Delhi treasure hunt and ambush

The Delhi treasure hunt and ambush is a turning point in Patrick Sumner’s experience of the Siege of Delhi: a promise of gold and jewels draws him and a small party away from immediate duties, but the search ends in an attack that kills Price and leaves Sumner wounded and alone. The episode moves from bargain to apparent discovery to sudden flight, exposing how quickly the hope of profit collapses into a fight for survival.

The Offer and the Decision

The episode begins with a man offering to show Patrick Sumner treasure if he will help him. Sumner sits down and lights his pipe while the injured boy nearby remains in need of attention. The man specifies that the treasure consists of two lakhs in gold and jewels, a claim that gives the proposal a concrete scale but no independent proof. Wilkie asks about its amount, and the possibility of a substantial reward quickly becomes part of the decision.

Corbyn responds by sending three men with the stranger and adding Price to the party. He instructs them to arm themselves and return if anything seems wrong, while he stays behind with the boy. He also sets out how the expected prize will be divided: four equal shares, with an additional tithe for Price. His arrangement makes the expedition both guarded and openly commercial. The men are not simply following the stranger; they are pursuing a prospective return while trying to limit the risks and keep the proceeds from the prize agents.

The Search and Apparent Discovery

Ten minutes later, Price returns with word that the house has been found and that the route appears safe. When asked whether he has seen the treasure, he reports that it is buried in the courtyard and that the stranger has shown him where to dig. This report converts the offer from a distant promise into an apparently verifiable find. The group proceeds on the assumption that the treasure is there to be recovered, even though the assurance still rests on the stranger’s account and Price’s brief inspection.

Price kneels and begins digging with his hands. When he spots a box, he and Hamid pull it out of the earth. O’Dowd breaks it open with his rifle butt, revealing four or five gray canvas sacks. The scene stops short of establishing what the sacks contain as treasure: Wilkie looks inside one and laughs, while Price asks whether it is the prize they came for. That gap between the promised wealth and the uncertain contents is important to the reversal. The box looks like a discovery, but it does not settle what the party has found or whether the expedition has succeeded.

The Ambush

The uncertainty gives way to violence when a musket is fired from the balcony and Price is killed. Wilkie turns and shoots upward, but hits no one; he is then shot twice. The men realize that the house is occupied by sepoys. O’Dowd pulls Patrick Sumner back into the dark interior, where the party is caught in close quarters rather than able to organize around the treasure or retreat together.

A sepoy attacks O’Dowd with a saber. Patrick Sumner, standing nearby, raises his rifle and fires, stopping the attack. He then leaves through the front door. Shots strike near him as he runs into the street, and a bullet wounds his calf. The passage gives no account of the stranger’s fate or a full resolution for the surviving members of the party; its focus narrows to Sumner’s effort to get out alive. The promised search has become an ambush, and the men’s earlier calculations about shares and risk no longer provide any protection.

Escape and Immediate Consequences

Patrick Sumner leaves the street and runs through Delhi’s damaged lanes and alleys until pain forces him to stop. In a doorway he removes his boot and finds that his shinbone is broken. He binds the wound tightly with a strip torn from his shirttail, then pauses as nausea and faintness overtake him. Thinking of Wilkie and O’Dowd, he tells himself that he must keep moving if he is to avoid their fate. His attention shifts from the proposed treasure to the immediate requirements of staying alive.

He gets up and searches for somewhere to hide, crossing to a partly open door. Inside, he finds a dim, sparsely furnished dwelling: dusty matting, a broken divan, an empty water jar and cupboard, and a smaller room with a cooking stove. A boy lies curled on a blanket there. The discovery returns the episode to the child whose need for help accompanied the treasure offer, but Sumner is now injured and hiding rather than leading a search. He expects British troops to advance when the city falls and hopes that remaining alive will bring rescue. The episode thus ends not with recovered wealth or a confirmed account of the ambush, but with Sumner isolated in the city, relying on endurance and the prospect of being found.