19. "The news of the fall of Arcot soon reached Chunda Sahib, as he was besieging Trichinopoly. An army under the command of his son Rajah Sahib, numbering ten thousand native troops and one hundred and fifty Frenchmen, was immediately dispatched to Arcot, and proceeded to invest the fort, which seemed quite incapable of sustaining a siege. The walls were ruinous and the ditches dry. The garrison, reduced by casualties, now consisted of one hundred and fifty English soldiers and two hundred sepoys. The stock of provisions was scanty, and the commander was a youth of five and twenty, who had been bred a book-keeper. 20. "During fifty days the siege went on. During fifty days the young captain maintained the defense with a firmness, vigilance, and ability which would have done honor to the oldest marshal in Europe. The garrison began to feel the pressure of hunger. At this juncture the sepoys came to Clive, not to complain of their scanty fare, but to propose that all the grain should be given to the Europeans, who required more nourishment than the natives of Asia. The thin gruel, they said, which was strained away from the rice, would suffice for themselves. The devotion of Clive's little band equaled that of the Tenth Legion of Caesar, or of the Old Guard of Napoleon. 21. "Clive looked for succor from two sources. An attempt made by the government at Madras to relieve the place failed, but there was still hope from another quarter. A body of six thousand Mahrattas, under a chief named Morari Row, had been hired to assist Mohammed Ali; but as the French power seemed irresistible, this force bad hitherto remained inactive on the frontiers of the Carnatic. The fame of the defense of Arcot roused them from their torpor. Rajah Sahib learned that the Mahrattas were in motion. It was necessary for him to be expeditious. He first offered large bribes to Clive, and vowed that if his proposals were not accepted he would instantly storm the fort and put every man to the sword. Clive told him in reply that his father was a usurper and that his army was a rabble, and that he would do well to think twice before he sent such poltroons into a breach defended by English soldiers. 22. "Rajah Sahib determined to storm the fort. The day was well suited to a bold military enterprise. It was the great Mohammedan festival which is sacred to the memory of Hosein the son of Ali. The history of Islam contains nothing more touching than the event which gave rise to that solemnity. The mournful legend relates how the chief of the Fatimites, when all his brave followers had perished round him, drank his last draught of water and uttered his latest prayer; how the assassins carried his head in triumph, smote the lifeless lips with his staff, and how a few old men recollected with tears that they had seen those lips pressed to the lips of the prophet of God.