low from a scimitar and gave my assailant his quietus.
Bulger fought like a hero, and the very look of him, black with powder
and stained with blood, seemed to drive all the fight out of the Moors
that came his way.

"All this time the shots of the Nawab's cannon annoyed us, not to much
harm, for they were most villainously served; their fire arrows did us
more mischief, flying into the thick of the crowds of screaming women and
children. It made my heart sick to think of the poor innocent people
suffering through the weakness and incompetence and the guilty neglect of
our Council. The heat and the glare, the want of food, the uproar and
commotion--may I never see or hear the like again!

"Yesterday there was a lull in the fighting about midday. The enemy were
still outside the fort, though they had possession of all the houses
around. They showed a flag of truce, whereupon Mr. Holwell writ a letter
asking 'em for terms. But 'twas a trick to deceive us. While we were
resting, waiting the result of the parley, the Moors poured out of their
hiding places and swarmed upon the eastern gate of the fort and the
pallisadoes on the southwest. In the interval many of our common men had
fallen asleep; some, alas! were drunk, so that we had no force to resist
the invaders, who scaled the roof of the godowns on the north wall with
the aid of their bamboos and swept over into the fort.

"Most of us Europeans who were left collected in the veranda in front of
the barracks--you know, between the great gate and the southeast bastion.
Scarce a man of us but was wounded. There we were unmolested, for the
enemy, as soon as they burst into our private rooms, made busy with their
spoil; and, as it appeared, the Nawab had given orders that we were to be
spared.

"At five o'clock he came into the fort in a gay litter and held a durbar
in our Council room, Mir Jafar salaaming before him and making fulsome
compliments on his great victory. Then the wretch sent for Mr. Holwell.
We bade him farewell; sure we thought we should never see him more. But
he returned to us presently, and told us the Nawab was vastly enraged at
the smallness of the treasure he had found; the stories of the French had
led him to expect untold wealth. Omichand and Krishna Das had been took
out of prison, and treated with great affability, and presented by the
Nawab with siropas--robes of honor, a precious token of his favor. But
the Nawab. Mr. Holwell told us, had prom