Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/209

Rh to fall back rapidly into the jungle. They reached it, before Túkají's cavalry, feebly handled, could attack them. A concentrated fire of musketry sent back the horsemen more rapidly than they had advanced. A charge from Sindia's cavalry completed their overthrow. Thenceforward they took no part in the contest.

The cavalry having disappeared, de Boigne once more advanced his infantry and his guns. This time there was no mistake. The pass was so narrow that not more than three columns could act abreast. Covering these with 500 Rohilla skirimishers he crossed the wet ground and charged. But the battalions of Dudrenec did not give ground. They stood, and fought, and died at their post. But they were as one to three. The greatest number must inevitably prevail. And it happened so. After the most desperate conflict he had ever been engaged in, the troops of de Boigne stood the victors on the summit of that fatal pass! There was not a man to be pursued. The enemy's cavalry had disappeared, his infantry had died fighting; the guns had been captured!

This victory broke for a time the power of Holkar and left Mádhají undisputed master of the situation. De Boigne followed it up by marching against the Rájá of Jaipúr who had shown a disposition to take advantage of Holkar's outburst. De Boigne's movements were so rapid and his plans so well laid that the Rájá was glad to compromise by submission, based on the payment of his arrears of tribute, and an immediate sum of seventy