Project Gutenberg Etext Adventures of Major Gahagan by Thackeray
#8 in our series by William Makepeace Thackeray
Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
Please take a look at the important information in this header.
We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
further information is included below. We need your donations.
The Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan
by William Makepeace Thackeray
October, 1999 [Etext #1935]
Project Gutenberg Etext Adventures of Major Gahagan by Thackeray
******This file should be named 1935.txt or 1935.zip******
This etext was prepared by David Price, email [email protected]
from the 1911 John Murray edition.
Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
copyright notice is included. Therefore, we do usually do NOT! keep
these books in compliance with any particular paper edition.
We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an
up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has
a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
new copy has at least one byte more or less.
Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The
time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This
projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-six text
files per month, or 432 more Etexts in 1999 for a total of 2000+
If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
total should reach over 200 billion Etexts given away this year.
The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion]
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only ~5% of the present number of computer users.
At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third
of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we
manage to get some real funding; currently our funding is mostly
from Michael Hart's salary at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an
assortment of sporadic gifts; this salary is only good for a few
more years, so we are looking for something to replace it, as we
don't want Project Gutenberg to be so dependent on one person.
We need your donations more than ever!
All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are
tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie-
Mellon University).
For these and other matters, please mail to:
Project Gutenberg
P. O. Box 2782
Champaign, IL 61825
When all other email fails. . .try our Executive Director:
Michael S. Hart
[email protected] forwards to [email protected] and archive.org
if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if
it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . .
We would prefer to send you this information by email.
******
To access Project Gutenberg etexts, use any Web browser
to view http://promo.net/pg. This site lists Etexts by
author and by title, and includes information about how
to get involved with Project Gutenberg. You could also
download our past Newsletters, or subscribe here. This
is one of our major sites, please email [email protected],
for a more complete list of our various sites.
To go directly to the etext collections, use FTP or any
Web browser to visit a Project Gutenberg mirror (mirror
sites are available on 7 continents; mirrors are listed
at http://promo.net/pg).
Mac users, do NOT point and click, typing works better.
Example FTP session:
ftp sunsite.unc.edu
login: anonymous
password: your@login
cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg
cd etext90 through etext99
dir [to see files]
get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99]
GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books]
***
**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
(Three Pages)
***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project"). Among other
things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from. If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.
THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.
INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this
requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however,
if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
*EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
does *not* contain characters other than those
intended by the author of the work, although tilde
(~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
be used to convey punctuation intended by the
author, and additional characters may be used to
indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
form by the program that displays the etext (as is
the case, for instance, with most word processors);
OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
"Small Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
net profits you derive calculated using the method you
already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you
don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are
payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon
University" within the 60 days following each
date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
Association / Carnegie-Mellon University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
This etext was prepared by David Price, email [email protected]
from the 1911 John Murray edition.
THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN
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
Mole; "le cher Major a quitte l'armee! Nicolas donc sera maitre 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 a
l'Austerlitz, fairly sent seven mushrooms and three large greasy
croutes 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 120l. 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 menage 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 a propos d'huitres. 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 Caesar, 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 melee.
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 sacree, 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 belitre 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 ecrases, mitrailles, foudroyes 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 facheuse 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 fidele 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 lache! Un Francais 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 melee, 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 malgre 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).
"Valdepenas madrilenos," 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 DONE 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 feted 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 dejeuner, 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 Project Gutenberg Etext Adventures of Major Gahagan by Thackeray
