But, however that may be, it was a fatal discovery that
the mob had made. They were full of courage, now, and they broke into
the fort and massacred the helpless soldiers and their officers.
Hastings escaped from Benares by night and got safely away, leaving the
principality in a state of wild insurrection; but he was back again
within the month, and quieted it down in his prompt and virile way, and
took the Rajah's throne away from him and gave it to another man. He was
a capable kind of person was Warren Hastings. This was the only time he
was ever out of ammunition. Some of his acts have left stains upon his
name which can never be washed away, but he saved to England the Indian
Empire, and that was the best service that was ever done to the Indians
themselves, those wretched heirs of a hundred centuries of pitiless
oppression and abuse.
CHAPTER LIII.
True irreverence is disrespect for another man's god.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
It was in Benares that I saw another living god. That makes two.
I believe I have seen most of the greater and lesser wonders of the
world, but I do not remember that any of them interested me so
overwhelmingly as did that pair of gods.
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