Through the Sikh War: A Tale of the Conquest of the Punjaub

by G. A. Henty

"I shall reckon with them afterwards. I am only asking you to give up the prisoners and spoil you have in your hands. I shall find, when I have punished the other two tribes that were engaged with you, what captives they have, and if any are missing I shall return here and burn your villages over your heads."

"We cannot pay five hundred cattle."

"Oh, yes, you can! I know pretty well how many you have, and five hundred will not leave you altogether without some. I will not abate one from my demand, but I will consent to take the value of any deficiency in gold and silver ornaments, taken at their weight in metal. Those are my first conditions and my last, and you can carry them back to your chief."

"The three principal chiefs are killed," the man said, "but I will take your message back to my tribe."

"You had best return with an answer to-night, for at daybreak we shall fire this place and advance against the other villages."

"Will they agree, do you think?" Percy asked when the chief retired.

"They will agree," the colonel replied confidently. "The threat of destroying their plantations will induce them to yield. Their houses they can soon build up again, but, with the greater part of their cattle gone, the destruction of their plantations would mean starvation to all."

The colonel was not mistaken. There was no reply that night, but at daybreak on the following morning a procession was seen approaching the village. It consisted of more than half of the women who had been carried off, four hundred cattle from the plains, and five hundred of the little hill cattle. There were also twelve lads, a few of whom were almost men, while others were but four or five years old. Ambassadors soon arrived from the Naga and Kotah tribes. These had, as the colonel learnt from a captured native, sent contingents who had taken part in the fight on the previous day. Similar conditions to those imposed on the Turgars were demanded, except that the fine for each tribe was fixed at three hundred head of cattle only, the colonel knowing that they were poorer in this respect than the Turgars.

For two days messengers went and came, and it was only when at last the troops were upon the point of starting against them that they yielded, and on the following morning the captives, hostages, and cattle arrived at the village. The chiefs of all three tribes were ordered to attend that afternoon. The colonel addressed them, and severely admonished them as to their behaviour in the future. "If again," he said, "there is any outrage whatever upon your peaceable neighbours on the other side of the river, I warn you that no mercy will be shown you. Your villages will be destroyed, your plantations rooted up, your crops burned, and your country made desert from end to end. I punished your neighbours ten years ago, and I have punished you now. The next time I have to bring a force across the river I will root you out altogether."

The chiefs all gave the most solemn assurances that they would in future abstain from forays across the river, and in order to mingle clemency with justice, and to disembarrass himself of the trouble of looking after a number of prisoners, he restored to each of the tribes eight out of the twelve hostages that had been handed over, retaining only the sons of four leading chiefs. Upon the following morning the expedition marched back, two companies of the infantry and the guns forming the column, while the cavalry and the rest of the infantry looked after the great herd of cattle that had been collected, and escorted the rescued women, many of whom were completely prostrated by what they had gone through. The total loss of the column was but fifteen killed and fifty-three wounded.