Page:History of the French in India.djvu/556

 530 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. D xn P d eser ters. Lally, who was still in his night-dress, went, on hearing of their approach, to the door of the pagoda, 1 758. but they had no sooner come up, than their leader, instead of making his submission, struck at Lally with his sabre. The French general warded off the blow with a stick, but it was about to be repeated, when the Jamadar was shot dead by one of Lally's followers. The conspirators then made successive charges on the French guard, which had turned out on witnessing these events, but they were each time repulsed, twenty-eight of their number being killed. Disheartened by this loss, the remainder en- deavoured to escape, but galloping by mistake into a tank, they were destroyed to a man. The general attack made on the other part of the camp was, as we have said, easily repulsed. That night Lally broke up from before Tanjur, having subsisted for two months on the country. Of specie, his great want, he had succeeded in wringing from the raja but little. The three pieces of heavy cannon which had constituted his siege battery he spiked, breaking up their carnages for want of cattle to drag them. He then marched in two columns, the baggage and carriage for the sick being in the interval between them, two pieces of artillery preceding and two being in rear of the force. The retreat was executed in the finest order. Lally left nothing behind him but the three spiked guns. Unfor- tunately, however, hunger was the constant attendant of his camp. He had exhausted all his supplies, and the Tanjurian cavalry effectually prevented him from gaining any from the country. Arriving at his first halting-place, after marching from midnight till nine o'clock in the morning, he could serve out to his soldiers nothing but water. Hungry and faint, they marched on to Trivalur, twenty-four miles, where provisions had been sent for them from Karikal. From this place the enemy, abandoning the pursuit, returned to Tanjur ; from here, too, Count d'Estaing was sent to Pondichery to endeavour