1 EARLY HISTORY OF RUNJEET SING. 19
2 the gate. Thus disappointed Runjeet returned to a little
3 distance and opened a desultory fire of matchlocks on the
4 place from all quarters. This firing*, which was promptly
5 answered by Chete Sing- with his five hundred men inside,
6 was kept up for about twenty-four hours. However on the
7 next morning* Chete Sing* finding' treachery on every side, sur-
8 rendered on condition that his life and the lives of his followers
9 should be spared, and that he should have a jag-hire sufficient
10 for the maintenance of his family. These terms Runjeet grant-
11 ed, and gave to the fallen chief, whom he treated with much
12 respect, the village of Vennia* and its appurtenances worth
13 about seven thousand rupees a year.
14 The story of the subsequent career of Runjeet Sing has.
15 been too often told to warrant its transcription here. His gra-
16 dual rise from being the chief of a tribe of roving plunderers
17 to the sovereing-ty of a nation is a subject of history. Having
18 once tasted the sweets of conquest in the capture of Lahore
19 as related above, he, like the young tiger who has lapped blood
20 for the first time, was eager for further prey. His ambition
21 having once been gratified grew with what it fed upon and
22 nothing less than the mastery of all around would con-
23 tent it. Thus prompted the chief of the Sukerchuckia Mis-
24 sal, and now the Lord of Lahore, began a career of conquest
25 and subjugation that ceased not until it had brought him to a
26 wall of impenetrable mountains on the one hand, and on the
27 other in contact with a foreign power whose frontier was
28 to him as impassable as the Himalayas themselves.
29 In 1805 Runjeet was recalled from a career of victory in the
30 west by intelligence that a body of fugitive Mahrattas, closely
31 pursued by a British army, was approaching his eastern frontier.
32 This was unwelcome news, as he had no desire to see the
33 • The village of Vennia is about 24 miles from Lahore, and was lately in the
34 hands of Multanee Sing.