Very suddenly, and by some
inconceivable impulse, I became intensely imbued with personal
interest in what was going on. I seemed to feel that I had an
important part to play, without exactly understanding what it was.
Against the crowd which environed me, however, I experienced a deep
sentiment of animosity. I shrank from amid them, and, swiftly, by a
circuitous path, reached and entered the city. Here all was the
wildest tumult and contention. A small party of men, clad in
garments half-Indian, half-European, and officered by gentlemen in a
uniform partly British, were engaged, at great odds, with the swarming
rabble of the alleys. I joined the weaker party, arming myself with
the weapons of a fallen officer, and fighting I knew not whom with the
nervous ferocity of despair. We were soon overpowered by numbers,
and driven to seek refuge in a species of kiosk. Here we barricaded
ourselves, and, for the present were secure. From a loop-hole near the
summit of the kiosk, I perceived a vast crowd, in furious agitation,
surrounding and assaulting a gay palace that overhung the river.
Presently, from an upper window of this place, there descended an
effeminate-looking person, by means of a string made of the turbans of
his attendants.
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