1 SIEGE OF LAHORE. 45
2 distributed in handfuls to the soldiers at the different posts,
3 receiving in return strong assurances that at whatever point
4 Shere Sing" might make the assault he should be vigorously
5 opposed and repelled. The Rajah on returning from this
6 tour again entered the fort, and sending for the officers and
7 men of the different divisions of artillery then in the city,
8 himself in person administered an oath to each one individually,
9 — the Mahomedans on the Koran, and the Hindoos on the water
10 of the Ganges — that they would to the last resist any attack
11 made by Shere Sing on the fort or the city. After this cere-
12 mony had been performed each officer and man received, and
13 with at least seeming thankfulness, four months' pay, as a gra-
14 tuity from Chund Kour ; this with promises of further favours
15 being considered sufficient to bind the whole to the cause of
16 the princess. When this business was completed, which
17 was at a late hour of the night, every man repaired to his post,
18 and soon the fort and city of Lahore were to all appearance
19 buried in slumber, too soon to awake to scenes of tumult and
20 bloodshed.
21 About an hour and a half or two hours before day break the
22 Dogra sentinels stationed along the ramparts of that part of
23 the fort which faces the city, reported that large bodies of
24 horse with lighted matches had passed along the road leading
25 towards the artillery barracks of Sultan Mahomed and
26 Meva Sing, or towards the Badshahi Musjid, and that they
27 seemed to have entered the city by the Yakkee and Delhi gates.
28 The sentries thought, moreover, from the conversation which
29 they had overheard that Shere Sing must then have entered
30 the city. This was soon ascertained to be the fact, with
31 the only difference that the prince had by previous arrange-
32 ments entered at a wicket gate which then existed in Meva
33 Sing's barracks and close to and west of the Badshahi
34 Musjid, while the large bodies of cavalry which supported
35 him, entered, first by the Yakkee and Delhi gates, and after-