1 Conquest of the Punjab. 97
2 bombardment lasted for four months, during which
3 time many assaults were repulsed. When the major
4 portion of the defence works had been demolished,
5 and the gates of the fortress had been blown in,
6 Ranjit Singh offered Muzaffar Khan a jdgir1 if he
7 would surrender without further opposition ; but the
8 offer was unheeded. The final assault was made on
9 June 2nd. It was led by an Akali named Sadhu
10 Singh, who with a band of his desperate followers
11 stormed the battered defences, while the main body of
12 the Sikhs forced an entry through the gateway. The
13 garrison, reduced to barely three hundred men, was
14 soon overpowered. The brave old Nawab, with four
15 of his sons, made a last stand at the door of his
16 residence, where he fell sword in hand, having held
17 Miiltan against all comers for close on forty years.
18 Everything of value in the city was seized upon by
19 the Sikh soldiers ; but on the return of the army to
20 Lahore, Ranjit Singh compelled them to disgorge
21 their plunder into the State treasury.
22 Whilst these events were taking place, Fateh Khan
23 was summoned to Herat to repel a Persian invasion ;
24 and in 1819 news arrived that he had been assas-
25 sinated by Prince Kamran, the son of Mahmiid Shah.
26 Azim Khan no sooner heard of his brother's death
27 than he hastened to Kabul, leaving another brother,
28 Jabbar Khan, in charge of Kashmir. On reaching
29 Afghanistan, he defeated the troops of the Shah,
30 dislodged his garrisons from Kabul, Ghazni, and
31 Kandahar, and made himself master of the whole
32 1 Jdgir (Persian jd, a place ; gir, to hold), a grant of land made by
33 the Government as a reward for good service.
34 (1,841) 7