1 BIRTH AND PARENTAGE OF DULLEEP SING. 9?
2 the almost certainty that before the minority terminated, Heera
3 Sing*, the hope of the party, would be proclaimed by the unani-
4 mous votes of the soldiery, sole chief of the whole country.
5 The death of Rajah Dehan Sing* himself, however, dissipated
6 these ambitious schemes ; but still when, after his murder, Heera
7 Sing* and the Pundit Jellah came into power, they found that
8 their best policy would be to bring* forward the boy Dulleep
9 and proclaim him Maharajh. The child had already been
10 brought to Lahore by Dehan Sing*, to be ready for the moment
11 when it should suit the schemes of that wily chief to place
12 him on the throne, after Shere Sing* had been disposed of. It
13 is a curious fact, that only a few minutes before Dehan Sing1
14 was shot by one of Ajeet Sing's followers, this chief asked
15 the Rajah whom he considered the fittest person to place
16 on the Guddee ? On which Dehan Sing* replied, that Dulleep
17 Sing" was the only person eligible for the dig-nity. He remarked
18 however, that Lena Sing', Ajeet Sing-, and himself would govern
19 in the name of the boy, until he arrived at a proper age to rule
20 the country unaided. Ajeet, however, knew the character of
21 the Dogra Rajah too well to put trust in his words, and a
22 few moments after this conversation had passed between them,
23 the shot was fired which at once ended the life of Dehan
24 Sing, and shook to its foundation the vast fabric of ambitious
25 schemes, which he had reared for the aggrandizement of his
26 family.
27 o