Ten o'clock came, but no messenger from the fort. A little time was given, and the shelling-batteries did not re-commence till nearly eleven o'clock; but when they did the top of the hill became one entire mass of smoke and fire, and thus it continued till the afternoon, when a messenger at length made his appearance, and informed the general that the keeledar would be down immediately to ratify the treaty and give up the fort. For this purpose the shelling was again stopped, and at about two o'clock the keeledar began to descend in a palanquin, with three or four followers. All the general and staff-officers in camp were directed to assemble for the purpose of meeting this rebellious chief. General Doveton's tent was the place of rendezvous. On the way to this tent the people appointed to escort the keeledar took him through our park of artillery, where there were some fifty guns, besides those then in use. This keeledar was a most unseemly-looking man; a great fat buffalo of a fellow, with enormous flitches of fat hanging over his hips. He was also excessively dirty in his person and dress, and looked as if he had just been turned out of an oil-shop. He entered the tent with all the impudence of a nawab, chewing paun, and as though he was fully prepared to receive a welcome greeting. In this he was disappointed. He was desired to be seated, but his reception was cool and distant, and the knitted brow of Major-General Sir John Malcolm, the political agent for the government, portended no very flattering entertainment. When the whole were seated, Sir John broke silence, by stating "that the British army had no time to lose in unnecessary parley, and that, therefore, any argument of his would be waste of words, and unavailing, as nothing would suffice but the unconditional surrender of the fort to the troops of his government, and that he should, in his person, answer to his master, Scindia, for his rebellion and disloyalty." Here the fat keeledar began to gather himself up into speaking order, and at last mumbled out, that he was surprised that a person so well conversant with the Eastern customs and usages of war should propose such a thing as laying down their arms, as Sir John must know, that a rajah-poot would sooner suffer ten thousand deaths than be deprived of his arms. He concluded by protesting that for him to attempt to enforce such a thing would be endangering his own life. Sir John replied that he did well know the customs of the country and the characters of rajah-poot soldiers; but the keeledar must keep in view that these were terms offered to rebels, whose heads were the just forfeit of their disobedience and rebellion, and that, therefore, if they persisted in their rebellion, he should not advise the government to mitigate the penalty a single jot, but to hang every one of them. This was pronounced with some degree of displeasure, and the man of fat, not doubting in the