Note 10 — Chapter XI · SHOWING HOW THE FLOOD CAME.

But this, alas! was not to be. Oh, my dear, how do our sins return upon us! Who does my Amelia think had entered the Nabob’s camp in the interval between Ensign Piccard’s attack and the departure of the enemy? None, my dear girl, but Juggermunt Sing, that Jemmautdar of Omy Chund’s of whose terrible and resolved behaviour I wrote you two days back. With invincible spirit this man, although covered with wounds and concealed timidly by his countrymen in some of the black houses, caused himself to be set on a horse, and being carried to Meer Jaffier the Buckshy, told him there was no need to sacrifice his men’s lives in attacking the bridge which was defended so stoutly by our people at Perrins, for that the Morattoe-ditch did not near extend round the town, and he himself could show him certain undefended passages by which he might enter our bounds on the eastward. This, then, was the secret of the enemy’s movement, which brought ’em as far as the old entrenchments at Cow Cross, where they encamped behind the Brick-kilns, their tents extending from the Bungulo[10] as far as Govinderam Metre’s garden on the Dumdumma road. Nor was this all our misfortune, for at Cow Cross bridge were posted by far the greater part of our buxerries, to the number of near a thousand, and these seeing the enemy approaching, at once joined with them, thus leaving the way into the settlement open.