Besides, I
can't turn my uncle's palace into a Home for Lost Girls."
Two days before Dick and Surajah started again, the reply from the
military secretary arrived. It stated that the time and circumstances
pointed out that the place besieged and forced to surrender, eight
years before, was Corsepan; and this was indeed rendered a certainty,
by the fact that the officer in command was Captain Mansfield. He had
with him a half company of Europeans, and three companies of Sepoys.
On looking through the official papers at the time, he had found
Captain Mansfield's report, in which he stated that, on the night
after leaving the fort, the troops, which had been reduced to half
their original strength, had been attacked by a party either of
dacoits or irregular troops. Fearing that some such act of treachery
might be attempted, he had told his men to conceal a few cartridges
under their clothes, when they marched out with empty cartridge
pouches. They had, on arriving at their halting place, loaded; and,
when the dacoits fell upon them, had opened fire.
The robbers doubtless expected to find them defenceless, and speedily
fled. In the confusion, some of them had penetrated far into the camp,
and had carried off the captain's daughter, a child of six years old.
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