Encouraged by this brilliant success Maherban resolved to proceed at the close of the season to Sherghottee to intercept another boat-load of dollars, which his spies told him was to be conveyed from Calcutta to Benares. First of all he engaged a discharged Sepoy to instruct his men in the Company's drill, and very apt scholars they proved themselves. But while this parade work was going on, one of them eloped with Heera Sing's pretty wife. The injured man straightway applied to Maherban for redress, but the chief was too busy with his preparations to attend to a merely personal affair, and probably deemed the loss of a reluctant wife no very serious matter. Heera Sing then betook himself to the other leaders, but failed to enlist their sympathy, for a man who cannot bind a wife by her affections deserves to lose her. Foiled at all points, he determined upon a large and base revenge: he gave information of Maherban's movements to the English magistrates. Suspecting no treachery, Maherban at length set out as a Hindoo prince with a noble retinue, and attended by a numerous guard of soldiers dressed in the Company's uniform. Unfortunately for him and his followers, the Dacoitee of the previous year had been carefully tracked out and the guilt lodged at the door of the real criminals. Mr. Cracroft, the magistrate of Jaunpore, was accordingly authorized to proceed to surprise his fastness with four companies of native infantry under the command of Captain Anquetil. Their march was unmolested, and in the heart of a dense unhealthy jungle--though not so experienced by the Dacoits themselves--they came upon his fort, a parallelogram sixty yards long by forty wide. It was surrounded by a ditch with an embankment within, formed of the mud there excavated. At a short distance was another colony of about five hundred able-bodied Budhuks governed by Cheyda, Maherban's brother. These united with the few who had been left at home by the latter, and opened a warm but ill-directed fire upon the troops, as they advanced with cheers to the assault. The simple works were carried at the first rush, and whatever was combustible was committed to the flames. But it was impossible to follow up the retreating Dacoits, and having inflicted this trivial injury Captain Anquetil had no alternative but to extricate his detachment from their dangerous position, and return to head-quarters. Meanwhile measures were taken by the magistrates at Jaunpore, Behar, and Benares, to intercept and arrest the gang under Maherban himself. That chief was artfully induced to leave the high road and make a pilgrimage to Gunga. Here he was given to understand that there was an informality in the payment of customs' dues, and that he must halt until the matter could be adjusted. While encamped in a mango grove he was suddenly surrounded by the police, but still imagining that his apprehension was entirely due to the supposed irregularity, his