He was straightforward
and manly, and he put down two or three fellows here, who had been
given to bully the young ones, in a way that astonished them.
"He would never have made a good servant of the Company, for he so
hated his work that, when he had been out here about a year, he tried
to blow out his brains. He snapped the pistol twice at his head, but
it didn't go off, though it was loaded all right. Strange, wasn't it?
So he came to the conclusion that he wasn't meant to kill himself, and
went on living till something should turn up."
"Yes," Charlie said; "Doctor Rae spoke to us about him during the
voyage. He knew him at the siege of Fort Saint David, and
Pondicherry."
"Yes," Johnson said. "He came out there quite in a new light. He got
transferred into the military service, and was always in the middle of
the fighting. Major Lawrence had a very high opinion of him, and so
selected him to lead the storming party. It really seems almost as if
he had a charmed life. Lawrence gave him thirty-three English
soldiers, and seven hundred Sepoys. The rest of the force were to
follow as soon as Clive's party gained the entrenchments. Clive led
the way with his Europeans, with the Sepoys supporting behind, and got
across the rivulet with a loss of only four men.
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