Soon the British flag was once more floating over the blood-stained city; the bagpipes and the bands filled the air with pæans of victory; the sword of Damocles had fallen. The Great White Hand had gripped the fiendish heart of the Nana, and his power was no more.
CHAPTER XXIX. 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.