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