Page:On the Coromandel Coast.djvu/357

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GINGEE AND ITS GHOST
345

Englishwoman was saved from peril by a sepoy whose wife was her ayah. He took her to his barracks, disguised in a long military cloak, and guarded her until the danger was over. If help had not been so ready at hand, and the 19th so quick in responding to the call, the death roll would have been far greater, and would have included the English women. Fortunately the sepoys were too fully employed in holding the fort to find time to sack and burn the houses in the cantonment.

It was thought best to remove the Mysore princes to Calcutta. Probably the rebellion had their full sympathy. The claws of the young tigers were growing and their father's kingdom was close at hand. They had a large number of retainers, many of whom attended the seditious meetings of the sepoys. It was but natural that hope should spring up in the heart of Futteh Haider, the eldest of the four. Some years later one of these princes, a pensioner in England, was a large holder of stock in the East India Company, the Company that had defeated his father.

The country round Vellore is rich in fields of grain. The hills break the monotony of the plain and are picturesque in their rocky outline, but they shut out the air. On the top of Koilasghur, sometimes called Kailasa, there is a bungalow. The site is suggestive of airy breezes and a temporary escape from the fiery heat. Appearances are not to be trusted, however. The spot has no water supply and the elevation is not above fever height. In spite of these drawbacks the bungalow has had occupants at various times, who have braved the dilemmas attendant on a difficult transport, and reconciled themselves to the irregular visits of the milkman and the dhoby.

Buried in an old number of the Bangalore parish magazine is the following story from the pen of the editor,