Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 12.7.4

12.7.4

The Viceroy at that time was advancing towards Mûrshûd-abad with about five or six thousand men, spending his time in hunting, sporting, and seeing the country; and he had reached that day an excellent spot near Midnipûr, when one of the Crown-collectors of those parts, a man of trust and much sense, having requested to be introduced, gave him notice, "That the Marhattas were not at twenty cosses from thence; that Baha-sukur-pandet, at the head of forty thousand horse, was advancing rapidly; and that to-morrow in the evening, or the day after at day-break, he would probably be at the very spot." He added, "that the intelligence being so important, he had quitted his post to bring it himself." The Viceroy happened to be then at his noon prayers. Without being intimidated by the smallness of his own numbers, without betraying the least trepidation, without seeming to be much affected, he was heard to answer the intelligencer by these very words: "Where are those infidels and where is the spot where I could not chastise them?" This singular circumstance of the Viceroy's intrepidity is what I hold from the very man who gave the information, and who even then could not help expressing his amazement at so undismayed a coolness; and he used to add, that he could not discover in his looks the least perturbation, nor the least alteration in his complexion or features: an instance of fearlessness, that even then excited his amazement after so much lapse of time.