1 Prognostications of
2 Hindu astrologers,
3 The bigoted mulidhs.
4 The fall of Delhi,
5 The King surrenders,
6 The rebel princes
7 are shot dead,
8 Scene at the mayor's
9 court, Delhi.
10 Contrast with the
11 events that occurred at
12 the same spot 180 years
13 before,
14 The trial of the King,
15 He is banished to
16 Rangoon,
17 The lamented death
18 of Brigadier-General
19 Nicholson,
20 580 HISTORY OF TIE PANJAB.
21 Hindu Pandits, with painted foreheads and garlands of flowers in their
22 hands, flocked round the chief actors in the drama, and, opening their bulky
23 books, rich in occult lore, prophesied. that Santchar, or the God of Vengeance,
24 had descended on the heads of the English, that by the grace of Rém-
25 chandar, their camp should be destroyed by fire like Lanka (Ceylon), and
26 that in an action, the date of which was fixed, should be fought as great
27 and as bloody a battle as that described in the Mahabharat, the horses’
28 hoops should be steeped in blood; and that after that the sepoy forces should
29 be dominant all over India.” * Bigoted and haughty mulldhs, the disgrace
30 of Isl4m, forgetting, in their mistaken frenzy, the manifold blessings of
31 British rule, raised the green standard of the Prophet at the Jumma Masjid,
32 calling on the faithful to fight for a cause which they falsely pretended to be
33 that of religion. The roughs of the city, the representatives of the class
34 who, a century and a quarter before, had caused the sword of the hardy
35 Nddir to be drawn against the population, joined the pretenders, though, as
36 before, in the hour of danger, they and their false moulvis were the first to
37 keep out of the way. .
38 On the 16th of September, Delhi fell. The palace of the Moghals was
39 captured, and the king, with his favourite wife, Zinat’ Mahal, and two sons
40 and a grandson (Mirzé Moghal, Mirz4 Kuresh Sultda and Mirz4é Abu Bakar,
41 son of the late heir-apparent), the chief inciters of the late atrocities, who
42 had betaken themselves to the mausoleum of Huméytn, surrendered them-
43 selves to Captain Hodson, who, with his own hand, shot the princes dead on
44 the way back to Delhi and ordered their bodies to be conveyed to the
45 kotwali, the mayor's court, where they were thrown on the chabitra, or
46 raised terrace, and exposed to the scofis and jibes of the galJant soldiers and
47 the avenging Sikhs, for on that self same spot, 180 years before, Tegh
48 Bahadur, one of the two martial gurus of the latter, had fallen a victim to the
49 relentless hatred of Aurangzeb, and the fervent hope of the disciples of the Guru
50 had long culminated ia a prophecy that the day of retribution was not far dis-
51 tant. The longed-for day had at length arrived; as in the Hebrew story of
52 old, the headless bodies of the descendants of Alamgir lay exposed until,
53 for sanitary considerations, they were removed from the scene where they
54 had directed and themselves witnessed the massacre of the helpless English
55 women and children. The king was tried by martial law and found guilty of
56 waging war against the Queen and of the massacre of British residents who
57 had fallen into his hands. His life was spared by Lord Canning; but he,
58 with his son, Jawdn Bakht and wife, Zinat Mahal, who had been chiefly
59 instrumental in the revolt, and was the rival, in treacherous intrigue, of Chand
60 Kour (or Jindén) of Léhore notoriety, was banished to Rangoon. Thus ended
61 the royal line of Bé&bar, of which, however, since the days of Shah Alam,
62 nothing more than the title had remained.
63 To the intense sorrow of the army and of the public, Brigadier-General
64 Nicholson, who had been mortally wounded when gallantly leading a columu
65 of attack at the assault of Delhi, on the 14th, died of his wounds on the
66 23rd. The choice of the brothers Lawrence was fully justified by the
67 event. He possessed some of the highest qualities of a soldier, being at
68 once bold, resolute and devoted to his profession. When news of the death
69 of this inestimable man reached Lahore, “Sir John,” writes his biographer,
70 “burst into tears.” “We have lost,” said he to Sir Neville Chamberlain,
71 “many good and noble soldiers, but none of them to compare to John
72 * See the address of the Pandits to the rebel troops at pp. 109 and 206 of Cooper’s Crisis
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