Athelstane Ford

He walked down the line once again, and counted our casualties. By this time we had lost ten Europeans, and about twice as many Sepoys.

“That is enough,” the Colonel exclaimed sharply. “It is useless to expose the men for nothing. Retire into the grove again.”

This order was executed, and the enemy, appearing to gather courage from our retreat, advanced their artillery nearer, and quickened their fire. However, their aim continued very bad, most of the shot merely struck the branches of the trees, and the men were ordered to lie down for the sake of greater safety. I was pleased to observe that all, even the Sepoys and Topasses, displayed the utmost coolness and confidence. Several powder explosions happened about this time in different places in the enemy’s ranks, and this served to increase the contempt of our own men for the Nabob’s forces.

About eleven o’clock Colonel Clive called some of the officers together, and communicated his plans to them.

“It is quite clear that the Nabob is afraid to attack us at close quarters,” he said, “or he would have ordered a further advance before this. Still I do not consider we are justified in quitting our shelter for the present, in the absence of any demonstration from Meer Jaffier. It will be better to let the cannonade go on for the rest of the day, and then try a night attack on their camp.”

Most of the officers concurred in this opinion. As the Colonel and I were walking back to the lodge he turned to me suddenly, and asked me what I thought.

“Why, sir, to be plain with you, I think the only men we have to regard are those forty Frenchmen in the tank,” I answered. “As far as the rest are concerned, I very much doubt if they would stand five minutes against a charge.”

The Colonel nodded.

“I shouldn’t be surprised if you were right. But remember, Ford, that those nine hundred men are the only European troops in Bengal, and if I lose even two hundred of them this will be an expensive victory for me. What I want is to hold on till Surajah Dowlah’s own troops desert him, and then I may win everything without loss of life.”

I was much impressed by this glimpse into Mr. Clive’s mind, which showed him as something very different from the reckless, hot-headed soldier some of his enemies have called him.

Just at this time a shower of rain fell, and soon after the fire of the enemy sensibly slackened, some of their powder evidently having been spoiled. Towards two o’clock a stranger thing took place, for the firing ceased altogether, and the Moors were perceived yoking their white oxen to the gun-stages again; and immediately after the whole army commenced to fall back slowly and re-enter the camp.

I was standing by myself outside the door of the lodge when this singular movement commenced, and I at once stepped inside to inform Colonel Clive. To my astonishment I found him asleep. The exhausting work of the last few days, followed by the total absence of rest on the previous night, had proved too much for him. He had fallen on to a chair, and dropped asleep unawares.

While I was hesitating whether to awaken him I heard some one approaching without. I went out softly, and found a sergeant of Major Kilpatrick’s company, with a message for the Colonel.

“I will take your message, sergeant,” I said, not wishing him to know of Mr. Clive’s slumber.

“Faith, then, sir, it’s just this,” said the fellow, who was an Irishman, “that the enemy’s beat, and runnin’ away entirely, and Major Kilpathrick’s just after starting to take the tank from those murderin’ Frenchies, so as to annoy the Nabob’s retreat.”

I turned red at this insolent message, which did not even request Colonel Clive’s permission for the movement. Dismissing the sergeant, I darted in and woke up my commander.

The Colonel was broad awake in an instant. When he heard what had happened he compressed his lips, without making any remark, and ran out of the lodge, and across the ground to where Kilpatrick was leading his company towards the tank.

“Halt!” shouted Colonel Clive, as he approached.

The Major stopped, and looked confused.

“I thought, sir, as every moment was precious – ” he began, when Mr. Clive sharply cut him short.

“I will receive your apologies this evening, sir. At present my orders to you are to return and order up the whole force to support this movement which you have so rashly begun.”

He waited till the discomfited officer had retired, and then turning to me, he added with a touch of glee —

“Now, Ford, you and I will take the tank!”

The word was given to double, and we advanced at a run, whereupon the Frenchmen, after one discharge, evacuated their position, and retired upon the camp.

The rest of the English force now marched out from the grove, and advanced in line, pursuing the retreating enemy. But there was one part of the Nabob’s army which did not join in the movement of the rest. A large division of cavalry, one of those which had formed the threatening left wing, drew off from the rest and advanced towards our right rear.

Colonel Clive watched their movements with suspicion.

“Are these fellows trying to take our baggage?” he murmured. “Captain Grant, take three platoons and a field-piece, and see if you can fight off those horse.”

The order as given was obeyed, the slight demonstration proved sufficient, and the mysterious division drew away again out of range. In the meantime our main body advanced steadily, and kept up a brisk fire on the Nabob’s camp with our artillery. On this some of the retiring troops showed a disposition to come out again and renew the attack, encouraged by the example of the Frenchmen, who had got possession of the redoubt in the angle of the rampart, and were plying us well with their guns. Seeing this disposition on the part of the enemy, Colonel Clive ordered some shot to be thrown among their cumbrous artillery trains. This was done with such effect that, numbers of the oxen being killed, the trains were thrown into confusion. At the same time some of the Moorish horse made a few ineffectual offers to charge, but were easily driven off, without ever coming to close quarters.

Whatever cause had prompted the strange retreat of the enemy, it was evident that the same cause was now operating to take all heart out of their defence. The only thing that gave us pause was the attitude of the Frenchmen in the redoubt, whose spirit communicated itself to the troops in their immediate neighbourhood. While things were in this doubtful posture, I happened to glance round to see what had become of the cavalry division repulsed by Captain Grant. To my surprise I saw them retiring slowly in an opposite direction to the Nabob’s camp.

Instantly I grasped the situation.

“Colonel,” I whispered hurriedly, “don’t you see that that must be Meer Jaffier’s division!”

Mr. Clive turned and stared for a moment in the direction I pointed in.

“You are right,” he responded. “Meer Jaffier, of course! Well, since he has put off his assistance so long, he shall see how little we needed it!”

A thrill of fresh energy seemed to sweep through him as he began issuing his orders for the final charge. Two columns were told off, one to clear a small eminence to the right, the other to attack the French in their redoubt, while the main body was directed to follow up in a grand attack on the whole camp. By my special request I was allowed to join the column marching against the Frenchmen. We made a dash forward – once, twice, thrice the Frenchmen fired at us as we came on, then we saw them drop their linstocks and run, and in another five minutes it was all over. The entire English force was over the ramparts together, the army which had marched out so gallantly against us that morning was suddenly become a mere herd, a wretched mob of fugitives crushing one another in their eagerness to escape from us, and we picked our way amid the plunder of Surajah Dowlah’s rich pavilion, victors of Plassy, masters and law-givers of Indostan!

CHAPTER XX

RETRIBUTION

Although, judged by the standard of such great battles as the King of Prussia’s, or the famous victories won by Marlborough over the French, this affair of Plassy may seem to be but a trifling skirmish, yet the country whose fate was decided upon that field, namely the Subahdarship of Bengal, Orissa, and Behar, is equal in magnitude to the whole of King Frederic’s dominions. In fact the blow struck that day resounded throughout the entire East Indies, procuring for the English an authority in every Court of Indostan, and for Mr. Clive the rank of Omrah, with many rich presents, from the Great Mogul himself.

For eight miles we kept up the pursuit of the flying Moors, and only rested from sheer weariness. The next morning Meer Jaffier rode into our camp at Daudpore, ill at ease. But Colonel Clive received him with friendship, and caused him to be saluted as the Nabob of Bengal. From him we learned the particulars of what had taken place on the previous day in Surajah Dowlah’s camp.

The night before the battle the young Nabob had some suspicions that there was treachery going on round him. When the next morning he saw his army halting at a distance from the English lines, and refusing to come to close quarters, his suspicions were confirmed. One of his generals on whom he most relied was slain soon after the artillery combat commenced, and this further terrified him. Without quitting his tent he sent for Meer Jaffier, whose division was posted on the extreme right, and implored him to save the day. He even took off his turban, than which there can be no greater humiliation for an Oriental, and cast it at his uncle’s feet, bidding him defend it. Meer Jaffier left the tent, and at once despatched a message of encouragement to Colonel Clive, which, however, never reached him. Shortly afterwards the unhappy Surajah Dowlah, vanquished by his own fears, or, it may be, by the stings of his remorseful conscience, mounted a swift camel and fled, and this was the signal for that general movement of retreat which had given us the victory.

After Colonel Clive and the new Nabob had discussed the situation for a short time, it was agreed between them that Meer Jaffier should proceed at once with his force to the capital to check any attempt at rallying on the part of Surajah Dowlah. Colonel Clive, with the English army, was to follow more slowly.

The moment I heard of these arrangements, I asked the Colonel for permission to go forward in advance.

“Why, what do you desire to do?” he asked.

I showed him the written authority I had received from Meer Jaffier, and then, in as few words as possible, told him the story of Rupert and Marian, and of my resolution to deliver or avenge them.

“Go, my boy,” he said when I had finished. “I will give you an order in my own name, as well as that you have from the Meer Jaffier; and God grant you may be in time to save your cousin and your sweetheart from the fury of that young tiger we have driven into his lair.”

It was late at night that I came for the last time, riding on an elephant, into the city of Moorshedabad. Through the crowded streets I urged my way, escorted by a handful of Meer Jaffier’s horsemen, and seeing on every hand the tokens of the anarchy which had followed upon the news of Plassy. The people were abroad, lights gleamed in every direction, men ran hither and thither, and doors stood open with no one to guard the entrance.

As we drew near to the palace of the Nabob the confusion increased. From the shouts of the crowd in answer to our questions we gathered that Surajah Dowlah had entered the city secretly after his flight from the field of battle, that he had called his parasites around him, that there had been rumours of another levy and another battle, that his heart had again failed him, that he was expected to fly once more, that he might at that very moment be making his escape before the approach of his successor.

As the palace came into view it was evident that if Surajah Dowlah were not already gone, his presence had ceased to act as a restraint on his former servants. The courtyard was crammed with a struggling throng of palace menials and robbers out of the streets, all engaged in the work of plunder. Some were staggering down the steps, entangled in the folds of brocades and sumptuous shawls, others bore tulwars and scymetars encrusted with gems, some were stripping the gold off robes, others picking rubies and sapphires out of their sockets with the points of daggers, and secreting them about their persons. The ground was strewn with plunder thrown away in favour of something more valuable, rich vessels of green jade lay broken in one place, and silken garments were trodden underfoot in another. And all this was merely the loot of the outer rooms of the palace, for the treasury was not yet touched.

At our approach the work ceased. The rioters began to escape, and the eunuchs and soldiers belonging to the palace shrank back to their quarters. Leaving Meer Jaffier’s officer to deal with them, I dismounted from my elephant and pressed my way through into the deserted palace, taking with me only two men as a protection. I did not stay to explore the empty halls and dismantled chambers, but hurried as fast as I could go into the garden, and on to the well-remembered summer-house where I had caught my last glimpse of Marian on that night a year ago. I ran up to the door at which we had knocked the same night. It was standing open. I darted through, ran into each room, climbed the stair, and searched every nook and cranny above. Not a trace of her I sought was there.

Without lingering a moment I went on and explored the other buildings in the garden. In some of them I found frightened women, left alone, and expecting that I had come to slay them. But from none could I hear anything of the English captive. Here and there a frightened eunuch, dragged cowering from his hiding-place, recalled Marian’s presence a year before, but could or would tell me nothing of her fate. I raved and stormed through the seraglio like one possessed, but it was all in vain.

I turned back to the main building, by this time in the hands of the new Nabob’s servants, who were restoring it to some sort of order. They told me that Surajah Dowlah had got away an hour previously, having let himself down by a rope from a lattice into a boat on the river, with only two attendants. When I showed them the papers I had received from their master and also from Colonel Clive, they offered me every assistance, and even joined in the search. During several hours we ransacked every part of the palace, but found no signs of either of the English prisoners. The principal eunuchs were called and questioned. At first they declined to speak, but when one of the Moors with me threatened them with torture they became more communicative, and finally one of them asked if we had gone down into the secret dungeons.

This hint sent a cold shiver through my veins. I bade the eunuch lead the way, and he conducted us through a secret door, down a narrow winding stair into a horrible basement, constructed under the bed of the Ganges, where no light could come by day or night, except that brought by the torches of the gaolers. The place was like a maze, with branching passages and cells, almost every one of which held some victim of Oriental tyranny. But I had neither eyes nor thoughts for what was around me, as we hurried down passage after passage and opened door after door in the search for those two whom I had come to save. Finally the eunuch stopped at a certain door at the very end of the darkest passage we had yet traversed. It was opened, and I looked in.

I could not at first believe that what I beheld was a human being. Stretched out on the damp soil of the den lay a miserable, shrunken object, a thing like a skeleton wrapped in parchment, with the faint outlines of a man. On our entrance it moved and just raised its head.

“What do you want?” it asked in Indostanee. And then in English it breathed, “Is this the end?”

It was the voice of my cousin Rupert!

With a cry, I was on my knees by his side, lifting his woeful head in my arms.

“Rupert! Look! It is your cousin Athelstane!”

He moved slowly and sat up. Then a shudder went through his attenuated frame.

“Don’t you see what they have done to me?” he groaned. “The devils have put out my eyes!”

And the devils had. Rupert Gurney, the bold, handsome, careless, wicked, swaggering Rupert, whom I had loved and feared and hated all my life, would never be bold nor handsome nor swaggering any more, and I should never need to fear or hate him again. His wickedness had been rewarded; his crimes had met a heavier retribution than any I had ever thought to inflict. He had fallen into the hands of one compared to whom he had been but a beginner in iniquity; one fit of Surajah Dowlah’s cruel frenzy had struck upon him, and had left him branded for life.

Of Marian’s fate he knew nothing. As soon as I had given directions to have him carried up out of the dungeon I renewed my search for her with a heart ready to burst at the thought of what I might find.

When we did find her I was almost relieved. After the frightful apprehensions I had entertained, it seemed to be good fortune that she should be merely wasted away, without any outward disfigurement of that face that had been my beacon in dreams and raptures for those vain years. In my own arms I bore her out of that doleful place and up into the open air, through the palace now swarming with the stir and bustle of the newly arrived Nabob’s Court, into the garden where the day was breaking and the birds were beginning to sing, and laid her down, at her own desire, on a bed in that very summer-house where I had tried – ah, why had I failed? – to rescue her on the night that seemed so long ago.

There for two days I never left her. Some of the eunuchs first, and afterwards some Indian women, came and waited on us, and brought us all the food we needed – and that was not much for either of us. She lay still, saying little, and sometimes holding my hand while she slept, and then waking up to shed tears upon it, and to murmur the gratitude which I had done so little to deserve. On the second day I had Rupert brought to her. He was better by this time, though still very weak, and just able to walk across the room with his arm resting in mine. I guided him to a seat beside her, and placed their hands in one another’s, and then I came out quickly. I left them together; for if I had loved Marian, he had loved her too, and if my love for her had been the stronger, so had been hers for him. And I could not feel jealousy any longer now that Marian was dying.

For this was the end of it all, the end of my stormy love and rivalry and my adventures in the Indian realms. Marian, the beautiful Marian, the woman whose fascination had led me so far, and involved me among such strange events in such unwonted scenes, was dying. I had come too late to save her, and all I had done or attempted for her sake had been in vain. And when I knew this, when I looked back over those three troubled years and saw the outcome, there came borne in upon my mind a great resignation; I beheld myself as if I had been another person, and the folly and wickedness that was in my heart stood revealed to me as they had never been even in those dreadful hours in the Calcutta dungeon, when I sank down, as I believed, to die. Standing beside that bedside of the woman I had loved and sinned for, watching the grey stain of mortality creep out upon those glorious features, the world and all its prizes and possessions became to me a mockery, and all that remained to comfort me was the memory of words I had read in that old Book at home: there, in that heathen palace, surrounded by the temples and trophies of false gods, was vouchsafed to me the light which I had refused to receive when I dwelt among Christians in a Christian land, and the Divine mercy which had followed me through so many wanderings overtook me at the last.

On the morning of the third day one of the Indian servants who waited upon us took me aside and whispered something in my ear – something which made my heart beat fiercely and sent a tingle through my veins.

I left the summer-house and took my way into the palace. Through the stately halls and along the marble pavements, amid the servile crowd that swarmed to pay homage to Meer Jaffier, I passed, and on till I came to that hideous stair up which I had brought two of Surajah Dowlah’s victims such a short time before. On the way I gathered something of what had taken place.

One of Surajah Dowlah’s former subjects, a man whose ears the young Nabob had barbarously cut off for some offence, had recognised him in his flight, and had betrayed him to the agents of his successor. He was brought back in chains to Moorshedabad and carried before Meer Jaffier, at whose feet he flung himself, sobbing, and beseeching that his miserable life might be spared. Meer Jaffier, partly moved by his entreaties, partly restrained by regard for Colonel Clive, had shown a wish to spare him. But in Meer Jaffier’s son, young Meeram, the fallen tyrant had found a spirit as ferocious and ungovernable as his own. This boy – for he was scarcely sixteen – thirsted for his cousin’s blood, and even attempted to stab him in Meer Jaffier’s presence. Meer Jaffier, afraid of his son, had ordered the prisoner to be removed into the dungeons under a guard, and this was done. But the fury of Meeram was not to be appeased. In the dark hours of the night, unknown to his father, he had descended into the dungeon, bribed or overawed the guards, and —

They threw open the door. They held up their torches over a dark object lying on the ground. There, with a dozen red rents in the bosom of his tunic, with blood thickly soaked into the dye of his silk robe, with blood caked upon the rubies and emeralds in his turban, I saw Surajah Dowlah, dead!

For some minutes I stood still in the presence of this impressive retribution, recalling the brief but terrible career which had thus tragically ended. There lay the cruellest despot of his age, the practitioner of horrible debaucheries, the sworn enemy of the English name, who had driven us out of Bengal, and perpetrated the never-to-be-forgotten massacre in which I had been so nearly included. I was but newly come out of the presence of two of his victims, and here I beheld him cut off from light more surely than the man he had blinded, dead while the woman he had murdered still breathed. I gazed, and was satisfied. The evil desires of vengeance which had tormented me for so long were utterly extinguished. I beheld before me the justice of high Heaven, and I came away, not exulting, but awed and subdued.

I returned to Marian’s bedside, and from that time I did not leave her till the end. Occasionally she would talk to me in a low, sweet voice, calling back memories of the old town of Yarmouth and the pleasant scenes of her youth. Once she spoke to me of myself.

“I have treated you very ill, Athelstane. I knew that I could never repay you for your love, but it made me proud to have it; I liked to count upon your devotion to me, and I deceived and tempted you.”

I tried to protest, but she would have it so.

“I have been wrong in everything I did to you,” she said. “I ought never to have treated you as a friend, but as a stranger. Then you would have grown out of your foolish passion, and have forgotten me; for, believe me, Athelstane, I was not fit for you, nor you for me. Beneath your hot temper and adventurous spirit, in which you resemble your cousin, you are a very different nature. You are a Puritan at bottom, and your conscience will not let you rest except in sober, honest ways of life. It is better that you should take a wife from among your own people, one whose nature is in accord with what is deepest and best in you, and not with what is worst. Forgive me, Athelstane, and forget me, as one that crossed your life by an evil chance and wrought you only harm.”

But that, as I told her with tears, I never could do, nor would believe. And even now, when I look back across the years with calmer vision and a wiser judgment, I am still glad that I knew and loved Marian Rising, and never wish to root the memory of that wild romance out of my heart.

She spoke to me also of my cousin Rupert, saying that she had long ago forgiven – indeed, I think she never was really able to resent – his wrongs done towards her, and asking me to do the same. I assured her that I had long ago buried all remains of ill-will between us, and I promised her that I would take him back to England with me, and endeavour to make his peace with his father at Lynn.