A few words in relation to some other characters in our history, and we have done.
Pahar Singh did not long maintain his promise of abstinence from violence. It had become, together with avarice, the ruling passion of his character, and led him on, after a while, to fresh outrages; and though pardoned by the King again and again, in memory of his strange services, it was impossible, in the end, to overlook the daring character of his proceedings, and his occupation of royal territories. Nor was it long before Kowas Khan discovered the active share the robber chief had taken in his father's murder; and though the King's acquiescence in that deed was more surmised than ascertained, the fact of his being acquainted with Pahar Singh's part in it was not afterwards denied. On an occasion, therefore, when, by a more than usually serious outrage, the King's pardon had been absolutely withdrawn, his reduction and punishment became unavoidable,—Kowas Khan led an army against the castle of Itga, Pahar Singh was slain in its defence, his estates confiscated, and the castle and its walls blown up.
His nephew escaped, but returned to the village to live as a farmer under reduced circumstances. When Aurungzeeb conquered the country, he became again "Hazaree," or commander of a thousand, and the title remained with his descendants, who, however, never abandoned lawless courses. Long afterwards, a descendant, also named Pahar Singh, became a leader of Dekhan Pindarees, or freebooters, after the Mahratta war of 1818-19, and when that crime was no longer practicable, took to a minor practice of it in highway robbery. In 1828-29, the family were found to be largely connected with Dacoity and Thuggee, and the leading members of it were tried, convicted of both crimes, and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, during which their head, Pahar Singh, died.
Persevering to the last, the other members, on their release, again took to highway robbery on horseback, and for a brief period were the terror of certain districts in the Dekhan, extending their operations, too, to distant points; but they were gradually hunted down,[22] and the last six were brought to justice by the writer of this chronicle in 1850, and sentenced to penal servitude for life. One member only of the family survives free, and, as late as 1860, was a private in the police of the —— district.
Our friend the Lalla, who played a conspicuous part in the early portion of this history, became a prosperous and wealthy man; but the question of his honesty remained an open one. He sent for his family, and settled at Beejapoor, and his talents gained him lucrative employment in the state. He remained attached to Kowas Khan, whom he is believed to have corrupted; and, finally, as the kingdom was on the point of dissolution, he is said to have made peace with his old master, the Emperor Aurungzeeb, by materially assisting his designs, and tampering with the nobility and officers of the state previous to the last investment of the city. He probably returned to Dehli with the royal camp, for no traces of his family are to be found in Beejapoor.
Bulwunt Rao remained as he was, the leader of a troop of his own horses in the Paigah, or household forces of Fazil Khan. When his cousin and hereditary enemy, Tannajee Maloosray, was killed in that famous escalade of Singhur, near Poona, which has furnished the subject of many a Mahratta ballad, Bulwunt Rao went to Sivaji, and the circumstances he related being well remembered, he obtained substantial justice in the restoration of his hereditary property. Sivaji offered him service, which was respectfully declined, and the motives for refusal being appreciated, he was honourably dismissed. He married among his kinsfolk, and his wife, a practical woman, kept his house well. It is questionable, however, whether his habits were ever reclaimed, and he died before the dissolution of the Beejapoor kingdom. His wife, finding the care of the troop-horses irksome, sold them, returned with her children to the family estate, and settled there, and their descendants are now connected with many of the noble families of the Dekhan.
The hunchback, Lukshmun, after his return home, took to Itga all that he had saved, together with a heavy purse of gold which Fazil Khan had given him, which he buried immediately on his arrival. Somehow or other, however, the fact of this gold being possessed by him, got wind, and the idea of a mere retainer possessing gold at all, was too much to be endured by his avaricious master, who demanded to see it. We are sorry to record, that the poor fellow was obliged to submit to some rough torture, which was more than he could bear, ere he would surrender it; but Lukshmun always supposed that it was by the desertion of his master at Tooljapoor, rather than by the possession of the gold, that evil eyes fell upon him; and perhaps he was right. The gold was given up to his chief, and by it the last link between them was broken; and profiting by Pahar Singh's temporary absence, Lukshmun, taking his wife and children with him, left Itga one day, and returned to Afzoolpoor, where Fazil Khan's retainers were stationed, and was protected by them. Pahar Singh threatened to burn the town if he were not given up; but Fazil Khan paid what was demanded for him, and he remained.
Years afterwards, and as his lord's children grew up, the hunchback was their especial favourite. He taught the eldest boys athletic exercises, the use of their weapons, and riding; and as long as any girl was allowed to go out of the private apartments, he carried her about in his arms, told charming fairy stories, and manufactured playthings—his dolls, being of all, the most hideous, and most delightful. Nor was there any greater treat to the children possible, than when their mother sometimes, and especially on certain anniversaries, sent for the hunchback and Ashruf, now a stout cavalier in the household troop, and having seated them outside a screen, made them sing ballads again as they did once long ago; and of all their store, "The Vow of the Necklace," was ever the greatest favourite with the children, because their mother's name was mentioned in it. With her, because—well, no matter: we know why, long since, and 'tis now an old story.
Many years before them, and in all honour among her children, as she always called them, the lady Lurlee passed away. She never gave up astrology, and found perpetual occupation in discovering lucky days for her grandchildren's wants, and for all sorts of household observances. Not a tooth could be cut, or any ailment of childhood exist and pass away, without appropriate ceremonials of thanksgiving, in the discovery of proper times for which, the old lady was held to be especially skilful. Nor in these only. Was she not the authority of the neighbourhood for ascertaining lucky marriages, for deciding the proper colours for proper days of her grandchildren's dresses; and did not she keep the cords of all their birthdays, and tie the knots in each as the anniversaries returned? Was she not the undisputed director of all such household family matters, and the universal referee on them by all her acquaintance?