risoners.
The Nabob is merely amusing Mr. Clive till his batteries have
arrived."

Mr. Scrafton was alarmed. We looked round, and finding nobody near us
ordered our attendants to put out their torches. We then turned aside
among the other tents, threaded our way through them in the darkness
till we came out on to the road running towards the English lines, and
in this way contrived to escape and get back to camp.

In order to the better understanding of what now took place, in
default of a chart, I must explain how the two armies were situated.
The river Hooghley, which here runs pretty straight north and south,
forms, as it were, the string of a bent bow, the bow itself being
represented by the Morattoe ditch of which I have so often had
occasion to speak. The whole of the territory thus enclosed belonged
to the Company, and measured about five miles in length, and one and a
half miles in breadth at its widest part. The fort and town of
Calcutta occupied only a small space in the centre, the rest of the
ground being broken up into gardens with a few country residences
scattered about. Of these Omichund's house, now occupied by the Nabob,
lay about a quarter of the way along the ditch, from the point where
it joins the river Hooghley at the north end of the enclosure. The
remainder of their army lay in tents along a space of three miles, but
on the outside of the ditch. Colonel Clive, as I have before
explained, had entrenched his camp also on the further side, next to
the river, lying between that and the Moors' encampment.

The moment we had made our report to Colonel Clive his mind was made
up. Springing on to his feet, and striding up and down in the tent, he
exclaimed--

"That settles it, if we are to strike a blow at all it must be now! I
have done my best to procure a peace, knowing the risk I run by
undertaking the attack of an army of forty thousand men with the
little handful I have here under my command. But it is plain that I
have to choose between that and yielding everything to the Nabob. Mr.
Scrafton, write a letter in my name to the Admiral, asking him for as
many seamen as he can spare; and do you, Ford, go and summon the
officers here to receive their orders."

The news that an attack was intended spread like wild-fire through the
little camp, and caused the greatest excitement, many regarding it as
a desperate venture from which we should never return alive. Our total
force was 650 Englishmen,