Daud Shah, a sirdir or general of the army—a venerable soldier—could only distribute one month's pay, but, with shrill and vehement shouts that made every carved arcade and shaded balcony re-echo, they demanded two.
'Two months' pay or blood!'
The sirdir attempted to remonstrate with them, on which tumult and disorder pervaded their ranks, and they broke out into open mutiny.
Then another sirdir—whose name is not unknown to the reader—exclaimed, with a voice loud enough to be heard above the fast-growing disturbance,
'Let us kill the Envoy and then the Ameer who would sell us to the Feringhees!'
'Deen! deen! deen and death,' shouted all, and, rushing into the greater court of the palace, they proceeded to stone and loot without mercy the servants of the Residency.
Enraged by this rough treatment, Taimur, the Usbeg Tartar, and some of his Guide comrades, without temporising or waiting for the orders of their officers, betook them to their carbines and opened a fire upon the multitude from the open windows and stately galleries overlooking the court.
Colville and other officers called upon them to cease firing, and they did so for a time.
Then it was that the Sirdir Mahmoud Shah, a man whose fanaticism made him all but a Ghazi, shook his hand upwards at the gallery where they stood, and called, with a shrill voice,
'Brutes! beasts! vermin! filthy Feringhees! Enjoy the pleasures of life for a brief time, but your speedy departure shall be into the flames of hell, with water like molten brass to drink, and ye shall say, as the Koran tells us—"Oh, Malec, intercede for us, that the Lord may end us by annihilation."'