position of the person represented in the picture could pass in
India for a Mahratta chief. The artist declared he did not care for
people in India: he required the picture for the people of England. So
he carried it off to the engraver, and in the next issue of _The
Illustrated London News_ the picture of Ajoodia Pershad, the
commissariat contractor, appeared as that of the Nana Sahib. When those
in India who had known the Nana saw it, they declared it had no
resemblance to him whatever, and those who had seen Ajoodia Pershad
declared that the Nana was very like Ajoodia Pershad. But no one could
understand how the Nana could ever have allowed himself to be painted in
the dress of a Marwaree banker. To the day of his death John Lang was in
mortal fear lest Ajoodia Pershad should ever come to hear how his
picture had been allowed to figure as that of the arch-assassin of the
Indian Mutiny.

So much for the Nana's picture. By Christmas Day, 1857, we had recovered
all the gold and silver plate of the ex-Peishwa and the thirty _lakhs_
of treasure from the well in Bithoor, and on the morning of the 27th we
marched for the recapture of Futtehghur, which was held by a strong
force under the Nawab of Furruckabad. But I must leave the re-occupation
of Futtehghur for another chapter.

NOTE

Jotee Pershad was the native banker who, during the height
of the Mutiny, victualled the Fort of Agra and saved the
credit, if not the lives, of the members of the Government
of the North-West Provinces.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Now Lieutenant-General Sir Hugh Gough, V.C., K.C.B.

[30] "Red and Blue "--the Army and Navy. The tune is _The British
Grenadiers_.

[31] A _lakh_ is 100,000, so that, at the exchange of the day, the
amount of cash captured was L306,250.

[32] One _pie_ is half a farthing.

[33] Pigs.

CHAPTER IX

HODSON OF HODSON'S HORSE--ACTION AT THE KALEE NUDDEE--FUTTEHGHUR

As a further proof that the British star was now in the ascendant,
before we had been many days in Bithoor each company had got its full
complement of native establishment, such as cooks, water-carriers,
washer-men, etc. We left Bithoor on the 27th of December _en route_ for
Futtehghur, and on the 28th we made a forced march of twenty-five miles,
joining the Commander-in-Chief on the 29th. Early on the 30th we reached
a place named Meerun-ke-serai, and our tents had barely been pitched
when word went through the camp