He sent messengers
to the friendly chief of Bhawulpore, and called on him to join in the
crusade against Mooltan. Then after much feinting and fencing, and
greatly assisted by the stout Van Cortlandt, Edwardes threw his army
across the Indus, at this season a roaring torrent three miles wide, and
sought out his enemy. Coming up with him he defeated Mulraj and his army
of ten thousand men in two pitched battles, and drove him to take refuge
behind the walls of Mooltan.
Accompanying Herbert Edwardes was a detachment of the Guides, lent by
Lumsden, and before the war bent on learning their way about this
portion of the frontier, in accordance with the role assigned their
corps. This detachment not only joined with natural zest in the hard
fighting that fell to the share of all, but proved of great service to
the commander as scouts and intelligence men. So far did intrepidity and
love of adventure carry them, that four _sowars_,[4] under Duffadar
Khanan Khan, rode through the enemy's outposts, and with admirable
coolness picketed their horses, probably without excessive ostentation,
amidst the enemy's cavalry. They then separated, and went about to see
and remember that which might be useful to their own commander and their
own comrades in the war. It is perhaps needless to say that discovery
meant instant death, yet, with the happy insolence of the born
free-lance, superb indifference carried them through where the slightest
slip would have been fatal.
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