Come to me tomorrow."
Desmond trod on air as he left the house. Clive's impulsiveness had never
before seemed to him such an admirable quality.
As he went into the street he became aware, from the excited state of the
crowd, that something had happened. Meeting a Sepoy he inquired, and
learned that Sirajuddaula had just been brought into the city. The
luckless Nawab had arrived in his boat close to Rajmahal, and with the
recklessness that characterized him, he had gone ashore while his
servants prepared a meal. Though disguised in mean clothes he had been
recognized by a fakir, who happened to be at the very spot where he
landed. The man had a grudge against him; his ears and nose had been cut
off some time before at the Nawab's order. Hastening into Rajmahal he had
informed the governor, who sent a guard at once to seize the unhappy
prince and bring him to Murshidabad.
Before the next morning dawned Sirajuddaula was dead. Mir Jafar handed
him to his son Miran with strict orders to guard him. Acting on a mocking
suggestion of Miran, a courtier named Muhammad Beg took a band of armed
men to the Nawab's room, and hacked him to death. Next morning his
mutilated body was borne on an elephant's back through the streets, and
it was known to his former subjects that the prince who had ruled them so
evilly was no more. Such was the piteous end, in his twenty-sixth year,
of Sirajuddaula.
Immediately on arriving in Murshidabad, Desmond had sent a kasid to
Calcutta to inform Mr.
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