Meanwhile Tantia was still pressing on with all speed to westward. On the 23rd November he crossed the great highroad from Bombay to Agra, plundered some carts laden with mercantile stores for the army, cut the telegraph wires, and hurried on in the hope of recrossing the Nerbuddha unperceived. The British were quickly on his track. Major Sutherland, with a handful of 200 infantry, caught him at Rajpore, attacked him, though against odds of fifteen or twenty men to one, and put him to flight. Nevertheless, though the pursuit was resumed next morning with all possible swiftness, it was only to find that Tantia was safe across the Nerbuddha. Tantia then moved rapidly north in the hope of surprising Baroda; but the British were beforehand with him. Brigadier Parke, moving by extraordinary marches, met him at Oodeypore on the 30th of November and defeated him once more. Tantia then fled eastward into the Banswarra jungle, and the British commanders thought that they had caught him at last. He was not caught yet by any means. The next that the Seventeenth heard of him was that he was advancing on Indore, and that they must move up to Mhow with all speed. Colonel Benson left his encampment, twelve miles south of the Nerbuddha, crossed the river in boats, and was at Mhow in twenty-six hours--a march of fifty-two miles, to say nothing of the passage of the river. Tantia, however, prudently remained in the jungle; and on the 3rd December Colonel Benson, with his three squadrons of the Seventeenth, again left Mhow and marched north-westward for Ratlam, in order to meet him whenever he might issue from his hiding-place. [Sidenote: December.] A small column under Major Learmonth was detached from Ratlam, but after three days’ search discovered nothing of the enemy; [Sidenote: 1858.] and Colonels Benson and Somerset, who had united their two flying columns at Ratlam, then moved up together to Partabghur. At this point, however, a new ally for Tantia, Feroz Shah, appeared upon the scene, and Somerset’s column was detached to Ashta to cut him off. Emboldened by Feroz Shah’s diversion, Tantia finally emerged from the jungle, after a month’s wandering, at Partabghur, on Christmas day 1858. But meanwhile Colonel Benson had been moved from Partabghur; and a very weak force of native infantry alone was on the spot to stop the famous rebel. Tantia held this little force engaged for a couple of hours until his baggage and elephants were clear of the passes, and then marched quietly away. Halting for the night within six miles of Mundesoor he struck eastward, and in three days had reached Zeerapore, one hundred and ten miles as the crow flies from Partabghur.