The 14th of November was a Mohammedan festival, and Riza Sahib determined to utilize the enthusiasm and fanatic zeal, which such an occasion always excites among the followers of the Prophet, to make his grand assault upon Arcot, and to attack at three o'clock in the morning. Every preparation was made on the preceding day, and four strong columns told off for the assault. Two of these were to attack by the breaches, the other two at the gates. Rafts were prepared to enable the party attacking by the new breach to cross the moat, while the columns advancing against the gates were to be preceded by elephants, who, with iron plates on their foreheads, were to charge and batter down the gates.
Clive's spies brought him news of the intended assault, and at midnight he learned full particulars as to the disposition of the enemy. His force was now reduced to eighty Europeans, and a hundred and twenty Sepoys. Every man was told off to his post, and then, sentries being posted to arouse them at the approach of the enemy, the little garrison lay down in their places, to get two or three hours' sleep before the expected attack.
At three o'clock, the firing of three shells from the mortars into the fort gave the signal for assault. The men leaped up and stood to their arms, full of confidence in their ability to resist the attack. Soon the shouts of the advancing columns testified to the equal confidence and ardour of the assailants.
Not a sound was heard within the walls of the fort, until the elephants advanced towards the gates. Then suddenly a stream of fire leaped out from loophole and battlement. So well directed and continuous was the fire, that the elephants, dismayed at the outburst of fire and noise, and smarting from innumerable wounds, turned and dashed away, trampling in their flight multitudes of men in the dense columns packed behind them. These, deprived of the means upon which they had relied to break in the gates, turned and retreated rapidly.
Scarcely less prolonged was the struggle at the breaches. At the first breach, a very strong force of the enemy marched resolutely forward. They were permitted, without a shot being fired at them, to cross the dry ditch, mount the shattered debris of the wall, and pour into the interior of the fort. Forward they advanced until, without a check, they reached the first trench bristling with spikes.
Then, as they paused for a moment, from the breastwork in front of them, from the ramparts, and every spot which commanded the trench, a storm of musketry was poured on them; while the gunners swept the crowded mass with grape, and bags of bullets. The effect was tremendous. Mowed down in heaps, the assailants recoiled; and then, without a moment's hesitation, turned and fled. Three times, strongly reinforced, they advanced to the attack; but were each time repulsed, with severe slaughter.
Still less successful were those at the other breach. A great raft, capable of carrying seventy, conveyed the head of the storming party across the ditch; and they had just reached the foot of the breach, when Clive, who was himself at this point, turned two field pieces upon them, with deadly effect. The raft was upset and smashed, and the column, deprived of its intended means of crossing the ditch, desisted from the attack.
Among those who had fallen, at the great breach, was the commander of the storming party; a man of great valour. Four hundred of his followers had also been killed, and Riza Sahib, utterly disheartened at his repulse at all points, decided not to renew the attack. He had still more than twenty men to each of the defenders; but the obstinacy of their resistance, and the moral effect produced by it upon his troops; the knowledge that the Mahratta horse were hovering in his rear, and that Kilpatrick's little column was close at hand; determined him to raise the siege.
After the repulse of the assault, the heavy musketry fire from the houses around the fort was continued. At two in the afternoon he asked for two hours' truce, to bury the dead. This was granted, and on its conclusion the musketry fire was resumed, and continued until two in the morning. Then suddenly, it ceased. Under cover of the fire, Riza Sahib had raised the siege, and retired with his army to Vellore.
On the morning of the 15th, Clive discovered that the enemy had disappeared. The joy of the garrison was immense. Every man felt proud, and happy in the thought that he had taken his share in a siege, which would not only be memorable in English history till the end of time, but which had literally saved India to us. The little band made the fort re-echo with their cheers, when the news came in. Caps were thrown high in the air, and the men indulged in every demonstration of delight.
Clive was not a man to lose time. The men were at once formed up, and marched into the abandoned camp of the enemy; where they found four guns, four mortars, and a great quantity of ammunition. A cloud of dust was seen approaching, and soon a mounted officer, riding forward, announced the arrival of Captain Kilpatrick's detachment.
Not a moment was lost, for Clive felt the importance of, at once, following up the blow inflicted by the repulse of the enemy. Three days were spent, in continuous labour, in putting the fort of Arcot again in a position of defence; and, leaving Kilpatrick in charge there, he marched out with two hundred Europeans, seven hundred Sepoys, and three guns, and attacked and took Timari, the little fort which before baffled him.
This done, he returned towards Arcot to await the arrival of a thousand Mahratta horse, which Murari Reo had promised him. When these arrived, however, they proved unwilling to accompany him. Upon their way, they had fallen in with a portion of Riza Sahib's retreating force, and had been worsted in the attack; and as the chance of plunder seemed small, while the prospect of hard blows was certain, the free-booting horsemen refused, absolutely, to join in the pursuit of the retreating enemy.
Just at this moment, the news came in that reinforcements from Pondicherry were marching to meet Riza Sahib at Arni, a place seventeen miles south of Arcot, twenty south of Vellore. It was stated that, with these reinforcements, a large sum of money was being brought, for the use of Riza Sahib's army. When the Mahrattas heard the news, the chance of booty at once altered their intentions, and they declared themselves ready to follow Clive. The greater portion of them, however, had dispersed, plundering over the country, and great delay was caused before they could be collected. When six hundred of them had been brought together, Clive determined to wait no longer, but started at once for Arni.
The delay enabled Riza Sahib, marching down from Vellore, to meet his reinforcements; and when Clive, after a forced march of twenty miles, approached Arni, he found the enemy, composed of three hundred French troops, two thousand five hundred Sepoys, and two thousand horsemen, with four guns, drawn up before it. Seeing their immense superiority in numbers, these advanced to the attack.
Clive determined to await them where he stood. The position was an advantageous one. He occupied a space of open ground, some three hundred yards in width. On his right flank was a village, on the left a grove of palm trees. In front of the ground he occupied were rice fields, which, it being the wet season, were very swampy, and altogether impracticable for guns. These fields were crossed by a causeway which led to the village, but as it ran at an angle across them, those advancing upon it were exposed to the fire of the English front. Clive posted the Sepoys in the village, the Mahratta horsemen in the grove, and the two hundred English, with the guns, on the ground between them.
The enemy advanced at once. His native cavalry, with some infantry, marched against the grove; while the French troops, with about fifteen hundred infantry, moved along the causeway against the village.
The fight began on the English left. There the Mahratta cavalry fought bravely. Issuing from the palm grove, they made repeated charges against the greatly superior forces of the enemy. But numbers told, and the Mahrattas, fighting fiercely, were driven back into the palm grove; where they, with difficulty, maintained themselves.
In the meantime, the fight was going on at the centre. Clive opened fire with his guns on the long column marching, almost across his front, to attack the village. The enemy, finding themselves exposed to a fire which they were powerless to answer, quitted the causeway, and formed up in the rice fields fronting the English position. The guns, protected only by a few Frenchmen and natives, remained on the causeway.
Clive now despatched two of his guns, and fifty English, to aid the hard-pressed Mahrattas in the grove; and fifty others to the village, with orders to join the Sepoys there, to dash forward on to the causeway, and charge the enemy's guns.
As the column issued from the village along the causeway, at a rapid pace, the French limbered up their guns and retired at a gallop. The infantry, dispirited at their disappearance, fell back across the rice fields; an example which their horsemen on their right, already dispirited by the loss which they were suffering, from the newly-arrived English musketry and the discharges of the field pieces, followed without delay.
Clive at once ordered a pursuit. The Mahrattas were despatched after the enemy's cavalry, while he himself, with his infantry, advanced across the causeway and pressed upon the main body. Three times the enemy made a stand, but each time failed to resist the impetuosity of the pursuers, and the night alone put a stop to the pursuit, by which time the enemy were completely routed.
The material loss had not been heavy, for but fifty French and a hundred and fifty natives were killed or wounded; but the army was broken up, the morale of the enemy completely destroyed; and it was proved to all Southern India, which was anxiously watching the struggle, that the English were, in the field of battle, superior to their European rivals. This assurance alone had an immense effect. It confirmed, in their alliance with the English, many of the chiefs whose friendship had hitherto been lukewarm; and brought over many waverers to our side.
In the fight, eight Sepoys and fifty of the Mahratta cavalry were killed or disabled. The English did not lose a single man. Many of Riza Sahib's soldiers came in, during the next few days, and enlisted in the British force. The Mahrattas captured the treasure, the prospect of which had induced them to join in the fight, and the governor of Arni agreed to hold the town for Muhammud Ali.
Clive moved on at once to Conjeveram, where thirty French troops and three hundred Sepoys occupied the temple, a very strong building. Clive brought up two eighteen-pounders from Madras, and pounded the walls; and the enemy, seeing that the place must fall, evacuated it in the night, and retired to Pondicherry. North Arcot being now completely in the power of the English, Clive returned to Madras; and then sailed to Fort Saint David, to concert measures with Mr. Saunders for the relief of Trichinopoli. This place still held out, than............