1 156 A Short History of the Sikhs.
2 devoted band so fearfully overmatched : in a short
3 time forty-two of the men were lying dead on the
4 field, and four fell badly wounded, of whom only one
5 survived. Rajah Suchet Singh, it is hardly needful
6 to say, was among the slain." x
7 In the month of May, Attar Singh made an equally
8 unsuccessful bid for power. Since the murder of
9 Sher Singh he had remained in hiding on the far side
10 of the Sutlej ; but he now recrossed the river, and
11 joined forces with Baba Bir Singh and the Sialkot
12 princes. The minister had some difficulty in inducing
13 the troops of the Khalsa to take the field ; for though
14 they were ready enough to regard the Sindhanwalia
15 as a traitor who was plotting to deliver his country-
16 men into the hands of the British, they were much
17 averse from taking up arms against the descendants
18 of Ranjit Singh and the holy Baba, and it was not
19 until Hira Singh had promised to open negotiations
20 with the latter in order to detach them from Attar
21 Singh that they consented to march. Troops were
22 then dispatched simultaneously from Lahore, Kasur,
23 and Amritsar, and the three detachments, advancing
24 from different sides, completely surrounded the Baba's
25 camp. The promised negotiations were at once com-
26 menced ; but the imprudence of Attar Singh, who
27 slew with his own hand one of the Lahore deputies,
28 brought on a general conflict in which he and nearly
29 all his supporters were slain, including Kashmira
30 Singh and Baba Bir Singh. Hira Singh was thus
31 rid of a second powerful rival ; but the fate of
32 1 History of the Reigning Family of Lahore, by Major G.
33 Carmichael Smyth, p. 111.