Page:The Marquess of Dalhousie.djvu/80

72 But all through the summer heats of 1848 the terrier kept on barking at the tiger. Having summoned to his aid the loyal levies of the Musalman State of Baháwalpur, Edwardes won two pitched battles in June and July against immense odds; his Muhammadan Patháns breaking with yells of hatred through the Infidel Sikh battalions. The English subaltern and his native allies fairly drove Múlráj and his 4000 back, with the loss of eight guns, into Múltán.

It almost seemed as if Lord Gough was justified by the event, in his determination not to subject the British army to the sufferings and losses inseparable from a hot weather campaign. A single English subaltern had driven Múlráj out of the field. The Sikh Queen Mother, also, whose intrigues and vices acted as a perpetual ferment of disloyalty among the Sikh nobles, had been firmly, although respectfully, removed from Lahore to the distant sacred city of Benares. On the 1st of July Lord Gough reviewed with complacency his policy of deliberate inaction.

But before the summer passed he found cause to reconsider his decision. The local rising at Múltán had spread over the Punjab, and the rebellion of the Governor of Múltán had grown into a revolt of the Sikh nation. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Edwardes was urgently begging for help, on however small a scale, if only promptly rendered. 'A few heavy