1 148 SECRET HISTORY OF THE LAHORE DURBAR.
2 blown from guns or put to the sword. This threat was so
3 effectual that these two battalions, composed mostly of raw
4 recruits, now thought more of guarding their chief as a prison-
5 er than of standing by him as their leader ; and during the
6 same night a report that he intended to make an attempt to
7 escape, threw them all into the utmost confusion. The next
8 morning the men of the artillery, at the peremptory command
9 of the Punt, removed their guns from the fort, being urged
10 on and aided in the work by the Punches themselves to the
11 number of about five hundred men.
12 Jewahir Sing now began to despair of bringing matters
13 to a peaceable issue, though he and his sister were constantly
14 surrounded by the deputies of the mutinous troops, whose ob-
15 ject was to induce him to leave the city and place himself
16 in the hands of the army. He went so far as to give them
17 a written promise of twelve rupees a month to all the Punches,
18 on condition that they should save his life and forgive his
19 having procured the murder of Peshora Sing. His sister, too,
20 even offered to increase their pay to fifteen rupees, and both
21 with joined hands besought the mercy of the Punt. But
22 their promises and humble entreaties were alike ineffectual.
23 The Dogra party had paid ready money in large sums to several
24 of the leading men of the Punt to insure the execution of *
25 their bloody designs.
26 On the 6th of Assin, corresponding to the 21st of September,
27 1845, about noon, Court's division, with several other battalions,
28 all commanded by Pirthee Sing, were in motion, and stationed
29 themselves near the Delhi gate. Jewahir Sing now saw that
30 it was useless to keep himself shut up any longer. He there-
31 fore invited his sister to accompany him, and mounting an
32 elephant with the young Maharajh, Dulleep Sing, in his arms,
33 he left the fort, escorted by about a thousand men. By a
34 circuitous route he repaired towards the spot, where the
35 army was encamped. Pirthee Sing and his followers seeing