The Maharaja endeavoured to conceal his movements by shifting his residence to and fro between Bithoor and the cantonments; but he was closely watched by the spies of those among his own countrymen who had reason to dread his elevation. If British authority were to perish, if the sepoys and their new ally were in power but for a single week, it would go ill indeed with all who had ever crossed the Nana in love, law, or speculation. And, especially, any who had concern in the great law-suit would do well to look to themselves, litigant, paymaster, witness, and counsel alike. As early as the twenty-sixth of May, the sharp-sighted advocate, whose diary has been already quoted, drew up an account of the embryo conspiracy, and sent it in the form of a petition to the magistrate of the Station; "Who," says Nanukchund, "gave no heed to my petition, and got so vexed with me that I cannot describe his anger. He said to me, 'You have all along been speaking ill of the Nana, and filing suits against him in the civil courts. I cannot pay attention to any representation from a person so hostile to the Nana.' I replied that those affairs had no connexion with the present question, that the Nana had long harboured enmity to the Government, and a great number of rascals belonged to his party; that he (the Magistrate) would remember my caution, and that I had obtained certain intelligence, as the men of the Nana's household communicated it to Chimna Apa, my client. The Magistrate would listen to nothing. In despair, I did nothing further than keep a copy of the petition in my book. It is a hopeless case. Let us see what will be the end of all this neglect." A dramatist of ancient Greece would have attributed such obstinate blindness to the malice of some injured deity, misleading to their bane those whom he had marked for destruction. There is a Goddess of Delusion in the eternal order of things no less than in the Æschylean mythology. The last mail had already left Cawnpore. At nine o'clock on the night of the third of June, went forth the last telegraphic message that ever reached the outer world. Thus it ran:-- "_Sir Hugh Wheeler to the Secretary to the Government of India._ "All the orders and proclamations have been sent express, as the telegraph communication between this and Agra is obstructed. "Sir Henry Lawrence having expressed some uneasiness, I have just sent him by post carriages out of my small force two officers and fifty men of Her Majesty's 84th Foot; conveyance for more not available. This leaves me weak, but I trust to holding my own until more Europeans arrive."