Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/433

Rh Singh, and another famous rebel, Prince Firúzsháh, recently completely defeated by Napier at Ranod.

Mán Singh did not stay with Tántiá, and the case of the latter, completely surrounded, again seemed hopeless. Attempting to creep out in a north-westerly direction, he was surprised by Showers at Dewásá, and again (January 21) by Holmes at Sikar. The surprise was so complete that the rebel force broke up, and Tántiá, 'tired of running away,' took refuge with Mán Singh in the Parón jungles. There an attempt was made by the British authorities to persuade Mán Singh to make his submission. Mán Singh not only submitted, but was induced by hopes of personal advantage to betray the hiding-place of his old comrade. At midnight, on the 7th of April, Tántiá was surprised there as he slept, taken into Síprí, brought to a court-martial, charged with having waged war against the British Government, condemned, and sentenced to be hanged. The sentence was carried out on the 18th of April.

Tántiá Topí was a marvellous guerilla warrior. In pursuit of him, Brigadier Parke had marched, consecutively, 240 miles in nine days; Brigadier Somerset, 230 in nine days, and, again, seventy miles in forty-eight hours; Colonel Holmes, through a sandy desert, fifty-four miles in little over twenty-four hours; Brigadier Honner, 145 miles in four days. Yet he slipped through them all — through enemies watching every issue of the jungles in which he lay concealed, only to fall at last through the treachery of a trusted friend. His capture, and the surrender of Mán Singh, finished the war in Central India. Thenceforth his name only survived.