Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/505

 a friendly covert, and, with merely his mouth above the water, waited until they had passed; he then landed on the opposite side, and proceeded by unfrequented paths to a town in the neighbourhood, which was under the command of a friend, who, though a native, and a servant of Holkar, he thought would afford him protection. This man proved trustworthy; and, after remaining concealed some time, the Colonel ventured out in the disguise of a grass-cutter, and reaching the British outposts in safety, was joyously received by his countrymen. He was appointed to the command of a regiment of irregular horse, which he still retains; and his services in the field, at the head of these brave soldiers, have not been more advantageous to the British Government than the accurate acquaintance before-mentioned, which his long and intimate association with natives enabled him to obtain of the Asiatic character. It was to his diplomatic skill and knowledge of the best methods of treaty, that we owed the capitulation of one of those formidable hill-fortresses (Komalmair in Mewar), whose reduction by arms would have been at the expense of an immense sacrifice of human life. The Commandant of the division despatched to take possession of it, wearied out by the procrastinating and indecisive spirit of the natives, would have stormed the place at every disadvantage, had not Colonel Gardner persuaded him to entrust the negotiation to his hands. The result proved that he made a just estimate of his own powers: the garrison agreed to give up the Fortress on the payment of their arrears; and Colonel Tod, in his 'Annals of Rajast'han,' mentions the circumstance as one highly honourable to the British character, that, there not being more than four thousand rupees at the time in the English camp, an order, written by the Commandant for the remainder, upon the shroffs or bankers in the neighbourhood, was taken without the least hesitation, the natives not having the slightest doubt that it would be paid upon presentation.

"The marriage of Colonel Gardner forms one of the most singular incidents in his romantic story.

"In the midst of his hazardous career, he carried off a Mahomedān princess, the sister of one of the lesser potentates of the