Page:On the Coromandel Coast.djvu/198

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186
ON THE COROMANDEL COAST

then recovering himself, he presented his pistol deliberately at his opponent, and said, "I could kill him " (for he was a capital shot); "but the last act of my life shall not be an act of revenge." Words sufficient to redeem a life of error.'

Blakiston mentions another duel where the survivor was full of remorse. Ahmednuggar was assaulted and taken in the Mahratta war. 'Among the killed was a Captain Grant of the 78th Regiment, who, at the time of the attack, was under arrest for having been engaged in a duel with a brother officer, who fell in the encounter. The opponents had been intimate friends till the dispute which caused the fatal event. Such was the effect on Captain Grant that he became careless of life, and, although incapacitated by his situation for military duties, he courted death on the first opportunity, and was among the foremost that mounted the ladders.'

In 1781 a sergeant named Carol was buried by Pohle. Report said that he was a Roman Catholic. Being in the Company's service, however, and declared a Protestant by Major Patterson and Captain Mackenzie, Pohle, as chaplain to the troops, read the burial service over him. His conscientious mind was not altogether satisfied that he had acted correctly. He added a note to the effect that if it were subsequently discovered that the man was not a Protestant, and 'the case should be proved to our prejudice, it shall not be counted as a performance of a burial service.'

It is difficult to understand how a burial service could be read provisionally. The worthy padre was satisfied that by the insertion of the note he had secured himself from the reproach of having performed one of the offices of his church over a heretic.

To the end of his days Pohle's rendering of the English language was quaint. Although he mastered it suffi-