, now lighted up by the morning sun, I not
only caused a sensation myself, but felt one in my own bosom which was
of the most painful description. Oh, my reader! may you never behold
such a sight as that which presented itself: eighty-three men and women
in ball-dresses; the former with their lank powdered locks streaming
over their faces; the latter with faded flowers, uncurled wigs, smudged
rouge, blear eyes, draggling feathers, rumpled satins—each more
desperately melancholy and hideous than the other—each, except my
beloved Belinda Bulcher, whose raven ringlets never having been in curl
could of course never go _out_ of curl; whose cheek, pale as the lily,
could, as it may naturally be supposed, grow no paler; whose neck and
beauteous arms, dazzling as alabaster, needed no pearl-powder, and
therefore, as I need not state, did not suffer because the pearl-powder
had come off. Joy (deft link-boy!) lit his lamps in each of her eyes as
I entered. As if I had been her sun, her spring, lo! blushing roses
mantled in her cheek! Seventy-three ladies, as I entered, opened their
fire upon me, and stunned me with cross-questions, regarding my
adventures in the camp—_she_, as she saw me, gave a faint scream (the
sweetest, sure, that ever gurgled through the throat of a woman!) then
started up—then made as if she would sit down—then moved backwards—then
tottered forwards—then tumbled into my—Psha! why recall, why attempt to
describe that delicious—that passionate greeting of two young hearts?
What was the surrounding crowd to _us?_ What cared we for the sneers of
the men, the titters of the jealous women, the shrill “Upon my word!”
of the elder Miss Bulcher, and the loud expostulations of Belinda’s
mamma? The brave girl loved me, and wept in my arms. “Goliah! my
Goliah!” said she, “my brave, my beautiful, _thou_ art returned, and
hope comes back with thee. Oh! who can tell the anguish of my soul,
during this dreadful dreadful night!” Other similar ejaculations of
love and joy she uttered; and if I _had_ perilled life in her service,
if I _did_ believe that hope of escape there was none, so exquisite was
the moment of our meeting, that I forgot all else in this overwhelming
joy!

[The Major’s description of this meeting, which lasted at the very most
not ten seconds, occupies thirteen pages of writing. We have been
compelled to dock off twelve-and-a-half; for the whole passage, though
highly creditable to his feelings, might possibly be tedious to the
reader.]

As I said, the ladies and gentlemen were inclined to sneer, and were
giggling audibly. I led the dear girl to a chair, and, scowling round
with a tremendous fierceness, which those who know me know I can
sometimes put on, I shouted out, “Hark ye! men and women—I am this
lady’s truest knight—her husband I hope one day to be. I am commander,
too, in this fort—the enemy is without it; another word of
mockery—another glance of scorn—and, by Heaven, I will hurl every man
and woman from the battlements, a prey to the ruffianly Holkar!” This
quieted them. I am a man of my word, and none of them stirred or looked
disrespectfully from that moment.

It was now _my_ turn to make _them_ look foolish. Mrs.
Vandegobbleschroy (whose unfailing appetite is pretty well known to
every person who has been in India) cried, “Well, Captain Gahagan, your
ball has been so pleasant, and the supper was despatched so long ago,
that myself and the ladies would be very glad of a little breakfast.”
And Mrs. Van giggled as if she had made a very witty and reasonable
speech. “Oh! breakfast, breakfast, by all means,” said the rest; “we
really are dying for a warm cup of tea.”

“Is it bohay tay or souchong tay that you’d like, ladies?” says I.

“Nonsense, you silly man; any tea you like,” said fat Mrs. Van.

“What do you say, then, to some prime _gunpowder?_” Of course they said
it was the very thing.

“And do you like hot rowls or cowld—muffins or crumpets—fresh butter or
salt? And you, gentlemen, what do you say to some ilegant
divvled-kidneys for yourselves, and just a trifle of grilled turkeys,
and a couple of hundthred new-laid eggs for the ladies?”

“Pooh, pooh! be it as you will, my dear fellow,” answered they all.

“But stop,” says I. “O ladies, O ladies! O gentlemen, gentlemen! that
you should ever have come to the quarters of Goliah Gahagan, and he
been without—”

“What?” said they, in a breath.

“Alas! alas! I have not got a single stick of chocolate in the whole
house.”

“Well, well, we can do without it.”

“Or a single pound of coffee.”

“Never mind; let that pass too.” (Mrs. Van and the rest were beginning
to look alarmed.)

“And about the kidneys—now I remember, the black divvles outside the
fort have seized upon all the sheep; and how are we to have kidneys
without them?” (Here there was a slight o-o-o!)

“And with regard to the milk and crame, it may be remarked that the
cows are likewise in pawn, and not a single drop can be had for money
or love: but we can beat up eggs, you know, in the tay, which will be
just as good.”

“Oh! just as good.”

“Only the divvle’s in the luck, there’s not a fresh egg to be had— no,
nor a fresh chicken,” continued I, “nor a stale one either; not a
tayspoonful of souchong, nor a thimbleful of bohay; nor the laste taste
in life of butther, salt or fresh; nor hot rowls or cowld!”

“In the name of Heaven!” said Mrs. Van, growing very pale, “what is
there, then?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll tell you what there is now,” shouted I.
“There’s

    “Two drumsticks of fowls, and a bone of ham.
    Fourteen bottles of ginger-beer,” &c. &c. &c.

And I went through the whole list of eatables as before, ending with
the ham-sandwiches and the pot of jelly.

“Law! Mr. Gahagan,” said Mrs. Colonel Vandegobbleschroy, “give me the
ham-sandwiches—I must manage to breakfast off them.”

And you should have heard the pretty to-do there was at this modest
proposition! Of course I did not accede to it—why should I? I was the
commander of the fort, and intended to keep these three very sandwiches
for the use of myself and my dear Belinda. “Ladies,” said I, “there are
in this fort one hundred and twenty- six souls, and this is all the
food which is to last us during the siege. Meat there is none—of drink
there is a tolerable quantity; and at one o’clock punctually, a glass
of wine and one olive shall be served out to each woman: the men will
receive two glasses, and an olive and a fig—and this must be your food
during the siege. Lord Lake cannot be absent more than three days; and
if he be—why, still there is a chance—why do I say a chance?—_a
certainty_ of escaping from the hands of these ruffians.”

“Oh, name it, name it, dear Captain Gahagan!” screeched the whole covey
at a breath.

“It lies,” answered I, “in the _powder magazine_. I will blow this
fort, and all it contains, to atoms, ere it becomes the prey of
Holkar.”

The women, at this, raised a squeal that might have been heard in
Holkar’s camp, and fainted in different directions; but my dear Belinda
whispered in my ear, “Well done, thou noble knight! bravely said, my
heart’s Goliah!” I felt I was right: I could have blown her up twenty
times for the luxury of that single moment! “And now, ladies,” said I,
“I must leave you. The two chaplains will remain with you to administer
professional consolation—the other gentlemen will follow me upstairs to
the ramparts, where I shall find plenty of work for them.”




CHAPTER VII
The Escape


Loth as they were, these gentlemen had nothing for it but to obey, and
they accordingly followed me to the ramparts, where I proceeded to
review my men. The fort, in my absence, had been left in command of
Lieutenant Macgillicuddy, a countryman of my own (with whom, as may be
seen in an early chapter of my memoirs, I had an affair of honour); and
the prisoner Bobbachy Bahawder, whom I had only stunned, never wishing
to kill him, had been left in charge of that officer. Three of the
garrison (one of them a man of the Ahmednuggar Irregulars, my own
body-servant, Ghorumsaug above named) were appointed to watch the
captive by turns, and never leave him out of their sight. The
lieutenant was instructed to look to them and to their prisoner; and as
Bobbachy was severely injured by the blow which I had given him, and
was, moreover, bound hand and foot, and gagged smartly with cords, I
considered myself sure of his person.

Macgillicuddy did not make his appearance when I reviewed my little
force, and the three havildars were likewise absent: this did not
surprise me, as I had told them not to leave their prisoner; but
desirous to speak with the lieutenant, I despatched a messenger to him,
and ordered him to appear immediately.

The messenger came back; he was looking ghastly pale: he whispered some
information into my ear, which instantly caused me to hasten to the
apartments where I had caused Bobbachy Bahawder to be confined.

The men had fled;—Bobbachy had fled; and in his place, fancy my
astonishment when I found—with a rope cutting his naturally wide mouth
almost into his ears—with a dreadful sabre-cut across his forehead—with
his legs tied over his head, and his arms tied between his legs—my
unhappy, my attached friend—Mortimer Macgillicuddy!

He had been in this position for about three hours—it was the very
position in which I had caused Bobbachy Bahawder to be placed—an
attitude uncomfortable, it is true, but one which renders escape
impossible, unless treason aid the prisoner.

I restored the lieutenant to his natural erect position; I poured
half-a-bottle of whisky down the immensely enlarged orifice of his
mouth; and when he had been released, he informed me of the
circumstances that had taken place.

Fool that I was! idiot!—upon my return to the fort, to have been
anxious about my personal appearance, and to have spent a couple of
hours in removing the artificial blackening from my beard and
complexion, instead of going to examine my prisoner—when his escape
would have been prevented. O foppery, foppery!—it was that cursed love
of personal appearance which had led me to forget my duty to my
general, my country, my monarch, and my own honour!

Thus it was that the escape took place:- My own fellow of the
Irregulars, whom I had summoned to dress me, performed the operation to
my satisfaction, invested me with the elegant uniform of my corps, and
removed the Pitan’s disguise, which I had taken from the back of the
prostrate Bobbachy Bahawder. What did the rogue do next?—Why, he
carried back the dress to the Bobbachy—he put it, once more, on its
right owner; he and his infernal black companions (who had been won
over by the Bobbachy with promises of enormous reward) gagged
Macgillicuddy, who was going the rounds, and then marched with the
Indian coolly up to the outer gate, and gave the word. The sentinel,
thinking it was myself, who had first come in, and was as likely to go
out again—(indeed my rascally valet said that Gahagan Sahib was about
to go out with him and his two companions to reconnoitre)—opened the
gates, and off they went!

This accounted for the confusion of my valet when I entered!—and for
the scoundrel’s speech, that the lieutenant had _just been the
rounds;_—he _had_, poor fellow, and had been seized and bound in this
cruel way. The three men, with their liberated prisoner, had just been
on the point of escape, when my arrival disconcerted them: I had
changed the guard at the gate (whom they had won over likewise); and
yet, although they had overcome poor Mac, and although they were ready
for the start, they had positively no means for effecting their escape,
until I was ass enough to put means in their way. Fool! fool! thrice
besotted fool that I was, to think of my own silly person when I should
have been occupied solely with my public duty.

From Macgillicuddy’s incoherent accounts, as he was gasping from the
effects of the gag and the whisky he had taken to revive him, and from
my own subsequent observations, I learned this sad story. A sudden and
painful thought struck me—my precious box!—I rushed back, I found that
box—I have it still. Opening it, there, where I had left ingots, sacks
of bright tomauns, kopeks and rupees, strings of diamonds as big as
ducks’ eggs, rubies as red as the lips of my Belinda, countless strings
of pearls, amethysts, emeralds, piles upon piles of bank-notes—I
found—a piece of paper! with a few lines in the Sanscrit language,
which are thus, word for word, translated:-

“EPIGRAM.

(_On disappointing a certain Major_.)

    “The conquering lion return’d with his prey,
        And safe in his cavern he set it;
    The sly little fox stole the booty away,
    And, as he escaped, to the lion did say,
        ‘_Aha!_ don’t you wish you may get it?’”

Confusion! Oh, how my blood boiled as I read these cutting lines. I
stamped,—I swore,—I don’t know to what insane lengths my rage might
have carried me, had not at this moment a soldier rushed in, screaming,
“The enemy, the enemy!”




CHAPTER VIII
The Captive


It was high time, indeed, that I should make my appearance. Waving my
sword with one hand and seizing my telescope with the other, I at once
frightened and examined the enemy. Well they knew when they saw that
flamingo-plume floating in the breeze—that awful figure standing in the
breach—that waving war-sword sparkling in the sky—well, I say, they
knew the name of the humble individual who owned the sword, the plume,
and the figure. The ruffians were mustered in front, the cavalry
behind. The flags were flying, the drums, gongs, tambourines,
violoncellos, and other instruments of Eastern music, raised in the air
a strange barbaric melody; the officers (yatabals), mounted on white
dromedaries, were seen galloping to and fro, carrying to the advancing
hosts the orders of Holkar.

You see that two sides of the fort of Futtyghur (rising as it does on a
rock that is almost perpendicular) are defended by the Burrumpooter
river, two hundred feet deep at this point, and a thousand yards wide,
so that I had no fear about them attacking me in _that_ quarter. My
guns, therefore (with their six-and-thirty miserable charges of shot),
were dragged round to the point at which I conceived Holkar would be
most likely to attack me. I was in a situation that I did not dare to
fire, except at such times as I could kill a hundred men by a single
discharge of a cannon; so the attacking party marched and marched, very
strongly, about a mile and a half off, the elephants marching without
receiving the slightest damage from us, until they had come to within
four hundred yards of our walls (the rogues knew all the secrets of our
weakness, through the betrayal of the dastardly Ghorumsaug, or they
never would have ventured so near). At that distance—it was about the
spot where the Futtyghur hill began gradually to rise—the invading
force stopped; the elephants drew up in a line, at right angles with
our wall (the fools! they thought they should expose themselves too
much by taking a position parallel to it); the cavalry halted too,
and—after the deuce’s own flourish of trumpets and banging of gongs, to
be sure,—somebody, in a flame-coloured satin dress, with an immense
jewel blazing in his pugree (that looked through my telescope like a
small but very bright planet), got up from the back of one of the very
biggest elephants, and began a speech.

The elephants were, as I said, in a line formed with admirable
precision, about three hundred of them. The following little diagram
will explain matters:-

.......   G |
E           |
            | F

_E_ is the line of elephants. _F_ is the wall of the fort. _G_ a gun in
the fort. _Now_ the reader will see what I did.

The elephants were standing, their trunks waggling to and fro
gracefully before them; and I, with superhuman skill and activity,
brought the gun _G_ (a devilish long brass gun) to bear upon them.  I
pointed it myself; bang! it went, and what was the consequence? Why,
this:-

  x
.......   G |
E           |
            | F

_F_ is the fort, as before. _G_ is the gun, as before. _E_, the
elephants, as we have previously seen them. What then is x? x _is the
line taken by the ball fired from_ G, which took off _one hundred and
thirty-four elephants’_ trunks, and only spent itself in the tusk of a
very old animal, that stood the hundred and thirty-fifth!

I say that such a shot was never fired before or since; that a gun was
never pointed in such a way. Suppose I had been a common man, and
contented myself with firing bang at the head of the first animal? An
ass would have done it, prided himself had he hit his mark, and what
would have been the consequence? Why, that the ball might have killed
two elephants and wounded a third; but here, probably, it would have
stopped, and done no further mischief. The _trunk_ was the place at
which to aim; there are no bones there; and away, consequently, went
the bullet, shearing, as I have said, through one hundred and
thirty-five probosces. Heavens! what a howl there was when the shot
took effect! What a sudden stoppage of Holkar’s speech! What a hideous
snorting of elephants! What a rush backwards was made by the whole
army, as if some demon was pursuing them!

Away they went. No sooner did I see them in full retreat, than, rushing
forward myself, I shouted to my men, “My friends, yonder lies your
dinner!” We flung open the gates—we tore down to the spot where the
elephants had fallen: seven of them were killed; and of those that
escaped to die of their hideous wounds elsewhere, most had left their
trunks behind them. A great quantity of them we seized; and I myself,
cutting up with my scimitar a couple of the fallen animals, as a
butcher would a calf, motioned to the men to take the pieces back to
the fort, where barbecued elephant was served round for dinner, instead
of the miserable allowance of an olive and a glass of wine, which I had
promised to my female friends, in my speech to them. The animal
reserved for the ladies was a young white one—the fattest and tenderest
I ever ate in my life: they are very fair eating, but the flesh has an
India-rubber flavour, which, until one is accustomed to it, is
unpalatable.

It was well that I had obtained this supply, for, during my absence on
the works, Mrs. Vandegobbleschroy and one or two others had forced
their way into the supper-room, and devoured every morsel of the
garrison larder, with the exception of the cheeses, the olives, and the
wine, which were locked up in my own apartment, before which stood a
sentinel. Disgusting Mrs. Van! When I heard of her gluttony, I had
almost a mind to eat _her_. However, we made a very comfortable dinner
off the barbecued steaks, and when everybody had done, had the comfort
of knowing that there was enough for one meal more.

The next day, as I expected, the enemy attacked us in great force,
attempting to escalade the fort; but by the help of my guns, and my
good sword, by the distinguished bravery of Lieutenant Macgillicuddy
and the rest of the garrison, we beat this attack off completely, the
enemy sustaining a loss of seven hundred men. We were victorious; but
when another attack was made, what were we to do? We had still a little
powder left, but had fired off all the shot, stones, iron-bars, &c. in
the garrison! On this day, too, we devoured the last morsel of our
food: I shall never forget Mrs. Vandegobbleschroy’s despairing look, as
I saw her sitting alone, attempting to make some impression on the
little white elephant’s roasted tail.

The third day the attack was repeated. The resources of genius are
never at an end. Yesterday I had no ammunition; to-day, I discovered
charges sufficient for two guns, and two swivels, which were much
longer, but had bores of about blunderbuss size.

This time my friend Loll Mahommed, who had received, as the reader may
remember, such a bastinadoing for my sake, headed the attack. The poor
wretch could not walk, but he was carried in an open palanquin, and
came on waving his sword, and cursing horribly in his Hindustan jargon.
Behind him came troops of matchlock-men, who picked off every one of
our men who showed their noses above the ramparts; and a great host of
blackamoors with scaling-ladders, bundles to fill the ditch, fascines,
gabions, culverins, demilunes, counterscarps, and all the other
appurtenances of offensive war.

On they came; my guns and men were ready for them. You will ask how my
pieces were loaded? I answer, that though my garrison were without
food, I knew my duty as an officer, and _had put the two Dutch cheeses
into the two guns, and had crammed the contents of a bottle of olives
into each swivel_.

They advanced,—whish! went one of the Dutch cheeses,—bang! went the
other. Alas! they did little execution. In their first contact with an
opposing body, they certainly floored it; but they became at once like
so much Welsh-rabbit, and did no execution beyond the man whom they
struck down.

“Hogree, pogree, wongree-fum (praise to Allah and the forty-nine
Imaums!)” shouted out the ferocious Loll Mahommed when he saw the
failure of my shot. “Onward, sons of the Prophet! the infidel has no
more ammunition. A hundred thousand lakhs of rupees to the man who
brings me Gahagan’s head!”

His men set up a shout, and rushed forward—he, to do him justice, was
at the very head, urging on his own palanquin-bearers, and poking them
with the tip of his scimitar. They came panting up the hill: I was
black with rage, but it was the cold concentrated rage of despair.
“Macgillicuddy,” said I, calling that faithful officer, “you know where
the barrels of powder are?” He did. “You know the use to make of them?”
He did. He grasped my hand. “Goliah,” said he, “farewell! I swear that
the fort shall be in atoms, as soon as yonder unbelievers have carried
it. Oh, my poor mother!” added the gallant youth, as sighing, yet
fearless, he retired to his post.

I gave one thought to my blessed, my beautiful Belinda, and then,
stepping into the front, took down one of the swivels;—a shower of
matchlock balls came whizzing round my head. I did not heed them.

I took the swivel, and aimed coolly. Loll Mahommed, his palanquin, and
his men, were now not above two hundred yards from the fort. Loll was
straight before me, gesticulating and shouting to his men. I
fired—bang!!!

I aimed so true, that _one hundred and seventeen best Spanish olives
were lodged in a lump in the face of the unhappy Loll Mahommed_. The
wretch, uttering a yell the most hideous and unearthly I ever heard,
fell back dead; the frightened bearers flung down the palanquin and
ran—the whole host ran as one man: their screams might be heard for
leagues. “Tomasha, tomasha,” they cried, “it is enchantment!” Away they
fled, and the victory a third time was ours. Soon as the fight was
done, I flew back to my Belinda. We had eaten nothing for twenty-four
hours, but I forgot hunger in the thought of once more beholding _her!_

The sweet soul turned towards me with a sickly smile as I entered, and
almost fainted in my arms; but alas! it was not love which caused in
her bosom an emotion so strong—it was hunger! “Oh! my Goliah,”
whispered she, “for three days I have not tasted food—I could not eat
that horrid elephant yesterday; but now—oh! Heaven!—” She could say no
more, but sank almost lifeless on my shoulder. I administered to her a
trifling dram of rum, which revived her for a moment, and then rushed
downstairs, determined that if it were a piece of my own leg, she
should still have something to satisfy her hunger. Luckily I remembered
that three or four elephants were still lying in the field, having been
killed by us in the first action, two days before. Necessity, thought
I, has no law; my adorable girl must eat elephant, until she can get
something better.

I rushed into the court where the men were, for the most part,
assembled. “Men,” said I, “our larder is empty; we must fill it as we
did the day before yesterday. Who will follow Gahagan on a foraging
party?” I expected that, as on former occasions, every man would offer
to accompany me.

To my astonishment, not a soul moved—a murmur arose among the troops;
and at last one of the oldest and bravest came forward.

“Captain,” he said, “it is of no use; we cannot feed upon elephants for
ever; we have not a grain of powder left, and must give up the fort
when the attack is made to-morrow. We may as well be prisoners now as
then, and we won’t go elephant-hunting any more.”

“Ruffian!” I said, “he who first talks of surrender, dies!” and I cut
him down. “Is there anyone else who wishes to speak?”

No one stirred.

“Cowards! miserable cowards!” shouted I; “what, you dare not move for
fear of death at the hands of those wretches who even now fled before
your arms—what, do I say _your_ arms?—before _mine!_—alone I did it;
and as alone I routed the foe, alone I will victual the fortress! Ho!
open the gate!”

I rushed out; not a single man would follow. The bodies of the
elephants that we had killed still lay on the ground where they had
fallen, about four hundred yards from the fort. I descended calmly the
hill, a very steep one, and coming to the spot, took my pick of the
animals, choosing a tolerably small and plump one, of about thirteen
feet high, which the vultures had respected. I threw this animal over
my shoulders, and made for the fort.

As I marched up the acclivity, whizz—piff—whirr! came the balls over my
head; and pitter-patter, pitter-patter! they fell on the body of the
elephant like drops of rain. The enemy were behind me; I knew it, and
quickened my pace. I heard the gallop of their horse: they came nearer,
nearer; I was within a hundred yards of the fort—seventy—fifty! I
strained every nerve; I panted with the superhuman exertion—I ran—could
a man run very fast with such a tremendous weight on his shoulders?

Up came the enemy; fifty horsemen were shouting and screaming at my
tail. O Heaven! five yards more—one moment—and I am saved. It is done—I
strain the last strain—I make the last step—I fling forward my precious
burden into the gate opened wide to receive me and it, and—I fall! The
gate thunders to, and I am left _on the outside!_ Fifty knives are
gleaming before my bloodshot eyes—fifty black hands are at my throat,
when a voice exclaims, “Stop!—kill him not, it is Gujputi!” A film came
over my eyes—exhausted nature would bear no more.




CHAPTER IX
Surprise of Futtyghur


When I awoke from the trance into which I had fallen, I found myself in
a bath, surrounded by innumerable black faces; and a Hindoo pothukoor
(whence our word apothecary) feeling my pulse and looking at me with an
air of sagacity.

“Where am I?” I exclaimed, looking round and examining the strange
faces, and the strange apartment which met my view. “Bekhusm!” said the
apothecary. “Silence! Gahagan Sahib is in the hands of those who know
his valour, and will save his life.”

“Know my valour, slave? Of course you do,” said I; “but the fort— the
garrison—the elephant—Belinda, my love—my darling— Macgillicuddy—the
scoundrelly mutineers—the deal bo- “

I could say no more; the painful recollections pressed so heavily upon
my poor shattered mind and frame, that both failed once more. I fainted
again, and I know not how long I lay insensible.

Again, however, I came to my senses: the pothukoor applied
restoratives, and after a slumber of some hours I awoke, much
refreshed. I had no wound; my repeated swoons had been brought on (as
indeed well they might) by my gigantic efforts in carrying the elephant
up a steep hill a quarter of a mile in length. Walking, the task is bad
enough: but running, it is the deuce; and I would recommend any of my
readers who may be disposed to try and carry a dead elephant, never, on
any account, to go a pace of more than five miles an hour.

Scarcely was I awake, when I heard the clash of arms at my door
(plainly indicating that sentinels were posted there), and a single old
gentleman, richly habited, entered the room. Did my eyes deceive me? I
had surely seen him before. No—yes—no—yes—it _was_ he: the snowy white
beard, the mild eyes, the nose flattened to a jelly, and level with the
rest of the venerable face, proclaimed him at once to be—Saadut Alee
Beg Bimbukchee, Holkar’s Prime Vizier; whose nose, as the reader may
recollect, his Highness had flattened with his kaleawn during my
interview with him in the Pitan’s disguise. I now knew my fate but too
well—I was in the hands of Holkar.

Saadut Alee Beg Bimbukchee slowly advanced towards me, and with a mild
air of benevolence which distinguished that excellent man (he was torn
to pieces by wild horses the year after, on account of a difference
with Holkar), he came to my bedside and, taking gently my hand, said,
“Life and death, my son, are not ours. Strength is deceitful, valour is
unavailing, fame is only wind—the nightingale sings of the rose all
night—where is the rose in the morning? Booch, booch! it is withered by
a frost. The rose makes remarks regarding the nightingale, and where is
that delightful song-bird? Pena-bekhoda, he is netted, plucked,
spitted, and roasted! Who knows how misfortune comes? It has come to
Gahagan Gujputi!”

“It is well,” said I, stoutly, and in the Malay language. “Gahagan
Gujputi will bear it like a man.”

“No doubt—like a wise man and a brave one; but there is no lane so long
to which there is not a turning, no night so black to which there comes
not a morning. Icy winter is followed by merry springtime—grief is
often succeeded by joy.”

“Interpret, O riddler!” said I; “Gahagan Khan is no reader of
puzzles—no prating mollah. Gujputi loves not words, but swords.”

“Listen then, O Gujputi: you are in Holkar’s power.”

“I know it.”

“You will die by the most horrible tortures to-morrow morning.”

“I dare say.”

“They will tear your teeth from your jaws, your nails from your
fingers, and your eyes from your head.”

“Very possibly.”

“They will flay you alive, and then burn you.”

“Well; they can’t do any more.”

“They will seize upon every man and woman in yonder fort”—it was not
then taken!—“and repeat upon them the same tortures.”

“Ha! Belinda! Speak—how can all this be avoided?”

“Listen. Gahagan loves the moon-face called Belinda.”

“He does, Vizier, to distraction.”

“Of what rank is he in the Koompani’s army?”

“A captain.”

“A miserable captain—oh, shame! Of what creed is he?”

“I am an Irishman, and a Catholic.”

“But he has not been very particular about his religious duties?”

“Alas, no!”

“He has not been to his mosque for these twelve years?”

“’Tis too true.”

“Hearken now, Gahagan Khan. His Highness Prince Holkar has sent me to
thee. You shall have the moon-face for your wife—your second wife, that
is;—the first shall be the incomparable Puttee Rooge, who loves you to
madness;—with Puttee Rooge, who is the wife, you shall have the wealth
and rank of Bobbachy Bahawder, of whom his Highness intends to get rid.
You shall be second in command of his Highness’s forces. Look, here is
his commission signed with the celestial seal, and attested by the
sacred names of the forty-nine Imaums. You have but to renounce your
religion and your service, and all these rewards are yours.”

He produced a parchment, signed as he said, and gave it to me (it was
beautifully written in Indian ink: I had it for fourteen years, but a
rascally valet, seeing it very dirty, _washed_ it, forsooth, and washed
off every bit of the writing). I took it calmly, and said, “This is a
tempting offer. O Vizier, how long wilt thou give me to consider of
it?”

After a long parley, he allowed me six hours, when I promised to give
him an answer. My mind, however, was made up—as soon as he was gone, I
threw myself on the sofa and fell asleep.

At the end of the six hours the Vizier came back: two people were with
him; one, by his martial appearance, I knew to be Holkar, the other I
did not recognise. It was about midnight.

“Have you considered?” said the Vizier, as he came to my couch.

“I have,” said I, sitting up,—I could not stand, for my legs were tied,
and my arms fixed in a neat pair of steel handcuffs. “I have,” said I,
“unbelieving dogs! I have. Do you think to pervert a Christian
gentleman from his faith and honour? Ruffian blackamoors! do your
worst; heap tortures on this body, they cannot last long. Tear me to
pieces: after you have torn me into a certain number of pieces, I shall
not feel it; and if I did, if each torture could last a life, if each
limb were to feel the agonies of a whole body, what then? I would bear
all—all—all— all—all—ALL!” My breast heaved—my form dilated—my eye
flashed as I spoke these words. “Tyrants!” said I, “dulce et decorum
est pro patria mori.” Having thus clinched the argument, I was silent.

The venerable. Grand Vizier turned away; I saw a tear trickling down
his cheeks.

“What a constancy!” said he. “Oh, that such beauty and such bravery
should be doomed so soon to quit the earth!”

His tall companion only sneered and said, “_And Belinda_”—

“Ha!” said I, “ruffian, be still!—Heaven will protect her spotless
innocence. Holkar, I know thee, and thou knowest _me_ too! Who, with
his single sword, destroyed thy armies? Who, with his pistol, cleft in
twain thy nose-ring? Who slew thy generals? Who slew thy elephants?
Three hundred mighty beasts went forth to battle: of these _I_ slew one
hundred and thirty-five! Dog, coward, ruffian, tyrant, unbeliever!
Gahagan hates thee, spurns thee, spits on thee!”

Holkar, as I made these uncomplimentary remarks, gave a scream of rage,
and, drawing his scimitar, rushed on to despatch me at once (it was the
very thing I wished for), when the third person sprang forward and,
seizing his arm, cried -

“Papa! oh, save him!” It was Puttee Rooge! “Remember,” continued she,
“his misfortunes—remember, oh, remember my—love!”—and here she blushed,
and putting one finger into her mouth, and hanging down her head,
looked the very picture of modest affection.

Holkar sulkily sheathed his scimitar, and muttered, “’Tis better as it
is; had I killed him now, I had spared him the torture. None of this
shameless fooling, Puttee Rooge,” continued the tyrant, dragging her
away. “Captain Gahagan dies three hours from hence.” Puttee Rooge gave
one scream and fainted—her father and the Vizier carried her off
between them; nor was I loth to part with her, for, with all her love,
she was as ugly as the deuce.

They were gone—my fate was decided. I had but three hours more of life:
so I flung myself again on the sofa, and fell profoundly asleep. As it
may happen to any of my readers to be in the same situation, and to be
hanged themselves, let me earnestly entreat them to adopt this plan of
going to sleep, which I for my part have repeatedly found to be
successful. It saves unnecessary annoyance, it passes away a great deal
of unpleasant time, and it prepares one to meet like a man the coming
catastrophe.

Three o’clock came: the sun was at this time making his appearance in
the heavens, and with it came the guards, who were appointed to conduct
me to the torture. I woke, rose, was carried out, and was set on the
very white donkey on which Loll Mahommed was conducted through the camp
after he was bastinadoed. Bobbachy Bahawder rode behind me, restored to
his rank and state; troops of cavalry hemmed us in on all sides; my ass
was conducted by the common executioner: a crier went forward, shouting
out, “Make way for the destroyer of the faithful—he goes to bear the
punishment of his crimes.” We came to the fatal plain: it was the very
spot whence I had borne away the elephant, and in full sight of the
fort. I looked towards it. Thank Heaven! King George’s banner waved on
it still—a crowd were gathered on the walls—the men, the dastards who
had deserted me—and women, too. Among the latter I thought I
distinguished _one_ who—O gods! the thought turned me sick—I trembled
and looked pale for the first time.

“He trembles! he turns pale,” shouted out Bobbachy Bahawder,
ferociously exulting over his conquered enemy.

“Dog!” shouted I—(I was sitting with my head to the donkey’s tail, and
so looked the Bobbachy full in the face)—“not so pale as you looked
when I felled you with this arm—not so pale as your women looked when I
entered your harem!” Completely chop-fallen, the Indian ruffian was
silent: at any rate, I had done for _him_.

We arrived at the place of execution. A stake, a couple of feet thick
and eight high, was driven in the grass: round the stake, about seven
feet from the ground, was an iron ring, to which were attached two
fetters; in these my wrists were placed. Two or three executioners
stood near, with strange-looking instruments: others were blowing at a
fire, over which was a cauldron, and in the embers were stuck prongs
and other instruments of iron.

The crier came forward and read my sentence. It was the same in effect
as that which had been hinted to me the day previous by the Grand
Vizier. I confess I was too agitated to catch every word that was
spoken.

Holkar himself, on a tall dromedary, was at a little distance. The
Grand Vizier came up to me—it was his duty to stand by, and see the
punishment performed. “It is yet time!” said he.

I nodded my head, but did not answer.

The Vizier cast up to heaven a look of inexpressible anguish, and with
a voice choking with emotion, said, “_Executioner—do—your—duty!_”

The horrid man advanced—he whispered sulkily in the ears of the Grand
Vizier, “_Guggly ka ghee, hum khedgeree_,” said he, “_the oil does not
boil yet_—wait one minute.” The assistants blew, the fire blazed, the
oil was heated. The Vizier drew a few feet aside: taking a large ladle
full of the boiling liquid, he advanced -

“Whish! bang, bang! pop!” the executioner was dead at my feet, shot
through the head; the ladle of scalding oil had been dashed in the face
of the unhappy Grand Vizier, who lay on the plain, howling. “Whish!
bang! pop! Hurrah!—charge!—forwards!—cut them down!—no quarter!”

I saw—yes, no, yes, no, yes!—I saw regiment upon regiment of galloping
British horsemen riding over the ranks of the flying natives. First of
the host, I recognised, O Heaven! my AHMEDNUGGAR IRREGULARS! On came
the gallant line of black steeds and horsemen; swift swift before them
rode my officers in yellow—Glogger, Pappendick, and Stuffle; their
sabres gleamed in the sun, their voices rung in the air. “D— them!”
they cried, “give it them, boys!” A strength supernatural thrilled
through my veins at that delicious music: by one tremendous effort, I
wrested the post from its foundation, five feet in the ground. I could
not release my hands from the fetters, it is true; but, grasping the
beam tightly, I sprung forward—with one blow I levelled the five
executioners in the midst of the fire, their fall upsetting the
scalding oil-can; with the next, I swept the bearers of Bobbachy’s
palanquin off their legs; with the third, I caught that chief himself
in the small of the back, and sent him flying on to the sabres of my
advancing soldiers!

The next minute, Glogger and Stuffle were in my arms, Pappendick
leading on the Irregulars. Friend and foe in that wild chase had swept
far away. We were alone: I was freed from my immense bar; and ten
minutes afterwards, when Lord Lake trotted up with his staff, he found
me sitting on it.

“Look at Gahagan,” said his Lordship. “Gentlemen, did I not tell you we
should be sure to find him _at his post?_”

The gallant old nobleman rode on: and this was the famous BATTLE OF
FURRUCKABAD, or SURPRISE OF FUTTYGHUR, fought on the 17th of November,
1804.

About a month afterwards, the following announcement appeared in the
_Boggleywollah Hurkaru_ and other Indian papers:-

“Married, on the 25th of December, at Futtyghur, by the Rev. Dr.
Snorter, Captain Goliah O’Grady Gahagan, Commanding Irregular Horse,
Ahmednuggar, to Belinda, second daughter of Major-General Bulcher, C.B.
His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief gave away the bride; and, after a
splendid _déjeuner_, the happy pair set off to pass the Mango season at
Hurrygurrybang. Venus must recollect, however, that Mars must not
_always_ be at her side. The Irregulars are nothing without their
leader.”

Such was the paragraph—such the event—the happiest in the existence of

G. O’G. G., M.H.E.I.C.S., C.I.H.A.




Footnotes:


 [1] So admirable are the performances of these watches, which will
 stand in any climate, that I repeatedly heard poor Macgillicuddy
 relate the following fact. The hours, as it is known, count in Italy
 from one to twenty-four: _The day Mac landed at Naples his repeater
 rung the Italian hours, from one to twenty-four;_ as soon as he
 crossed the Alps it only sounded as usual.—G. O’G. G.

 [2] In my affair with Macgillicuddy, I was fool enough to go out with
 small swords:- miserable weapons, only fit for tailors.—G. O’G. G.

 [3] The Major certainly offered to leave an old snuff-box at Mr.
 Cunningham’s office; but it contained no extract from a newspaper, and
 does not _quite_ prove that he killed a rhinoceros and stormed
 fourteen entrenchments at the siege of Allyghur.

 [4] The double-jointed camel of Bactria, which the classic reader may
 recollect is mentioned by Suidas (in his Commentary on the Flight of
 Darius), is so called by the Mahrattas.

 [5] There is some trifling inconsistency on the Major’s part. Shah
 Allum was notoriously blind: how, then, could he have seen Gahagan?
 The thing is manifestly impossible.

 [6] I do not wish to brag of my style of writing, or to pretend that
 my genius as a writer has not been equalled in former times; but if,
 in the works of Byron, Scott, Goethe, or Victor Hugo, the reader can
 find a more beautiful sentence than the above, I will be obliged to
 him, that is all—I simply say, _I will be obliged to him_.—G. O’G. G.,
 M.H.E.I.C.S., C.I.H.A.

 [7] The Major has put the most approved language into the mouths of
 his Indian characters. Bismillah, Barikallah, and so on, according to
 the novelists, form the very essence of Eastern conversation.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1935 ***