Page:Chandra Shekhar.djvu/120



Ramcharan had alighted from the boat with Shaibalini and quitted with her, and Pratap too had left, the Telinga sepoy, who had been sitting on the top of the boat, with his hands benumbed at Pratap's strike, stealthily alighted from the boat and got upon the bank of the river. He then followed the track which formed the route of Shaibalini's palanquin. He kept an eye on the palanquin from at a great distance, and began to follow it unnoticed. The sepoy was a Mahomedan by race. His name was Bakaulla Khan. The first batch of soldiers, that came to Bengal with Clive, was recruited in Madras, and for that reason, in those days, all the native soldiers of the English, in Bengal, were styled as Telingas. At the time of this story, many up-country Hindus and Mahomedans were taken into the English army. Bakaullah was an inhabitant of a place in the neighbourhood of Gazipur.