CHAPTER I.
The Governor of Chittore was upon the ramparts observing the progress of the enemy, who were making their approaches behind wicker frames filled with earth and covered with leather. The town was plentifully supplied with provisions; the garrison consisted of eight thousand Rajpoots, and it was determined to resist whilst a stone remained in the battlements. The siege had already continued six weeks, directed by Akbar in person, but no material effect had been produced. The besieged fought with that determined spirit peculiar to the Rajpoot character. The fortifications were of great strength, and although the garrison had made several desperate sallies, their loss had hitherto been insignificant.
Akbar was vexed at being detained so long before the place, as he was in the habit of carrying much more promptly the towns which he invested with his armies. He, however, knew the strength of the garrison, was well acquainted with the characters of the men who composed it, and had therefore made up his mind that Chittore would not be an easy conquest.
While the governor was standing on the ramparts, he was joined by his wife, a handsome woman, under thirty, although the mother of two marriageable daughters.
“Jugmul,” she said, whilst a glance of fire shot from her dilated eye, “will these scoffers of our gods prevail?”
“I know not—their king is brave.”
“Is there a living soul within these walls of whom you cannot say as much?”
“I trust not; but he is likewise a successful general, and success is not the issue of chance, but of talent.”
“Have we not encountered both before now?”
“Yes; but the latter has its degrees, and the interval between great and little is extreme.”
“Then you despair of driving these Moslems from before our walls.”
“You know that a Rajpoot never despairs. Nevertheless, of this I am certain, that nothing but a desperate resistance and an extensive destruction of the enemy will cause him to relinquish his present purpose.”
“Jugmul, he knows not that there are women within this fortress who fear not to encounter his men in a struggle of death. Let him beware how he provokes such a collision.”
“You miscalculate the energies of the wives and daughters of Chittore, if you measure them by your own.”
“Should the extremity arrive, it will be seen whether I have misjudged my countrywomen. Meanwhile, Jugmul, I claim to be a partner in your toils, and to share the glory as well as the labour of your resistance to this Moslem sovereign. It is but just that the wife should partake of her husband’s honours, of which I trust you are about to reap a full harvest.”
At this time, Chittore was invested by an army of thirty thousand men, commanded by Akbar in person, acknowledged the greatest leader of his age; yet this did not dispirit the governor’s wife, who was evidently more sanguine than her husband in the valour and resources of the garrison. Her eldest daughter, a lovely girl of sixteen, was engaged to a young Rajpoot chief, who when the siege commenced had thrown himself into Chittore with a few resolute followers.
Peirup Singh had not only the qualities of daring valour and indomitable resolution in common with his race, but was moreover young, handsome, and intelligent. He was ardently attached to the beautiful Kherla Nuny, though she had not yet experienced the glow of fervent affection. The young Rajpoot had been the choice of her parents, not of herself; her feelings, therefore, towards him, when brought to a sum, would have formed a total amounting to little more than indifference. She felt no objection to the choice of her parents, for she had no reason on the score of his general qualities; but she did not love him.
Peirup Singh was anxious that their nuptials should immediately take place, notwithstanding the siege, which had already been going on several weeks; and from the strength of the garrison, and the resolution of the foe, there was every reason to apprehend that it would not be terminated for some months to come. He therefore sought the Rajpootni to propose an immediate fulfilment of his wishes.
“Kherla,” said he, “youth is the beautiful season of life; but in proportion as it is beautiful it is fleeting. The hours of enjoyment are sparely meted out to us, it were therefore unwise to cast any away. I rejoice in the possession of your love, but would be made happy in the possession of you.”
“Peirup Singh,” replied the noble girl, “you have been promised that possession, and shall have it when the season comes; but I could not wed amid the dangers which surround us. When your valour has contributed to drive the enemy from our walls, I will give myself up to your future good guidance.”
“But why delay my happiness? Think you I shall fight less effectually as your husband than as your lover?”
“I know not; but I would be the spouse of a brave man. You have the reputation of being such, yet I have had no proof of it. Ample opportunity is now afforded you of showing that your reputation does not fall below your merit.”
“Ha! must I prove my claim to your love, Kherla? This is rather a mortifying exaction.”
“Not to a brave man, who is always proud to ratify by deeds of arms the reputation to which he lays claim.”
“But I promise you, the moment you are mine I will give you those proofs you require that your husband is unable to dishonour the name of Rajpoot.”
“Nay, Peirup Singh, the siege is still going on. I cannot comply with your wishes until the Moslem tyrant is either slain or driven from the neighbourhood of our homes. If you were to steep your sabre in his heart’s blood, my consent to an immediate union would be won. It may be worth your thinking of, Peirup Singh.”
In Akbar’s army was a Rajpoot, who having quitted Chittore in disgust, had enrolled himself among the Mogul troops. The cause of his abandoning his countrymen was this:—Having become attached to the younger daughter of the governor, who encouraged his addresses, her parents had refused their consent, not considering him eligible in point of rank for such an alliance. The girl, in consequence, implicitly obeying the directions of her parents, rejected him. His mortification was extreme.
All the passions of these fierce warriors are proportionably strong, and his disappointed feelings immediately urged him to an act of treachery. He went over to the enemy, and made those communications which greatly facilitated the progress of the siege. Akbar well knew how to profit by the information received, but did not trust the man beyond the line of wary policy. The Rajpoot was allowed to see nothing by which he could betray the Emperor’s designs to his countrymen, yet he was apparently treated with confidence and kindness. He, however, soon perceived that he was suspected. This discovery raised his indignation, and he immediately embraced the hollow maxim, suggested by his passions, that the man suspected of being a traitor is justified in becoming one. He was a fierce hot-blooded desperado, who sacrificed everything to the gratification of his feelings. Thinking that he might by a second act of treachery win the consent of Jugmul to wed his daughter, and thus gratify at once his love and his revenge, he determined to seek the governor of Chittore and propose, as the price of his consent, to slay the Mogul monarch.
The first difficulty was to obtain admission into the fort. Aware that on one side, where the wall was so high as almost to preclude the possibility of scaling it, the sentries posted were fewer and less vigilant, he resolved alone to attempt to climb the wall in this spot. One dark night, having provided himself with several spikes about nine inches long, he proceeded cautiously to the rampart. He had quitted the camp unknown to any one, having passed the sentries by daylight without suspicion, upon some natural pretence. When he reached the base of the rampart, which was here at least eighty feet high, he began to try his spikes upon the masonry. The stones were laid one on the other without cement, so that the interstices between them were sufficiently spacious to admit, with a little management, the introduction of his spikes. Fixing the first about a yard from the ground he stood on it, and placing another a foot above it he again raised himself, and pursuing this plan with cool perseverance, in spite of the great peril, he at length reached the summit of the battlement.
Whilst he was thus ascending, with the patient earnestness of a man who has a personal feeling to gratify, the sentinel above was fortunately whiling away the hours by chanting one of his native songs, which prevented him from hearing any sound made during this perilous ascent.
Previously to attempting the wall, the Rajpoot had cast off his dress, so that, the night being dark, the deep hue of his skin was not likely to be perceived by any eye that might look over the parapet. The white tunic of the soldier upon the ramparts, on the contrary, rendered him visible to a considerable distance through the darkness. When the Rajpoot reached the summit, he sprang over the parapet as the sentinel was leisurely walking from him. Having fairly gained the ramparts, he went deliberately up to the soldier, and, addressing him as if he were one of the garrison, had no difficulty in accounting for his appearance without exciting suspicion. Seeing that he was one of his own caste, the unsuspecting Hindoo entertained no doubt of his belonging to the troops under the command of Jugmul, and consequently allowed him to proceed without further interruption. The Rajpoot threw himself under the portico of a temple, and slept soundly until morning. At an early hour he appeared before the governor.
“You are, no doubt, surprised,” said he, “to behold me again within these walls. You have considered me a traitor, but I shall be able to prove to you that you have been deceived, and to show that I may be the means of saving this town from the cruelty of a vindictive foe.”
“The man who, under the emotions of anger, seeks an enemy’s camp,” said Jugmul, “is to be suspected.”
“But you cannot be ignorant that by seeking the enemy’s camp, I may have obtained that information which will enable you to foil his approaches, and save the lives and properties of those under your government.”
“Show me that you have done so before you expect that I should believe you are not a traitor.”
“I have now sought you to make a proposal for the benefit of all within this fortress.”
“Declare it.”
“Upon certain conditions I undertake to kill the Moslem Sovereign.”
“What are they?”
“That you will give me your daughter in marriage.”
“Had I twenty daughters I should not think it too great a reward for so signal a service. Destroy the tyrant who has led his troops before our walls, and I pledge myself to give you my daughter with an ample dowry.”
“I promise, at least, to attempt his death, and nothing but my own will secure his safety.”
“I need not tell you that you are believed to have deserted to the enemy from an impulse of revenge towards me. When once an impression of this kind is excited in the breasts of brave and honourable men, it is no easy thing to remove it. If you can accomplish what you propose you will be immediately restored to the good opinion which, so far as now appears, you have justly forfeited.”
The Rajpoot was sufficiently satisfied with his reception, but, when he desired to see the object of his attachment, her father replied:—
“No. You are still under the imputation of treachery; that imputation must be removed before you can have any intercourse with my daughter.”
“Do you suspect my integrity?”
“I have no warranty for your honesty, and therefore till you show that your absence from the city was not dishonourable to you, I can look upon you in no other light than that of a traitor.”
“Treat me as a traitor then, and order me to be flung from yonder battlements.”
“No! you have undertaken to prove your zeal for the welfare of your country, and I should be loth to deprive you of the opportunity.”
“Will you believe me faithful if I make a vacancy in the Mogul sovereignty before the waning of another moon?”
“The destruction of the Moslem king will restore you to my confidence, and to that of your countrymen.”
The Rajpoot returned to Akbar’s camp. His absence had been noticed. He was summoned before the Monarch. When he entered the presence, Akbar eyed him with keen and significant scrutiny, but the man did not blanch.
“Soldier,” said the Emperor, “you were absent last night from the camp. What was the object of your absence?”
“The king’s interest.”
“The king’s interest is not to be promoted by a breach of discipline.”
“I obtained admission into the fort, and have done the base work of a spy for the benefit of my country’s enemy.”
The Emperor was silent for a moment, but his eye fixed with an intense expression of inquiry upon the traitor. “What did you learn?” he at length inquired.
“That a sally will be made by some of the choicest troops of the garrison, on the second morrow from the present. The governor is determined to suffer extermination rather than capitulate, and has employed a secret assassin to take the Sovereign’s life.”
“Know you where he lurks?”
“In the Moslem camp.”
Akbar was not to be deceived by this flimsy artifice. He had too acute a perception of human motives to be persuaded that a man would thus gratuitously hazard his life for the interests of one to whom he was nationally an enemy, but he disguised his suspicions, and ordered the soldier to take his bow, in the use of which he was reported to be singularly expert, and accompany him before the enemy’s walls. The Emperor was attended by only a few followers; a syce[30] led a horse behind his royal master.
When they were within bow-shot of the ramparts seeing a group of the foe so near, the besieged crowded to the battlements, expecting that it was the preliminary of an assault. The governor was visible above the rest by his elevated stature.
“Now,” said Akbar to the Rajpoot, “prove to me the truth of what you have lately represented by sending an arrow into the brain of yonder chief.”
The Rajpoot affected to comply, and advanced gradually towards the syce, who was leading the Emperor’s charger, and now stood nearly on a line with the royal group, a few yards to the left. The Rajpoot having placed himself beside this man, fixed an arrow in the string of his bow, and directed it towards the rampart. While the eyes of Akbar and his attendants were gazing upon the object towards which they expected every moment to see the arrow winged, the soldier, suddenly turning, discharged his shaft direct at the Sovereign. It pierced his shoulder and fixed in the bone. The Hindoo instantly flung down his bow, drew his dagger, and stabbing to the heart the attendant who was holding his royal master’s horse, vaulted upon its back, plunged his heels in its sides, and darted towards the city with the velocity of a thunderbolt.
The nobles stood amazed. Akbar’s eye glanced fire, but he was silent, and walked back to the camp, where the arrow was with some difficulty extracted. He was unable to quit his tent for some days; but within a fortnight the wound was healed.
Meanwhile, the Rajpoot, after he had discharged the arrow, rode to the city gate, and was immediately admitted. What he had done was reported to the governor, who immediately granted him an interview.
“I now come to claim my bride—my arrow has pierced the Moslem king.”
“Is he slain?”
“It is impossible he should survive.”
“It will be time to fulfil the conditions of a promise when it is proved that the contract has been completed according to the terms stipulated.”
It was soon known in the besieged city that Akbar was recovering from his wound.
The Rajpoot was again summoned before the governor.
“You have failed,” said Jugmul, “to perform your undertaking.” The man’s brow contracted. “My pledge is, therefore, cancelled; and I now determine that you shall pay the penalty of a double treachery. Though a traitor to your country, had you been the successful instrument of its vengeance, however base the motives, your life should have been spared, and my child have become a sacrifice: as it is you are not worthy of confidence, and therefore deserve to die.”
He was immediately conducted to the Mahomedan camp, under a guard, with a letter from the governor to the Emperor, stating, that he gave up the traitor to be dealt with as the Mahomedan sovereign should deem proper. Akbar sent back the guard with a courteous message, and ordering one of the state elephants to be brought before him, commanded the traitor to stand forth. The man advanced with an undaunted countenance, expressing an utter contempt of death. He crossed his arms over his breast, and directed towards the Monarch a look of defiance. At a signal from the royal hand, the elephant was urged forward by the mahout, and, upon reaching the criminal, it felled him to the earth with his trunk, placed its huge foot upon his body, and instantly trod him to death.