Tara: A Mahratta Tale

by Meadows Taylor

"It is here," said the man, drawing a heavy axe-head from his waist: and, coolly fitting a helve to it, lifted it above his head. "Shall I?"

"Strike!" cried Pahar Singh.

Several heavy blows fell on the gate, and a man called out from the bastion, "Desist, or we fire."

But Rama heeded no warning. Again two crashing blows, struck with his full force, had splintered some of the wood-work, and he had uplifted his arm for another, when one of the men at a lower loophole fired. Rama swayed to and fro for a moment, and, falling heavily to the ground, the blood gushed from his mouth in a torrent.

Pahar Singh did not speak, but he gnashed his teeth in fury. Rama, of all his inferior followers, was the one most devoted—and was brave to recklessness. The chief saw that the shot must have been deadly. He might have shared the same fate; but the men without, his own as well as the Abyssinians, returned the fire, and distracted the aim of those within.

"By——" and the oath was lost in the clamour—he cried, putting his sword between his teeth, seizing the axe, and striking at the door with his whole force, "ye shall die, sons of vile Mahratta mothers. Every one of ye shall howl in hell for that poor fellow."

Blow after blow followed; and as the panel near the lock broke under them, a number of the chief's men and the Abyssinians rushed against the door, which gave way under their combined weight and force, and entrance was effected.

On the noise of the first shouts reaching them, the Khan, the priest, and others, rushed down the street, and arrived at the scene of action. The firing was increasing, and several of the Khan's followers and Abyssinians had fallen. Some were already dead, others wounded; and, wedged as they had been in a mass, every shot had told on them, while those who defended the gate could not be seen. Its being forced, however, changed the feature of the contest; and the Khan, who, in the heat of the excitement, forgot his caution and warning to the men, now shouted his battle-cry; while the priest, struggling in with the rest, cried to the men—"Bismilla!—in the name of God and the Prophet—slay, slay—ye true believers! Heed not death—ye will be martyrs! Let not the Kaffirs live, who have killed the faithful. Send them to hell, to perish with their devil's idols. Kill! kill!"

With such cries, had men of Islam been hounded on by their priests before. Was he to be less? Here, in the very holiest of infidel temples, should the might of Islam be felt.

But, in truth, the men needed but little excitement; what was there before them was enough. Who did not remember that it was a Jéhâd, a war of the faith, which had been preached to them daily? Who did not remember that to slay infidels in war earned the blessing of the Prophet and paradise? So, with Pahar Singh leading them, his sword between his teeth, and striking down men right and left with every blow of his axe, the infuriated soldiery rushed in a body down the steps and into the large court below.