1 THE WUZEERUT OF HEERA SING. 125
2 money himself, wrote to Goolaub Sing, requesting tlic fulfilment
3 of bis promises and the transmission of funds for the payment
4 of these troops enlisted for his service. Goolaub, however,
5 seeing the ease with which he had been able to get rid of
6 his own surplus troops, told Peshora Sing to act with his two
7 thousand as lie had done with his larger body — to turn them
8 adrift without ceremony. But the Prince on receiving this
9 reply thought it better to read and explain it to his men than
10 to act upon it at once. He told them that he could not
11 himself pay them, and he therefore gave them liberty to
12 disband themselves and go where they might choose. Ulti-
13 mately most of these men were induced to go to Gujerat
14 and its vicinity, under some hopes held out to them of being
15 paid their arrears. But they received nothing but insult
16 and ill-treatment from Goolaub Sing's sirdars, moonshees,
17 and other officials, who presumed upon the support of a batta-
18 lion of their master's troops then and there present. However
19 this treatment so enraged the insulted and cheated soldiers of
20 Peshora Sing, that it brought on a bloody conflict in which
21 Goolaub's force was routed with great slaughter, and the city
22 of Gujerat taken and plundered. It is asserted, however,
23 that Peshora Sing was not personally present on this occa-
24 sion nor had any thing whatever to do with the affair. But
25 at Lahore the Khalsa Council was assembled, and the matter
26 was described in quite a different light with a view to obtain
27 the consent of the army to the measures which it was
28 intended to adopt for the purpose of getting rid of the Prince.
29 Rajah Goolaub Sing, also, was preparing to act against the
30 obnoxious chief with all his power and cunning. But the day
31 after the consultation at Lahore, news arrived that the Prince
32 had absconded, and as nothing further was heard of him
33 for some time, all the schemes against him were laid aside.
34 Another important character now comes upon the stage of
35 the Lahore drama, — Sirdar Jcwahir Sing, the brother of the