Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/218

34 "Ho! Anand Rao Nimbalkhur ride! Get aid of Mulhar Rao!

"Go shame his squadrons into fight—the Bhao—the Bhao is slain!"

Thereat, as when a sand-bar breaks in clotted spume and spray—

When rain of later autumn sweeps the Jumna water-head,

Before their charge from flank to flank our riven ranks gave way;

But of the waters of that flood the Jumna fords ran red.

I held by Scindia, my lord, as close as man might hold;

A Soobah of the Deccan asks no aid to guard his life;

But Holkar's Horse were flying, and our chiefest chiefs were cold,

And like a flame among us leapt the long lean Northern knife.