“No, not alive. He was pressing on to encourage his troops, when he received a musket-ball in his right side; and soon after another. His horse fell, being wounded, and then Tippoo’s turban fell from his head.”
“Poor Tippoo! Then it was all over with him.”
“He was placed, wounded as he was, on his palanquin near the gate under the archway, and one of his domestics who survived, said, that a soldier who came up, snatched at his rich sword-belt, but Tippoo made a cut at him with his sword and wounded him. This enraged the soldier, who, raising his musket, shot him through the temples, when he instantly fell and expired.”
“We can’t help being sorry for him, cruel as he was.”
“When his body was found it was under a heap of slain, and despoiled of sword, jacket and turban. On his right arm was fastened an amulet of metal, like silver, sewed up in fine flowered silk. This was a talisman, for, besides the metal, it contained some small manuscripts, in magic Arabic and Persian characters.”
“The talisman did not save him from being killed.”
TIPPOO SAIB.
“It did not: his time was come. And it shows us the uncertainty of the life of a king as well as that of a common soldier. What was Tippoo in the morning when he quitted his palace? why, a king! a Sultan as proud as wealth and power could make him. What was he before set of sun? A disfigured lump of breathless clay! deprived not only of his capital and his kingdom, but also of his life. His proud palace, too, was occupied by General Baird; he whom Tippoo had before kept in cruel bondage for so long a period, at a short distance only from that gateway under which the tyrant fell!”
“There were a great number killed on both sides, no doubt?”