Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/413

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Death of the Maulaví.
377

better fortune. Sir Colin then distributed the troops, and closed the summer campaign. He had reconquered Rohilkhand, but a great part of Oudh still remained defiant.

A fortunate chance rid him, a few days later, of his most dangerous and persistent enemy. No sooner had the Maulaví realised that Sir Colin had put his troops in summer quarters than, with a small following, he attempted on the 5th of June to effect a forcible entrance into the town of Powain. The Rájá, a supporter of the British, had refused him entry, and when the Maulaví, seated on his elephant, pressed forward to force the gate, the Rájá's brother seized a gun and shot him dead. Thus ignominiously, by the hands of one of his own countrymen, terminated the life of one of the principal fomentors of the Mutiny, and its ablest and most persistent supporter.

It will be recollected that when Sir Colin, after the capture of Lakhnao, distributed his forces for the pursuit of the rebels, he despatched a strong column, under General Lugard, to Ázamgarh to dispose there of Kunwar Singh. To the proceedings of that general and of his successors I must now ask the reader's attention.

Lugard left Lakhnao on the 29th of March, and made straight for Juánpur. When approaching that place he learned that the rebels had collected a few miles off to the number of 3000. He reached Tígrá on the afternoon of the 11th of April, after a march of sixteen miles, attacked the rebels the same evening, and defeated them, with the loss of eighty killed, and two guns. The victors lost but one killed and six wounded; but the killed man was the gallant Charles Havelock, nephew of the renowned General. Lugard then marched for Ázamgarh, still invested by Kunwar