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"You see, Dick, no one knows, or has indeed the faintest idea, what prisoners Tippoo still has in his hands. We do not know how many have been murdered during the years Tippoo has reigned. Men who have escaped have, from time to time, brought down news of murders in the places where they had been confined, but they have known little of what has happened elsewhere.
"It is awful!" he exclaimed, with tears running down his cheeks; "and to be able to do nothing! What must Father have gone through! I think, Surajah, that if we were to come upon Tippoo I should go for him, even if he were surrounded by guards. Of course it would cost me my life. If I could kill him, I think I should not mind it.
"There are, too, considerable bodies of French troops in the pay of the Nizam, and these would, at any rate, force their master to remain neutral in a struggle between the English and Tippoo. "However, it will be quite unnecessary that you should resume our garb, or that Dick should dress in the same fashion.
In the end of 1782, Hyder Ali died; his son, Tippoo Sahib, assuming the title of Sultan, continued the war, with the same fierceness, but without the assistance of the French, who were withdrawn, in consequence of the peace that had been concluded at home.
Even at this moment, Tippoo may have fifty thousand men gathered on the crest of the hills, ready to pour down tomorrow through one of the passes; and therefore, as I do not think you would be running any great danger, I consent to your going with Surajah on a scouting expedition, on foot, among the hills. As you say, you must, of course, disguise yourselves as peasants.
Great barbarities were inflicted in order to secure these treasures; but the robbers were successful, and immense sums flowed into the treasury of the company. By these iniquities, the governor found means to conduct the war in the Carnatic successfully, and a treaty was concluded with Tippoo, the son of Hyder Ali, by which the company reigned without a rival on the great Indian peninsula.
In November he sent the Sultan a friendly letter, pointing out that he could look for no efficient aid from France, and that any auxiliaries who might possibly join him would only introduce the principles of anarchy, and the hatred of all religion, that animated the whole French nation; that his alliance with them was really equivalent to a declaration of war against England; and, as he was unwilling to believe that Tippoo was actuated by unfriendly feelings, or desired to break the engagements of the treaty entered into with him, he offered to send an officer to Mysore to discuss any points upon which variance might have arisen, and to arrange a scheme that would be satisfactory to them both.
He had frittered away, without striking a single blow, the finest army that the British had, up to that time, ever put into the field in India; and had enabled Tippoo, unmolested, to spread destruction over a large extent of country.
"No; but we rather think of going the day after tomorrow. It will be better to do so before Tippoo comes back, for we might be ordered away so quickly as to have no time to make arrangements. Besides, there will be ten times as many people about, in the Palace, and more guards at the entrances when he returns. So, altogether, it will be better to go before he does so.
A despatch that reached them, by a circuitous route, explained why Tippoo had suffered them to advance so far unmolested. While the Madras army had advanced from the southeast, a Bombay force, 6,500 strong, was ascending the Western Ghauts.
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