Naturally the news of such doings as this flew fast to Trichinopoly and Pondicherry, and clearly something had to be done to crush this insolent upstart before he gave any further trouble. To this end four thousand men were sent by Chunda Sahib, under his son Rajah, and by the time these reached the walls of the old fort they had been increased by reinforcements to ten thousand, and had, moreover, been joined by a detachment of a hundred and fifty French soldiers whom Dupleix had dispatched in hot haste from Pondicherry. As has been said, the place they had come to attack was a half-ruined old fort, with dry ditches and hardly any defences worth serious mention, and its garrison by this time consisted only of a hundred and twenty Englishmen and two hundred Sepoys. Four of the eight officers were dead, and the commander of what looked very like a forlorn hope was an ex-quill-driver twenty-five years old. And yet for fifty days and nights the besiegers hurled themselves in vain against the rotten and crumbling battlements behind which that dauntless handful of half-starved men had made up their minds either to stand till help came, or to fall like the heroes that they were. The confidence and affection which the gallant young commander inspired in his men--European and native alike--during this terrible time is one of the most splendid tributes to his fame. When there was nothing left but rice to live and fight on, the very Sepoys came to him of their own will to ask that all the grain should be given to the Europeans, who wanted more nourishment than they did. As for them, they would gladly be content with the water that it was boiled in! Men like this are bad to beat, and so Rajah Sahib found in spite of all his enormous advantages. But the splendid defence of Arcot had by this time done something more than hold the French and their allies in check. One Morari Row, the chief of a body of six thousand Mahrattas--the bandit ancestors of some of the finest soldiery that now fights under the flag of Britain--had been hired to defend Mohammed Ali against his enemies, but so far, instead of helping, he had been waiting to see which way the cat would jump. His personal experience of the British had taught him that, if they were not dogs or old women, they were seemingly only fit for the bazaar and the counting-house, and certainly no worthy allies for a race of warriors. But now the gallantry of Clive and his men was ringing all through the Carnatic, and Morari swore by all his gods that, since the English really could fight after all, and were able to help themselves to such purpose, he hadn’t the slightest objection to helping them.