He looked fagged and dispirited.
"Drake is a fool," he said.

"Just as, hitherto, he has scoffed at all thought of danger, now he is prostrated at the news that danger is at hand.

He can decide on nothing.

At one moment he talks of sending messengers to Suraja Dowlah, to offer to pay any sum he may demand, in order to induce him to retire; the next he talks of defending the fort to the last.

We can get him to give no orders, to decide on nothing, and the other officials are equally impotent and imbecile." On the 18th, the army of the nabob approached.