Page:Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan.djvu/201

Rh The Sultán, now in despair, again attempted to open negotiations, and on the 28th wrote intimating his wish to send ambassadors to confer with the English general. He was told in reply that the allies would only treat on the basis of the conditions already forwarded to him, and that no envoys would be received unless accompanied by the hostages and specie required. This was the end of Tipú's abortive attempts to avert the ruin which was about to befall him.

On May 2, all the batteries having been completed were unmasked. They opened a heavy fire on the western curtain of the fort, about sixty yards south-east of the bastion on the western angle, and a practicable breach having been effected on the evening of the next day, orders were issued for an assault at 1 p.m. on the 4th. Tipú, a prey to despair in the imminent peril which threatened him, condescended, in spite of his orthodox Islámism, to have recourse to the prayers and incantations of the Bráhmans whom he had hitherto invariably despised and ill-treated. But although he heaped rich gifts upon them, they were either too honest or too wise to predict a successful escape from the fate which was following him. Dressed in a light-coloured jacket, with trousers of fine chintz, a red silk sash, a rich turban, and an