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SAIYID LASIIKAR's INTRIGUES AGAINST BUSSY. 371 them to the machinations of intriguers. To leave the chap. force in his hand, even had Bussy possessed, as he sup- t VIII< posed, a devoted friend in Saiyid Lashkar, was indeed 1753, a risk : to leave it with him, when that Diwan was his determined though secret foe, was to expose it to almost inevitable disgrace. Fortunate was it for Bussy, that in the state of weakness to which his malady had reduced him he never once suspected the secret object to which all the machinations of Saiyid Lashkar were directed. It is scarcely too much to suppose that the shock of such a discovery and the endeavour to counter- act its effects would have been fatal to him, But, though not suspecting it, the prospect of his departure caused him terrible uneasiness. But there was no help for it, he must have rest and change and relaxation or he must die. With a heavy heart, then, he set out, leaving his place to Goupil, his counsels to the Subadar and Saiyid Lashkar, and promising to all a speedy re- turn, little imagining the form and fashion which that return would take. No sooner had the Subadar reached Haidarabad after his departure, than the Diwan commenced the secret machinations, by means of which he hoped to effect a permanent breach between the Subadar and the French, to rid the country, in a word, of the latter. In this course the weakness and indecision of Goupil came greatly to his aid. We have before adverted to to the strict discipline which, from the time of his arrival at Aurangabad, Bussy had introduced into his army, and we have pointed out how the exact and rigorous order which he enforced had contributed to the confidence of the people, even to their affection for their European allies. General as such feelings were among the population, they were far more deeply im- planted in the breast of the Subadar himself. Salabat Jang had not been a careless spectator of the fate of his relatives. The fact that his own brother, Nasir BB 2