1 536 HISTORY OF THE PANJAR,
2 the presence of the young Mahardjé and of the queen-mother. He was
3 further encouraged by the salutations which he received on all sides from
4 the Khdlsé soldiery, and to which he replied with an apparently cheerful
5 countenance. But his fate was sealed, and the presence of his nephew and
6 his royal sister could avail him nothing. While he was thus proceeding
7 pompously and boldly, the bugles suddenly sounded, the drums beat, and
8 the bands began to play, as a signal for action. A great tumult ensued and
9 Jawahir Singh’s elephant was abruptly stopped by the troops, who compelled
10 the driver to make it kneel. The fierce and infuriated soldiery surrounded
11 the elephant on all sides, and the boy Dulip Singh was roughly snatched
12 from the arms of his uncle. Jawdhir Singh bowed before the troops, and,
13 with folded arms, implored them to hear him for a moment, but they would
14 He is condemned by not allow him to utter a word. He was stabbed with a bayonet on the left,
15 eae geatember sist, Ad as he bent over on the right, a man sent a bullet through his brain.
16 1845, The wazir fell from the howdah a corpse, and his body was dragged from
17 the elephant and mangled by the swords of those who surrounded it. Béwé
18 Rattan Singh and Bhdi Chett, the councillors of Jawdhir Singh, were
19 killed without any ceremony, immediately afterwards, on the same spot.
20 The cash, in gold and silver coin, which Jawdhir Singh and the Réni had
21 brought with them from the fort, was now plundered by the soldiers, and
22 the Rani and her slave-girls were compelled to retire to the tents which had
23 some days previously been pitched for their reception, the whole thing
24 having been well premeditated and planned. The boy Dulip Singh was
25 separated from his mother for a while and kept with the soldiery, who feared
26 that the Rani, in her rage and excitement, would destroy her own and her
27 child’s life; when these fears had subsided, the prince was again made over
28 to his mother. The soldiers, however, kept a strict watch over Her Highness’s
29 tents the whole night, to prevent accident. She passed the night in fearful
30 screams and shrieks, lamenting over the death of her beloved brother and
31 cursing the Khdlsd. As morning broke, she was permitted to see the
32 The Inmentationsof mangled body of her brother, and her lamentations and painful cries
33 Hig Hen, were renewed with a violence which moved the bystanders to pity and
34 melted even the iron hearts of those who had been instrumental in
35 causing her brother’s murder. Weeping bitterly, she threw herself and her
36 child on the body of her brother, and when, partly by entreaties and partly by
37 force, she was separated from the corpse, she rolled upon the ground, tearing
38 her hair and her clothes. This heartrending spectacle touched the sym-~
39 pathies of the most callous spectators. The scene was terminated at noon,
40 when the Mahardni was, with great difficulty, persuaded to return to the
41 city. The corpse of the murdered minister was also carried to the city,
42 where his funeral obsequies were performed, the same day, outside the Masti
43 Gate, in the presence of several sardars of the Court. Two of the murdered
44 wazir's ranis and three of his slave-girls immolated themselves with his
45 Brutal conduetof Corpse as virtuous saétis. A guard of Sikh soldiers was in attendance at
46 theinteuding sans, the horrible ceremony, and their behaviour towards the unfortunate women
47 was marked by a cruelty and barbarity quite unequalled in the history of
48 the nation. As these poor defenceless women were marching in solemn
49 procession to the altar, with all their money and jewellery in open trays,
50 carried by men on either side of them, for the purpose of distribution in
51 charity, these armed ruffians remorselessly plundered them, and as the
52 unfortunate women were mounting the funeral pyre, these villainous guards
53 tore away their nose and ear-ornaments (which were worn in strict con-
54 formity with their religion) from their persons. The cries and remonstrances
55 of the women at the indignities to which they .wer bj saan
56 Sri Satguru Jagjit Singh | eLibrary” : Me erate oniiinesiise treated