Chapter 16 Chapter 16 The Wandering Flame

During the month from March 12th to April 12th, Nana Saib remained incognito in the village of Donte.He wanted to leave enough time for the British Government to be duped into either giving up on his pursuit or already mistakenly pursued elsewhere. Although the two brothers did not step out of the village during the day, their loyal men ran all over the villages in the valley, hinting that the half-god and half-human "Murti the Terrible" was about to start again. appeared, and they used this method to spread the idea of ​​a national uprising. Once night fell, Nana Saib and Balau Low were eager to leave their sanctuary.They went from one village to another, and from one village to another, hoping that one day they would be able to travel freely in this land that was handed over to the British by the Indian maharajas.Nana Saib knew that several semi-independent races could no longer bear the enslavement of foreigners, and they would definitely obey his command and join the ranks of riots.But at present, they are limited to some barbaric tribes of Gurdwana.

The savage Bills, the nomadic Kunde and Guend were almost as uncivilized as the savages on the Pacific islands. Nana thought that they might follow his command and rise up at any time.For the sake of caution, he has only contacted the leaders of two or three large tribes so far, but this is enough to prove that in his name he can drive millions of Indians scattered in the central plateau of the Indian Peninsula. When the two brothers returned to Tongdi Village, they always maintained a high degree of tacit understanding of what they heard, saw and did with each other.At this time, their accomplices also came to get together and reported the situation in all directions. The conclusion was that the heart of the riot had blown across the entire Naybida Valley like a violent gale.The Gunnds rushed to the local British barracks as soon as the sirens of war sounded.

But the time is not yet ripe. It is not enough that the area between the two mountain ranges of Sotpura and Vindiya is lit by fire.In fact, the fire must be allowed to continue to spread.It was therefore also necessary to prepare adequate fuel for those areas along the Nebida that were more directly under the control of the British.Turn every city and town of Bhopal, Malwa, Buderkhand and the vast kingdom of Hizidia into a little smoldering furnace.Besides, it was not unreasonable for Nana Saib to want to go alone to visit those old subordinates who participated in the Indian soldiers' uprising in 1857, these innocent people who were always loyal to his cause and never believed him The news of his death, I look forward to seeing him again every day.

After staying in the village of Tongdi for a month, Nana Saib felt that she could start to act boldly with confidence.The fact that he resurfaced in the Mumbai area has been altered beyond recognition.His spies kept him well informed of every move the Bombay government was making to capture him.Therefore, he knew that the authorities initially searched for him extensively, but found nothing.The Aurangabad fisherman, Nana's former prisoner, had died at his hand, so that no one could doubt that the pretended monk was none other than the leader of Dangdu Ponte for whose capture a bounty was offered.A week later, all kinds of rumors disappeared, those who were greedy for a reward of two thousand pounds lost all hope, and Nana Saib's name was gradually forgotten by the public opinion.

At this time, the big head can go out in person and start the uprising again without worrying about his true identity being discovered.Sometimes, he was dressed in Zoroastrian clothing, and sometimes he dressed himself as an ordinary local resident. One day, he and his brother began to leave the village of Tangdi far away, and went north along the Nebida River. OK, even up to the northern slopes of the Vindhya Range. If any spies would follow all his whereabouts, he would certainly be found in Indore on April 12th. In the capital city of the Khogar Kingdom, Nana Saib was always on high alert to avoid revealing his true identity. He came to the outskirts and began to chat with the farmers who were working in the poppy fields.These Liyla, Mekla, and Walayali are passionate, courageous, and fervently superstitious.Most of them are deserters from the local Indian army, and they live the lives of ordinary people after changing into peasant clothes.

Nana Saib then crossed the Betwa River, a tributary of the Yamuna River that flows north along the western border of Buderkhand.On the nineteenth of April, he crossed a broad valley full of dates and mangoes and came to Suari. In Sardara, in the northern part of the valley, there are some strange buildings that are very old.They all have hemispherical domes on their heads, like small castles one by one.In front of each castle, there is also an altar specially used for various Buddhist ceremonies, on which is a large umbrella made of stone.But when Nana Saib came to the castle grounds, he whistled, and from the funerary buildings, the abodes of the dead, and from the tombs that had been empty for countless centuries, hundreds of Indian deserters rushed out.After the failure of the riot, they hid in the ruins, trying to escape the bloody revenge of the British army.As long as they hear the voice of the big head, they will immediately appear in front of him with understanding; when the time comes, he only needs to make a gesture, and these people will bravely rush to the invader's army.

On the 24th of April, Nana Saib was again in Pirsa, the seat of government for an important district in Malwa.In the dilapidated old city, he brought together the remnants of the last riot. On April 27, Nana Saib arrived at Ragul, which borders the Kingdom of Benna. On the 30th, he moved to the old city of Sangol. After a bloody battle against the rebels near here, the General's troops took the Maudpur Pass, the key to the Vendya Gorge. There, after Nana met with Balao accompanied by Karagani, the two immediately went to meet several tribal chiefs who they believed to be absolutely reliable. deployment.Nana Saib and Balau Lo would rise in the south, while their allies echoed on the northern slopes of the Vindhya Mountains.

Before returning to the Nebida Valley, they also wanted to visit the Kingdom of Benna.Along the Kane River, the brothers passed grove after grove of teak and bamboo, two tall trees so numerous in India that they seemed to engulf the entire country.The land of the Kingdom of Benna is rich in diamond mines, and there are a large number of workers who openly mine the ore for the king. Their lives are extremely miserable.Among these people there are many faithful believers of Nana.Mr. Rousley said of the Maharaja in his writings, "He knew very well what British rule meant to Buderkend, and he would rather be a rich and large landowner than be a A king of a small country in vain." He was indeed a wealthy landowner!The 30-kilometer-long diamond mine in the northern part of the Benna Kingdom is all owned by him. At the same time, he also hired a large number of Indians to mine for himself. The quality is the best among similar products, and the price is also the highest.But those extremely hard miners lead very unhappy lives.As long as the output of ore drops, the prince will take them mercilessly.From among them, therefore, Nana Saib should not have had difficulty finding thousands of volunteers who were ready to lay down their lives to rid themselves of the British, and he did.

After everything was arranged properly, the brothers re-entered the Nebida Valley, intending to return to the village of Tangdi.But thinking that they would launch an uprising in coordination with the north in the south, they planned to stop at Bhopal to see what the situation was like there.This important Muslim city has been the center of Islam in India, and Begom of the city pledged allegiance to the British during the Great Rebellion. On May 24, Nana Saib and Balau Lo brought a dozen Gunde people to Bhopal, which was the last day of the local celebration of the Muslim New Year.Both brothers dressed up as gloomy monks and beggars, with long round-bladed knives hanging from their bodies, and they slapped themselves with the knife from time to time, but it was neither painful nor dangerous.

With their attire no one could tell who they really were, the brothers followed the ceremonial procession from street to street, mixed with elephants carrying a twenty-foot-tall statue on their backs. They weaved among the elephants, now mingling with the ranks of Muslims in rich embroidered robes and caps, now among musicians, soldiers, dancers, and women in disguise. Procession of Young People - This eccentric group of people brings a carnival air to religious ceremonies.Among these Indians in various costumes, there are many faithful believers of Nana. While walking through the crowd nonchalantly, they quickly passed on the well-known secret signals to the Indian rioters in 1857.

That night, all the people came to a lake in the eastern suburbs of the city. Accompanied by deafening shouts, musket explosions and crackling firecrackers, under the light of thousands of torches, these fanatical Indians threw all the small temples on the backs of elephants into the lake.The festival to celebrate the New Year thus came to an end. At this moment, Nana Saib suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder.He turned sharply to find a Bengalis standing in front of him. Nana Saib recognized the man as an old associate of his in Lucknow.So he asked the Bangladeshi with his eyes. The latter's voice was almost inaudible, but Nana Saib heard it clearly and quietly. "Colonel Moreau has left Calcutta." "Where is he now?" "He was in Benares yesterday." "Where is he going?" "To the Nepalese border." "What are you going to do?" "Go live there for a few months." "and then?……" "Back to Bombay." Then came a whistle.An Indian made his way through the crowd to Nana Saib. It was Carragani. "Let's go immediately," the big-headed man said to him, "to find Moro who has come to the north, and follow him closely. This task must be resolutely completed at no cost. Don't leave him for half a step before reaching the river valley. At that time, remember to come and inform me." Caragani only nodded in reply and disappeared into the crowd.A small gesture from the big head is an order to him.Ten minutes later, he had left Bhopal. At this time, Balau Low also came to him. "We should go," Balao said to Nana. "Yes," Nana replied, "we must return to Tangdi Village before dawn." "Let's go." The brothers took their Guends along the northern shore of the lake until they reached a remote farmstead.The horses were waiting for them and the team there.These swift horses, fed a lot of spiced fodder, can cover fifty miles in a night.At eight o'clock they were galloping from Bhopal to the Vindhya range. The reason why Datouren wanted to rush back to Tangdi Village before dawn was purely for the sake of caution.Indeed, it would be best not to let anyone know that he was back in the River Valley. So this small team has been rushing back without stopping at the fastest speed. Nana Saib and Balau Low, who were neck and neck, kept silent to each other, but they had the same thought in their heads.This time from the other side of the Wendiya Mountains, what they brought back was not just hope, but the certainty that countless Indians would join their ranks.The entire Central Plateau of India is within their grasp.No matter how widely the British forces were spread across this vast land, they were powerless to resist the initial attack of the rioters like wildfire.Their exhaustive thinking will surely cause the riots to spread rapidly, and soon, the Indians along the coast will frantically build an impenetrable line of defense, which will make the royal army crushed. At the same time, Nana Saib thought that fate had so skillfully delivered Moreau into his hands again.The Colonel finally left Calcutta, where he had nowhere to go.From now on, his every move will be under the close watch of the big head.He would never have imagined that the man named Karagani would lead himself into the wilderness of Vindiya Mountain, where no one would help him escape the torture of Nana Saib, the big head is right He already hated it to the bone. Balau Low knew nothing of the conversation between the Bengal and Nana.It wasn't until at a place near Donte, taking advantage of the horses' pause to catch their breath, that Nana Saib told him in a low voice: "Moro has left Calcutta, he is going to Mumbai." "The road to Bombay," cried Balau Low, "will go all the way to the shores of the Indian Ocean!" "The road to Bombay, this time," replied Nana Saib, "will end at Vindya Hill!" This sentence says it all. The horse team went back on the road, and later rushed into a large forest on the edge of the Nebida River Valley. It was five o'clock in the morning.The sky gradually turned white.Nana Saib and Balao Luo led their men to the fast-flowing Nador River, and they could reach the village upstream.The horses stopped at this place and were handed over to the two Gunds to take care of them, and they would be taken to a nearby village. The rest followed the brothers, staggering up the rapids. The surroundings are quiet, and the tranquility of the night has not been broken by the sound of the morning. Suddenly there was a gunshot in the silence, followed by several more.At the same time, someone shouted: "Wow! That's great! Go ahead!" An officer appeared on the hillside of the village of Donte with about fifty soldiers of the Royal Army. "Shoot! Can't run away!" he yelled again. Nana Saib and his brother were among the volleys of bullets coming almost straight at the Gunnds. Five or six Indians fell at the sound, and the rest jumped back into the rapids of the Nazu and fled down, and soon disappeared in the bushes at the edge of the forest. "Nana Saib! Nana Saib!" cried the Englishman, who also chased into the rapids. At this time, a man who was hit by a bullet struggled to stand up and pointed at the British soldiers: "Kill the invaders!" He yelled in a terrible voice, and fell to the ground again, motionless. The officer approached the body and asked: "Is he Nana Saib?" "It's him," replied two soldiers in the line, who had been in the garrison at Kanpur and therefore knew exactly what the chief looked like. "Now, go after the rest!" commanded the officer loudly. The soldiers then rushed into the forest to chase the fleeing Gunnds. The troops had just disappeared into the bushes, when a figure suddenly appeared from the hilltop of Tangdi Village. It turned out to be "Wandering Flame," and she wore a long brown cloth belt with a rope around her waist. The madwoman had unwittingly acted as the guide of the British detachment the night before.On this day, after she returned to the valley, relying on an instinct, she unknowingly went to Tangdi Village.But this time, this well-recognized mute actually uttered the name of a person, and he was none other than Kanpur's heinous executioner! "Nana Saib! Nana Saib!" She kept chanting the name, as if with an inexplicable premonition, the image of the big head resurfaced in her mind. The officer couldn't help being taken aback when he heard the name.He followed the mad woman closely with his team all the way to the village of Tangdi.But she didn't seem to see him at all along the way, nor his soldiers.Could it be that the big boss who was offered a reward for arrest is hiding here?The officer, having made the necessary dispositions, led his troops on the banks of the rapids of Nador, and waited until daybreak.When Nana Saib and his Guends appeared there, what awaited them was a burst of shooting, and several people fell to the ground, among them was the leader of the original Indian riot. On the same day, the governor of Bombay received a telegram about the pitched battle.This sensational news immediately spread throughout the entire Indian peninsula, and was published by major newspapers.Colonel Moreau, therefore, also learned of this from the Allahabad News on May 26th. It seems that Nana Saib's death is no longer worthy of doubt.His identity has been verified, and the articles in the newspapers are very reasonable: "The kingdom of India no longer has to worry about this cruel boss who will continue to cause harm to the people. His crimes have been paid for in blood .” After the mad woman left the village of Donte, she went down the rapids of Nador.Her terrified eyes seemed to be a silent flame that would suddenly set her on fire.The mouth is still mechanically pronouncing the name of the big head. She finally came to the place where the dead bodies lay.She stopped at the body that had been identified by two Lucknow soldiers.The angry face of the dead man still seemed to threaten something.The man who lived his life for revenge seemed to still be full of hatred after his death. The madwoman knelt down and put her hands on the bullet-scarred corpse, letting blood soak the folds of the loincloth.She looked at him a long time, then stood up, shaking her head and walking slowly back into the rapids of Nador. But at this time, the "Wandering Flame" regained her usual indifference, and never uttered the hateful name of Nana Saib.