or'ard. Show a leg, now!"

The men looked from one to another, then at the captain, who was at that
moment handing over his sword to Desmond. If Captain Barker was too badly
beaten to swear he was in poor case indeed. The crew's hesitation was but
momentary; under Toley's sad gaze they sullenly flung down their weapons
and went forward.

Only then did the captain find speech. But it was to utter a fearful
curse, ending with the name:

"Diggle."

Chapter 29: In which our hero does not win the Battle of Plassey:
but, where all do well, gains as much glory as the rest.

Leaving Mr. Toley to bring the Good Intent up to Calcutta, Desmond
hurried back in advance and remained in the town just long enough to
inform Mr. Merriman of the happy result of his adventure and to change
into his own clothes, and then returned to Chandernagore on horseback, as
he had come. He found Clive encamped two miles to the west of the fort.
No reply having reached him from Monsieur Renault, Clive had read the
declaration of war as he had threatened, and opened hostilities by an
attack on an outpost.

"You've no need to tell me you've succeeded, Burke," he said when Desmond
presented himself. "I see it in your eyes. But I've no time to hear your
story now. It must wait until we have seen the result of the day's
fighting. Not that I expect much of it in this quarter. We can't take the
place with the land force only, and I won't throw away life till the
admiral has tried the effect of his guns."

The French in Chandernagore were not well prepared to stand a determined
siege. The governor, Monsieur Renault, had none of the military genius of
a Dupleix or a Bussy. With him were only some eight hundred fighting men,
of whom perhaps half were Europeans. Instead of concentrating his defense
on the fort, he scattered his men about the town, leaving the weakest
part of his defenses, the eastern curtain, insufficiently manned.

He believed that Admiral Watson would find it impossible to bring his
biggest ships within gunshot, and fancied that by sinking some vessels at
the narrowest part of the river he would keep the whole British fleet
unemployed--a mistake that was to cost him dear.

By the night of March fourteenth Clive had driven in the outposts. The
immediate effect of this was the desertion of two thousand Moors sent to
Renault's assistance by Nandkumar the faujdar of Hugli. A continuous
bombardment was kept up until the nineteenth,