1 THE WUZEERUT OF HEERA SING. 103
2 and property. He, therefore, sent bodies of troops to Seealkote
3 and Gurriawalla, and seized all the property of the accused,
4 who, however, with their families escaped to the protection
5 of a Seik Baba or Gooroo in the neighbourhood.* Hence
6 they wrote both to Rajah Goolaub Sing* at Jummoo and to the
7 Lahore Durbar, protesting their perfect innocence, denouncing
8 the forgery, repelling the charge founded thereon, and offering
9 to undergo any trial that might be deemed necessary. They
10 gave reiterated assurances not only of their neutrality in all state
11 disturbances and intrigues, but also of their attachment to the
12 present government. All their efforts to prove their innocence
13 and avert the threatened blow were useless. Another reason
14 was now found for getting them out of the way, or at least of
15 keeping them constantly in the power of those in authority ; — it
16 was remembered that they were the reputed and acknowledged
17 if not the real sons of Runjeet Sing, and it was feared that they
18 might, on an opportunity offering itself, cause trouble and
19 disturbance to those who held the reins of government.
20 However, they were now, by Goolaub Sing's crafty policy,
21 invited to Jummoo as for the purpose of conferring and settling
22 matters with him. On their arrival he placed guards over
23 them, ostensibly for the security of their persons, but in reali-
24 ty as their jailors. He now demanded from them a sum of
25 fifty lakhs, as a fine ; but as the Khalsa troops showed
26 strong symptoms of their unwillingness to allow of the sons
27 of Runjeet being treated in this manner, the project was for
28 the present abandoned, and they were released on payment
29 of about twenty thousand rupees only, and reinstated in
30 their lands and property — or rather as regards the latter, such
31 of it as had not been carried off by Goolaub Sing.
32 The princes had been made to give security that they would
33 * Such was the haste and alarm of their flight, that Cashmccra Sing's wife
34 miscarried of her first child in consequence.