476 HISTORY OF INDIA. [Book III.
A.D. i:ry2. through part of the Mahratta camp, and reached the lesser pagoda. Here tliey
were challenged by the sentinels, and an.swered by firing a volley. Clive, who
was sleeping in a neighbouring choultry, started up, and, imagining that it was
his own sepoys who were firing in consequence of some alarm on the outskirts,
cuTe'B nar- hastened off to the larger pagoda for a Vjody of Europeans, and returned with
row escape.
200 of them to the choultry, when he was confirmed in his first impre.ssion by finding a large body of sepoys drawn up facing the south, from which any alarm might be supposed to have come, and firing at random. Never doul.»ting that they were his own men, he left his Europeans twenty yards in tlieir rear, and went in among them, upbraiding them for their panic. His voice betrayed him to one of the sepoys, who instantly attacked him with his sword, and wounded him in two places. Clive immediately encountered his assailant, who took to his heels and ran off for the lesser pagoda. Still unconscious of his mis- take, and enraged that he should thus have been attacked by one of his own men, he followed in pursuit, and first learned the real state of matters by being accosted by six Frenchmen. With singular presence of mind, he at once recovered from his surprise, and with gi-eat compo.sure told the Frenchmen he had come to offer them terms, at the same time bidding them look round and see how completely the pagoda was surrounded by his army. Three of the Frenchmen went back into the pagoda to acquaint their coimtr^Tnen with the offer of quarter ; the other three actually gave up their arms and followed him to the choultry, where he took the necessary steps to rid the camp of intruders, to^cii^^^" Olive's personal dangers were not yet over. The pagoda, desperately de- fended by the French and the English deserters, remained in their hands till daybreak. As the only chance of escape, a sally was attempted. It failed ; and Clive, anxious to save further bloodshed, advanced to parley. Weak with the loss of blood and fatigue, he was standing with his back towards tlie wall of the porch, and leaning in a stooping posture on the shoulders of two sergeants, when the Irish deserter, probably aware that whatever terais were made, he could have no hope of mercy, insolently advanced, and telling Clive that he woxild shoot him, fired his musket. The bullet missed him, but passed through the bodies of both the sergeants, who fell mortally wounded. The escape looks like a miracle. It was afterwai-ds discovered that, at the very commencement of the alarm, he had had another escape scarcely less wonderful. The very first volley which started him from his sleep, shattered a box under his feet, and killed a servant who was lying close to him. Three hairbreadth escapes in a single day — the midnight voUey — the sepoy's sword — and the Irish desperado's deadly aim — make it impossible to doubt that a special Providence was watching over him and reserving him for great events. The 700 sepoys who had entered the camp, managed to quit it again during the confusion, and were hastening back to the Coleroon, when the Mahrattas were obsei'ved in full pursuit. They
