Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/300

290 my thanks due to you; for, under Providence, I have to thank you for teaching me to love God. I feared him before I knew you, and that fear restrained me. Now I feel that, through your means, I love my Saviour and Redeemer, and try to obey because I love him.” What must have been then the condition of things before Delhi may be understood by the Doctor's statement, when he adds in this communication, that “Such is the amount of sickness which prevails, that twenty-five hundred of our men are in hospital, two hundred and forty-one of whom entered in one day. In my own regiment of five hundred men two hundred and forty-seven are lying sick! I fear that if the assault does not take place soon we shall not have men enough in health to attempt it. May God save us from a reverse before Delhi! The effect of a repulse here might be ruinous throughout the whole country.” How earnestly we prayed for the brave men in that little army who were thus suffering and fighting for us there!

Just then we had a little battle of our own to go through. On the Thursday after the receipt of this letter from Delhi, Khan Bahadur ordered his forces to assault our position. They moved up nearer to our defenses and encamped for the night, perhaps not realizing, being all “plains men,” how chilly they would feel the next morning in the cold hill air. Our Commandant saw his advantage, and very early next morning dropped down into the little valley where they were encamped, with thirty gentlemen and the twenty-five faithful Sowars, making a little body of cavalry; these, with the two hundred and fifty of our Ghoorka (hill) troops, came quietly upon them before they had unrolled themselves out of their blankets, and a fearful carnage ensued. In an hour all was over. The Sepoys fled in every direction, leaving one hundred and fourteen of their number dead, besides what wounded they managed to carry off.

After counting the enemy's dead, our men turned to ascertain their own loss, and, to their surprise and gratitude, found that they had only one man—a Sowar (native horseman)—killed, and two Ghoorkas wounded. One officer, Captain Gibbency, was slightly