enemies lurking around him. His previous allegiance to the Nawab and British had earned the wrath of Mysore, and the remaining Polygars sought a return to prominence. The Tanjore, Travancore, Pudukkotai, Ramnad, and Sivaganga kingdoms joined with the British and the Arcot Nawab to attack Yusuf Khan. In the first siege of Madurai in 1763, the English could not make any headway because of inadequate forces and the army retreated to Tiruchi due to monsoons. The Nizam Ali of Hyderabad reaffirmed Yusuf Khan as the rightful governor, while the Arcot Nawab and the British issued a warrant for Yusuf Khan "to be captured alive and hanged before the first known tree". In 1764, British troops again besieged the Madurai Fort, this time cutting supplies. Yusuf Khan and his troops went without food and water for several days (according to European sources, surviving on horse and monkey meat) but held on while strengthening the defences, and repelled the chief assault with a loss of 120 Europeans (including 9 officers) killed and wounded. Little progress against him had been made, except that the place was now rigorously blockaded. The Arcot Nawab consulted Sivaganga General Thaandavaraaya Pillai, along with Maj. Charles Campbell, hatching a plot to bribe three of Yusuf Khan's close associates: Dewan Srinivasa Rao, French mercenary captain Marchand, and Khan's doctor Baba Sahib. While Yusuf Khan was offering his morning prayers in his house, they quietly captured him, binding him with his own turban. Yusuf Khan's wife rushed to the scene with the house guards but they were overwhelmed by the well-armed mercenaries. Under cover of darkness, Marchand brought Yusuf Khan to Campbell, with most of Yusuf Khan's native forces unaware of what had happened. The next day, on the evening of 15 October 1764, near the army camp at Sammattipuram on the Madurai–Dindigul road, Yusuf Khan was hanged as a rebel by Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah, the Nawab of Arcot. This place is about to the west of Madura, known as Dabedar Chandai (Shandy), and his body was buried at the spot. Legends of his death One legend is that he was hanged three times before he finally died. The brief story is that the first two attempts at hanging failed as the rope snapped and only the third attempt was successful. The superstitious Nawab of Arcot Muhammad Ali ordered the body of Yusuf Khan to be dismembered into many