The consciousness of
being in her vicinity added to the bitter pangs with
which Hartley contemplated her situation, and reflected
how little chance there appeared of his
being able to rescue her from it by the mere force
of reason and justice, which was all he could oppose
to the selfish passions of a voluptuous tyrant. A
lover of romance might have meditated some means
of effecting her release by force or address; but
Hartley, though a man of courage, had no spirit of
adventure, and would have regarded as desperate
any attempt of the kind.
His sole gleam of comfort arose from the impression
which he had apparently made upon the elder
Fakir, which he could not help hoping might be of
some avail to him. But on one thing he was firmly
resolved, and that was, not to relinquish the cause
he had engaged in whilst a grain of hope remained.
He had seen in his own profession a quickening
and a revival of life in the patient's eye, even when
glazed apparently by the hand of Death; and he
was taught confidence amidst moral evil by his success
in relieving that which was physical only.
While Hartley was thus meditating, he was roused
to attention by a heavy firing of artillery from
the high bastions of the town; and turning his eyes
in that direction, he could see advancing on the
northern side of Bangalore, a tide of cavalry, riding
tumultuously forward, brandishing their spears
in all different attitudes, and pressing their horses
to a gallop.
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