1 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 39
2 success seemed to attend Heera Singh's measures,
3 but a third and more formidable combination was
4 now formed against him, and which terminated
5 in his destruction.
6 The army, over which Heera Singh in reality
7 possessed no control' beyond what the power of
8 administering to their capacity gave him, seeing
9 his reluctance, or, more probably, inability, to
10 comply any longer with their preposterous
11 demands, lent themselves at once to any change
12 likely to promote their object. The old Khalsa
13 (state) chiefs, who had ever been adverse to the
14 Rajah Dhyan Singh's family, and the mother of
15 the young Maharajah, who made no secret of her
16 animosity towards the minister from his desire to
17 keep the prince in a state of pupillage, if not to
18 usurp his authority, now formed themselves into
19 a faction for the overthrow and destruction of the
20 minister.
21 Heera Singh soon become aware of the com-
22 bination formed against him ; his first step was
23 to enlist a large body of hillmen from Jummoo
24 as a guard to his personal safety ; his next, to
25 cut off the leader of the party, the Sirdar Jowahir
26 Singh, the brother of the mother and uncle of the
27 young Maharajah, who, backed by his sister and
28 some of the military officers, sought a command
29 in the army. A knowledge of the minister's
30 design, or a resolution to precipitate a rupture