by G. A. Henty
Here, those in front strove desperately to climb up the great mound of rubbish, while those behind covered them with a storm of bullets aimed at its summit. More than once the troops of the rajah, rushing down the embankment, drove back the struggling masses, but so heavily did they suffer from the fire, when they thus exposed themselves, that Charlie forbade them to repeat the attempt. He knew that there was safety behind, and was unwilling that his brave fellows should throw away their lives.
In the centre of the position the native troops, although they several times climbed some distance up the barricade, were yet unable to make way. But the French troops at the flanks were steadily forcing their way up. Many had climbed up by the ruins of the wall, and from its top were firing down on the defenders of the barricade. Inch by inch they won their way up the barricade, already thickly covered with dead; and then Charlie, seeing that his men were beginning to waver, gave the signal.
The long blast of a trumpet was heard even above the tremendous din. In an instant the barricades were deserted, and the defenders rushed into the houses. The partition walls between these on the lower floors had already been knocked down, and without suffering from the heavy fire which the assailants opened, as soon as they gained the crest of the barricade, the defenders retreated along these covered ways until in rear of the second line of defence.
This was held by the battalion placed there, until the whole of the defenders of the town had left it, by the gate leading up to the fort. Then Charlie withdrew this battalion also, and the town remained in the hands of the enemy; who had lost, Charlie reckoned, fully fifteen hundred men in the assault.
During the fight Tim and the faithful Hossein, now fully recovered and promoted to the rank of an officer, had remained close beside him; and were, with him, the last to leave the town.
The instant the evacuation was complete, the guns of the hill battery opened upon the town; and a tremendous fire of musketry was poured upon it from every point of the castle which commanded it; while the guns, which from their lofty elevation, could not be depressed sufficiently to bear upon the town, directed their fire upon the bodies of troops still beyond the walls. The enemy had captured the town, indeed, but its possession aided them but little in their assault upon the fort. The only advantage it gave them, would have been that it would have enabled them to attack the lower gate of the fort, protected by its outer wall from the fire of the hill battery. Charlie had, however, perceived that this would be the case, and had planted a number of mines under the wall at this point. These were exploded when the defenders of the town entered the fort, and a hundred yards of the wall were thus destroyed; leaving the space, across which the enemy must advance to the attack of the gate, exposed to the fire of the hill battery, as well as of the numerous guns of the fort bearing upon it.
Two days passed without any further operations on the part of the enemy; and then Bussy, seeing that nothing whatever could be done towards assaulting the fortress, so long as the battery remained in the hands of the besieged, determined to make a desperate effort to carry it, ignorant of its immense strength. At night, therefore, he ordered two bodies of men, each fifteen hundred strong, to mount the hillside, far to the right and left of the town; to move along at the foot of the wall of rock, and to carry the battery by storm at daybreak.
Charlie, believing that such an attempt would be made, had upon the day following the fall of the town taken his post there, and had ordered a most vigilant watch to be kept up, each night; placing sentries some hundred yards away, on either side, to give warning of the approach of an enemy.
Towards daybreak on the third morning a shot upon the left, followed a few seconds later by one on the right, told that the enemy were approaching. A minute or two afterwards the sentries ran in, climbed from the ditch by ladders which had been placed there for the purpose, and, hauling these up after them, were soon in the battery, with the news that large bodies of the enemy were approaching on either flank. Scarcely were the garrison at their posts, when the French were seen approaching. At once they broke into a run, and, gallantly led, dashed across the space of cleared rock, in spite of the heavy fire of musketry and grape.
When they came, however, to the edge of the deep gulf in the solid rock, they paused. They had had no idea of meeting with such an obstacle as this. It was easy enough to leap down, but impossible to climb up the steep face, ten feet high, in front of them; and which, in the dim light, could be plainly seen. It was, however, impossible for those in front to pause. Pressed upon by those behind, who did not know what was stopping them, large numbers were compelled to jump into the trench, where they found themselves unable either to advance or retreat.
By this time, every gun on the upper side of the castle had opened on the assailing columns, taking them in flank, while the fire of the battery was continued without a moment’s intermission. Bussy himself, who was commanding one of the columns, pushed his way through his struggling soldiers to the edge of the trench; when, seeing the impossibility of scaling the sides, unprovided as he was with scaling ladders, he gave the orders to retreat; and the columns, harassed by the flanking fire of the guns of the castle, and pursued by that of the battery, retreated, having lost some hundreds of their number; besides a hundred and fifty of their best men, prisoners in the deep trench around the battery.
These were summoned to surrender; and, resistance being impossible, they at once laid down their arms. Ladders were lowered to them, and they were marched as prisoners to the fort.
The next morning, when the defenders of the fortress looked over the valley, the great camp was gone. The nizam and Bussy, despairing of the possibility of carrying the position, at once so enormously strong by nature, and so gallantly defended, had raised the siege; which had cost them over two thousand of their best soldiers, including two hundred French killed and prisoners, and retreated to the plateau of the Deccan.
The exultation of the rajah and his troops was unbounded. They felt that, now and henceforth, they were safe from another invasion; and the rajah saw that, in the future, he should be able to gain greatly increased territory, as the ally of the English. His gratitude to Charlie was unbounded, and he literally loaded him with costly presents.
Three weeks later, a letter was received by the latter from Mr. Saunders, congratulating him upon the inestimable service which he had rendered, and appointing him to the rank of captain in the Company’s service. Now that the rajah would be able to protect himself, should any future assault be made upon him—an event most unlikely to happen, as Bussy and the nizam would be unwilling to risk a repetition of a defeat, which had already so greatly injured their prestige—he had better return to Madras, where, as Mr. Saunders said, the services of so capable an officer were greatly needed. He warned him, however, to be careful in the extreme how he made his way back, as the country was in a most disturbed state, the Mahratta bands being everywhere out plundering and burning.
Subsequent information, that the Mahrattas were swarming in the plains below, determined Charlie to accept an offer which the rajah made him; that he should, under a strong escort, cross the mountains, and make his way to a port on the west coast, in the state of a friendly rajah, where he would be able to take ship and coast round to Madras. The rajah promised to send Charlie’s horses and other presents down to Madras, when an opportunity should offer; and Charlie, accompanied by the four Sepoys, all of whom had been promoted to the rank of officers; by Tim Kelly and Hossein, who would not separate himself a moment from his side, started from Ambur, with an escort of thirty horsemen.
The rajah was quite affected at the parting; and the army, which he had formed and organized, paraded before him for the last time, and then shouted their farewell.
Charlie himself, although glad to return among his countrymen, from whom he had been nearly two years separated, was yet sorry to leave the many friends he had made. His position was now a very different one from that which he held when he left Madras. Then he was a n
ewly made lieutenant, who had distinguished himself, indeed, under Clive, but who was as yet unknown save to his commander, and who was as poor as when he had landed, eighteen months before, in India. Now he had gained a name for himself, and his successful defence of Ambur had been of immense service to the Company. He was, too, a wealthy man; for the presents in money, alone, of the rajah, had amounted to over twenty-five thousand pounds; a sum which, in these days, may appear extraordinary, but which was small to that frequently bestowed, by wealthy native princes, upon British officers who had done them a good service. Clive himself, after his short campaign, had returned to England with a far larger sum.
For several days, the party rode through the hills without incident; and on the fifth day they saw, stretched at their feet, a rich flat country dotted with villages, beyond which extended the long blue line of the sea. The distance was greater than Charlie imagined, and ’twas only after two days’ long ride that he reached Calicut, where he was received with great honor by the rajah, to whom the leader of the escort brought letters of introduction from the Rajah of Ambur.
For four days Charlie remained as his guest, and then took a passage in a large native vessel, bound for Ceylon, whence he would have no difficulty in obtaining passage to Madras.
These native ships are very high out of water, rising considerably towards the stem and stern, and in form they somewhat resemble the Chinese junk; but are without the superabundance of grotesque painting, carving, and gilding which distinguish the latter. The rajah accompanied Charlie to the shore, and a salute was fired, by his followers, in honor of the departure of the guest.
The weather was lovely, and the clumsy craft, with all sail set, was soon running down the coast. When they had sailed some hours from Calicut, from behind a headland, four vessels suddenly made their appearance. They were lower in the water, and much less clumsy in appearance than the ordinary native craft, and were propelled not only by their sails, but by a number of oars on each side.
No sooner did the captain and crew of the ship behold these vessels, than they raised a cry of terror and despair. The captain, who was part owner of the craft, ran up and down the deck like one possessed, and the sailors seemed scarcely less terrified.
“What on earth is the matter?” Charlie exclaimed. “What vessels are those, and why are you afraid of them?”
“Tulagi Angria! Tulagi Angria!” the captain cried, and the crew took up the refrain.
The name that they uttered fully accounted for their terror.
CHAPTER 15
The Pirates’ Hold
Sivagi, the founder of the Mahratta Empire, had, in 1662, seized and fortified Yijiyadrug; or, as the English call it, Gheriah, a town at the mouth of the river Kanui, one hundred and seventy miles south of Bombay; and also the island of Suwarndrug, about half way between Gheriah and Bombay. Here he established a piratical fleet. Fifty years later, Kanhagi Angria, the commander of the Mahratta fleet, broke off this connection with the successors of Sivagi, and set up as a pirate on his own account. Kanhagi not only plundered the native vessels, but boldly preyed upon the commerce of the European settlements. The ships of the East India Company, the French Company, and the Dutch were frequently captured by these pirates.
Tulagi Angria, who succeeded his father, was even bolder and more successful; and when the man-of-war brig, the Restoration, with twenty guns and two hundred men, was fitted out to attack him, he defeated and captured her. After this, he attacked and captured the French man-of-war Jupitre, with forty guns; and had even the insolence to assail an English convoy guarded by two men-of-war; the Vigilant, of sixty-four guns, and the Ruby, of fifty.
The Dutch, in 1735, sent a fleet of seven ships of war, two bomb vessels, and a strong body of troops against Gheriah. The attack was, however, repulsed with considerable loss. From that date the pirates grew bolder and bolder, and were a perfect scourge to the commerce of Western India.
Charlie Marryat had, of course, frequently heard of the doings of these noted pirates, and the cry of “Tulagi Angria” at once explained to him the terror of the master and crew.
“What is it, Mr. Charles, what on earth is the botheration about? Is it the little ships they’re afeared of?”
“Those ships belong to a pirate called Tulagi Angria,” Charlie said, “and I am very much afraid, Tim, that we are likely to see the inside of his fortress.”
“But shure, yer honor, we’re not afeared of those four little boats.”
“We are, Tim, and very much afraid, too. Each of those boats, as you call them, carries four or five times as many men as this ship. They are well armed, while we have only those two little guns, which are useless except for show. If the crew were Englishmen, we might attempt a defence, although even then the odds would be terribly against us; but with these natives, it is hopeless to think of it, and the attempt would only ensure our throats being cut.”
It was clear that the idea of resistance did never even enter the minds of the crew of the trader. Some ran to and fro, with gesticulations and cries of despair. Some threw themselves upon the deck of the vessel, tore their hair, and rolled as if in convulsions. Some sat down quietly, with the air of apathetic resignation, with which the natives of India are used to meet what they consider the inevitable.
Hossein, who, at the first alarm, had bounded to his feet with his hand on his knife, subsided into an attitude of indifference, when he saw that Charlie did not intend making any defence.
“It’s mighty lucky,” Tim said, “that yer honor left all your presents to be forwarded to Madras. I thought you were wrong, Mr. Charles, when you advised me to send them thousand rupees the rajah gave me, along with your money. A hundred pounds wasn’t a sum that Tim Kelly was likely to handle again in a hurry, and it went agin the grain with me, to part with them out of my hands. Sure and it’s well I took yer honor’s advice.”
The four Sepoy officers also exchanged a few words with Charlie. They, too, would have resisted, had he given the word, hopeless though the effort would have been. But they acquiesced, at once, in his decision. They had little to lose; but the thought of a prolonged captivity, and of being obliged, perhaps, to enter the service of the Mahratta freebooters, just when about to return to their wives and families at Madras, was a terrible blow to them.
“Keep up your spirits,” Charlie said. “It is a bad business, but we must hope for the best. If we bide our time, we may see some chance of escape. You had better lay down your arms in a pile, here. Then we will sit down quietly, and await their coming on board. They will be here in a minute, now.”
Scarcely had the seven passengers taken their seats in a group, on the poop, when the freebooters ranged alongside, and swarmed over the sides onto the deck. Beyond bestowing a few kicks upon the crew, they paid no attention whatever to them; but tore off the hatches, and at once proceeded to investigate the contents of the hold. The greater portion of this consisted of native grains, but there were several bales of merchandise, consigned by traders at Calicut for Ceylon. The cargo was, in fact, rather more valuable than that generally found in a native coaster, and the pirates were satisfied.
The leader of the party, leaving to his followers the task of examining the hold, walked towards the group on the poop. They rose at his approach.
“Who are you?” the Mahratta asked.
“I am an officer in the English Company’s service,” Charlie said, “as are these five natives. The other Englishman is a soldier, under my orders.”
“Good,” the Mahratta said, emphatically. “Tulagi Angria will be glad to have you. When your people capture any of our men, which is not often, they hang them. Tulagi is glad to have people he can hang, too.”
After being stripped of any small valuables on their persons, the captives were taken on board one of the pirate boats. A score of the Mahrattas remained in charge of the trader. Her head was turned north, and, accompanied by the four Mahratta boats, she proceeded up the coast again. Another trader was capture
d on the way, but two others evaded the pirates, by running into the port of Calicut.
The trader was a slow sailer, and they were eight days before they approached Gheriah. Early in the morning a heavy cannonade was heard in the distance, causing the greatest excitement among the Mahrattas. Every sail was hoisted, the sweeps got out and, leaving the trader to jog along in their rear, the four light craft made their way rapidly along the coast. The firing became heavier and heavier, and as it became light, three large ships could be seen, about two miles ahead, surrounded by a host of smaller craft.
“That’s a big fight, Mr. Charles,” Tim exclaimed. “It reminds me of three big bulls in a meadow, attacked by a host of little curs.”
“It does, Tim; but the curs can bite. What a fire they are keeping up. But those warships ought to thrash any number of them. Count the ports, I can see them now.”
“The biggest one,” Tim said, “has got twenty-five.”
“Yes; and the others eighteen and nine. They are two frigates, one of fifty and the other of thirty-six guns; and a sloop of eighteen. I can’t make out the colours, but I don’t think they’re English.”
“They’re not English, yer honor,” Tim said confidently, “or they would soon make an end of them varmint that’s tormenting them.”
The scene, as the boats approached, was very exciting. The three ships were pouring their broadsides, without intermission, into the pirate fleet. This consisted of vessels of all sizes, from the Jupitre and Restoration, down to large rowing galleys. Although many were sunk, and more greatly damaged by the fire of the Dutch, they swarmed round the great ships with wonderful tenacity; and, while the larger vessels fought their guns against those of the men-of-war, the smaller ones kept close to them, avoiding as much as possible their formidable broadsides, but keeping up a perpetual musketry fire at their bulwarks and tops, throwing stink pots, and shooting burning arrows through the ports; and getting alongside under the muzzles of the guns, and trying to climb up into the ports.