RETRIBUTION.
After that great battle of Cawnpore, the baffled Nana fled. He
understood that his dream had come true, and his very hair stood erect
with fear. But he was a coward--a treacherous, sneaking cur, who
feared to die; and he dare not seek the common native mode of avoiding
disgrace, and kill himself. He fled towards Bhitoor, attended by half a
dozen of his guards.
As he galloped through the streets of Cawnpore, his horse flecked with
foam, and he himself stained with perspiration and dust, he was met by
a band of criers, who were clashing cymbals, and proclaiming, by order
of Azimoolah, that the Feringhees had been exterminated.
As Dundoo heard this, it sounded like a horrid mockery, for he knew how
false it was. He knew now that if all the hosts of swarming India had
been gathered in one mighty army, they would still have been powerless
to exterminate the Feringhees.
He felt that his power was destroyed. Failure, defeat, ruin, had
followed with rapid strides on the glittering pageant which had marked
his restoration to the Peishwahship. Deserted by his followers, his
wealth gone, he was but a flying outcast. His one thought was to get
away from the pursuing Englishmen. His terror-stricken mind pictured a
vast band of avengers on his track.
He reached his Palace. Its splendour had gone, his very menials
reproached him for his failure. As he entered the magnificent “Room of
Light,” he was met by Azimoolah.
The Sybaritic knave had been luxuriating amidst all the wealth and
splendour of this gorgeous apartment, while the Nana’s army was being
hacked to pieces by the avenging Feringhees.
As the fear-stricken fugitive entered, the mechanical birds were
warbling their cheerful notes, and a large Swiss musical-box was
playing, with the accompaniment of drums and bells, “See the Conquering
Hero comes.” It was the very irony of fate. It seemed as if it had been
done purposely to mock him.
He strode over to the magnificently carved table upon which the box
stood, and, drawing his tulwar, dealt the instrument a terrific blow,
that almost severed it in halves; then he sank on to a couch, and
burying his face in his hands, rocked himself, and moaned.
“Your Highness is troubled,” Azimoolah remarked softly, his composure
not in the least disturbed by the Nana’s display of fury. “Why should
you give way like this?” he continued, as he received no reply to his
first remark. “Despair is unworthy of a prince. All is not yet lost.
Rouse yourself, show a dauntless mien, and we will yet beat these
English back.”
The Nana started from the couch, his face livid with passion, so that
Azimoolah shrank back in alarm, for cruel natures are always cowardly,
and it was coward matched to coward.
“Curse you for mocking me!” the Nana cried, raising both his hands
above his head. “Curse you for luring me to destruction! May you rot
living! May you wander a nameless outcast--without shelter, without
home, fearing every bush, trembling at every rustle of a leaf, and with
every man’s hand against your life. If I had not listened to you I
should not have fallen. Curse you again! May every hope of Paradise be
shut out for you.”
He fell into his seat again, overpowered by the exertion this outburst
had caused him.
Azimoolah was a little disconcerted, but he tried not to show it.
With one hand on the handle of a jewelled dagger, that was hidden
in the folds of his dress, and his other hand playing with a lace
handkerchief, he crossed quietly to where the Nana was seated, and said
with withering sarcasm--
“Your Highness is a little out of sorts, and my presence is not
required; but I may be permitted to remind your Highness that ‘curses,
like chickens, return to roost.’”
With a smile of scorn upon his lips he passed out of the room, and the
fallen Mahratta was alone.
In a little time, instincts of self-preservation caused the Nana to
start up, and resolve upon some plan of escape. He knew what would be
expected from him by his people. Having been defeated, he must retrieve
his honour by dying; but, as before stated, he was too great a coward
for that. He was wily enough, however, to see that it offered him means
of escape. There were two or three of his followers that he could yet
depend upon, and these he summoned to his presence, and made known a
plan that suggested itself to him.
This plan was, that it was to be given out that he was preparing
himself for self-immolation. He was to consign himself to the sacred
waters of the Ganges. There was to be a signal displayed in the
darkness of the night, at the precise moment when he took his suicidal
immersion. This signal was to be a red light hoisted at a given spot.
Soon the news was spread far and wide, taken up by thousands of
tongues, and carried through the bazaars and the city, for miles
around, that Nana Sahib was going to kill himself; and some of the
Brahmin priests, who were still true to his cause, went through
religious ceremonies, in which they prayed for the immortal welfare of
the erstwhile Prince.
But he had no thought of dying. As darkness closed in he gathered the
women of his household together, and hurried to the Ganges. There a
small boat was waiting him. In this he embarked, and ascended towards
Futtehgurh, and at a favourable spot emerged on the Oude side of the
river and fled; perhaps with the voice of the Furies--who are said to
avenge foul crimes--ringing in his ears.
At the moment that he disembarked, the red light was hoisted. Thousands
of eyes had been watching for it; but no prayer floated upward for
the man who was supposed to have drowned himself. Those eyes had been
watching for another purpose, and when the red light appeared, a
howling crew rushed towards the Bhitoor Palace. In a little time its
magnificent halls and rooms were swarming with the rabble, who fought
and killed each other for possession of the valuables. Everything was
plundered. Not a yard of carpet, not a single curtain was left; even
the marble pavement was torn up. And when the morning came, the Bhitoor
Palace was a wreck inside.
As the sun rose, a large number of English soldiers were sent down from
the cantonment to Bhitoor to search for the Nana. But they were too
late--the bird had fled. They found nothing but the bare building. Some
guns were brought up, and the muzzles turned towards the walls. The
building was battered down. The Palace was entirely destroyed, and ere
the sun set again, the last home of the Peishwah was a ruin.[6]
FOOTNOTE:
[6] It is needless perhaps to remind the reader that Nana Sahib, the
Tiger of Cawnpore, was never captured, nor is it known how he met his
end. It is supposed that he fled into the vast and miasmatic jungle,
known as the Terai, where, deserted by his followers, broken-hearted
and despised, he died a miserable death.