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134 to have definitely settled the fortunes of the campaign. But the heart of the fierce Maráthá woman was still unquelled. On June 4th arrived the startling news that the Rání and Tántia Topi had combined their shattered armies, had threatened Gwalior's capital — that Sindhia, marching to oppose them, had been deserted by his army and had fled to Agra, and that the Fort of Gwalior was in the rebels' hands. It was a dying rally; for, before the third week in June had closed, Gwalior had been recovered, and Sir Robert (Lord) Napier, catching the rebel army between Agra and Gwalior, had practically annihilated it. Tántia Topi, effecting his escape, continued till the spring of the following year to elude his pursuers, a cordon of whom surrounded him on every side; but, so far as concerned co-operation with the northern mutineers, the rebellion in Rájputána and Central India had been effectually crushed. The wavering Chiefs had no longer reason for indecision. The British ascendancy was secured. This, the sixth great episode of the Mutiny, may be regarded as practically concluding it

In the autumn Lord Clyde surrounded the Oudh rebels with a cordon of concentrating armies, and gradually swept them across the frontier into Nepál. The spirit of resistance was by this time broken. The Begam of Oudh, who had been one of the chief leaders in resistance, made overtures of submission; the leading landholders followed her example; and by the close of the year nothing remained to be done