The Rajah made his escape, but his agents were put to the same tortures as his tenants. Rughbur Sing, among other things, commanded them to sign a declaration, to the effect that his predecessor and enemy, Wajid Allee Khan, had received from them the sum of thirty thousand rupees more than he had credited to his government, but this they all refused to do. Rughbur Sing remained at Bondee for six weeks, superintending personally all these atrocities; and then went off, leaving, as his agent, Kurum Hoseyn. He continued the tortures upon the tenants and officers of the Rajah, and the captives collected in his camp. He rubbed the beards of the men with moist gunpowder; and, as soon as it became dry in the sun, he set fire to it. Other tortures, too cruel and indecent to be named, were inflicted upon four servants of the Rajah, Kunjun Sing, Bustee Ram, Admadnt Pandee, and Bhugwant Rae, and upon others, who were likely to be able to borrow or beg anything for their ransom.

Finding that the tenants did not return, and that the estate was likely to be altogether deserted, unless the Rajah returned, Kurum Hoseyn was instructed by Rughbur Sing to invite him back on any terms. The poor Rajah, having nothing in the jungles to which he had fled to subsist upon, ventured back on the solemn pledge of personal security given by Pudum Sing, a respectable capitalist, whom the collector had induced, by solemn oaths on the holy Koran, to become a mediator; and, as a token of reconciliation and future friendship, the Rajah and collector changed turbans. They remained together for five months on the best possible terms, and the Rajah's tenants returned to their homes and fields. All having been thus lulled into security, Rughbur Sing suddenly sent another agent, Maharaj Sing, to supersede Kurum Hoseyn, and seize the Rajah and his confidential manager, Benee Ram Sookul. They, however, went off to Balalpoor, forty miles distant from Bondee, and kept aloof from the new collector, till he prevailed upon all the officers, commanding corps and detachments under him, to enter into solemn written pledges of personal security. The Rajah had been long suffering from ague and fever, and had become very feeble in mind and body. He remained at Balalpoor; but, under the assurance of these pledges from military officers of rank and influence, Benee Ram and other confidential officers of the Rajah came to his camp, and entered upon the adjustment of their accounts.

When he found them sufficiently off their guard, Maharaj Sing, while sitting one evening with Benee Ram, who was a stout, powerful man, asked him to show him the handsome dagger which he always wore in his waistband. He did so, and as soon as he got it in his hand, the collector gave the concerted signal to Roshun Allee, one of the officers present, and his armed attendants, to seize him. As he rose to leave the tent he was cut down from behind by Mattadeen, khasburdar; and the rest fell upon him and cut him to pieces in presence of the greater part of the officers who had given the solemn pledges for his personal security. Not one of them interposed to save him. Doulut Rae, another confidential servant of the Rajah, however, effected his escape, and ran to the Rajah, who prepared to defend himself at Balalpoor, where Maharaj Sing tried, in vain, to persuade his troops' to attack him. For two months the towns and villages were deserted, but the crops were on the ground, and guarded by the Passee bowmen, who are usually hired for the purpose.

Beharee Lal, the principal agent of Rughbur Sing in these districts, now wrote a letter of condolence to the Rajah, on the death of his faithful servant, Benee Ram—told him that he had dismissed from all employ the villain Maharaj Sing, and appointed to his place Kurum Hoseyn, who would make all reparation and redress all wrongs. This letter he sent by a very plausible man, Omed Rae, the collector of the Rahooa estate. Kurum Hoseyn resumed charge of his office, and went unattended to the Rajah, with whom he remained some days feasting, and swearing on the Koran, that all had been without his connivance or knowledge, and that he had come back with a full determination to see justice done to his friend, the Rajah, and his landholders and cultivators in everything. Having thus soothed the poor old Rajahs apprehensions, he prevailed on him to go back with him to Bondee, where he behaved for some time with so much seeming frankness and cordiality, and swore so solemnly on the Koran to respect the persons of all men who should come to him on business, that the Rajah's tenants and agents lost all their fears, and again came freely to his camp. The Rajah now invited all his tenants as before, to enter into engagements to pay their rents to officers appointed by the collector as jumogdars; and the people had hopes of being permitted to gather their harvests in peace. Kurum Hoseyn now suggested to Beharee Lal, to come suddenly with the largest force he could collect, and seize the many respectable men who had assembled-at his invitation.

He made a forced march daring the night, appeared suddenly at Bondee with a large force, and seized all who were there assembled, save the Rajah and his family, who escaped to the jungles. Detachments of from one hundred to two hundred were sent out as before, to plunder the country, and seize all from whom anything could be extorted. All the towns and villages on the estate were plundered of everything that could be found, and fifteen hundred men, and about five hundred women and children, were brought in prisoners, with no less than eighty thousand animals of all kinds. There were twenty-five thousand head of cattle; and horses, mares, sheep, goats, ponies, &c., made up the rest. All with the men, women, and children were driven off, pell-mell, a distance of twenty miles to Busuntpoor, in the Hurhurpoor district, where Beharee Lal's headquarter had been fixed. For three days heavy rain continued to fall. Pregnant women were beaten on by the troops with bludgeons and the butt-ends of muskets and matchlocks. Many of them gave premature birth to children and died on the road; and many children were trodden to death by the animals on the road, which was crowded for more than ten miles.

Rughbur Sing and his agents, Beharee Lal, Kurum Hoseyn, Maharaj Sing, Prag Sing, and others, selected several thousand of the finest cattle, and sent them to their homes; and the rest were left to the officers and soldiers of the force to be disposed of; and, for all this enormous number of animals, worth at least one hundred thousand rupees, the small sum of one hundred and thirty rupees was credited in the Nazim's accounts to the Rajah's estate. At Busuntpoor the force was divided into two parties, for the purpose of torturing the surviving prisoners till they consented to sign bonds, for the payment of such sums as might be demanded from them. Beharee Lal presided over the first party, in which they were tortured from day-break till noon. They were tied up and flogged, had red-hot ramrods thrust into their flesh, their tongues were pulled out with hot pincers and pierced through; and, when all would not do, they were taken to Kurum Hoseyn, who presided at the other party, to be tortured again till the evening. He sat with a savage delight, to witness this brutal scene and invent new kinds of torture. No less than seventy men, besides women and children, perished at Busuntpoor from torture and starvation; and their bodies were left to rot in the mud, and their friends were afraid to approach them. Bustee's body was stolen at night by his son, and Guyadut's was sold to his family by the soldiers.

Among the persons of respectability who died under the tortures, several are named below.* Buldee Sing, the husband of the Rajah's sister, took poison and died; and Ramdeen, a Brahmin of great respectability, stabbed himself to death, to avoid further torture and dishonour. For two months did these atrocities continue at Busuntpoor; and during that time the prisoners got no food from the servants of Government. All that they got was sent to them by their friends, or by the charitable peasantry of the country around; and when sweetmeats were sent to them as food, which the most scrupulous could eat from any hand, the soldiers often snatched them from them and ate them themselves, or took them to their officers. The women and children were all stripped of their clothes, and many died from cold and want of sustenance. It was during the months of September and October that these atrocities were perpetrated. The heavy rain had inundated the country, and the poor prisoners were obliged to lie naked and unsheltered on the damp ground.

[* 1. Byjonauth, the Rajah's accountant.

2. Gijraj Sing, Rajpoot.

3. Sheopersaud.

4. Rampersaud.

5. Jhow Lal.

6. Guyadut.

7. Duyram.

8. Budaree Chobee.

9. Mungul Sing, Rajpoot.

10. Seodeen Sing, ditto.

11. Akber Sing.

12. Bustee, a farmer. ]

Apreel Sing, a respectable Jagheerdar of Bondee, was tortured till he consented to sell his two daughters, and pay the money; and a great many respectable females, who were taken from Bondee to Busuntpoor, have never been heard of since. Whether they perished or were sold their friends have never been able to discover. The sipahees and other persons, employed to torture, got money from their victims or their friends, who ventured to approach, or from the pitying peasantry around; and all laughed and joked at the screams of the sufferers. Several times, during the two months, Rughbur Sing paid off heavy arrears, due to his personal servants, by drafts on his agents for prisoners, to be placed at the disposal of the payee, ten and twenty at a time. It is worthy of remark, that an old Subadar of one of our regiments of Native Infantry, who was then at home in furlough, happened to pass Busuntpoor with his family, on his way to Guya, on a pilgrimage. He and his family had saved what was to them a large sum, to be spent in offerings, for the safe passage of his deceased relatives through purgatory. On witnessing the sufferings of the poor prisoners at Busuntpoor, he and his family offered all they had for a certain number of women and children, who were made over to them. He took them to their homes, and returned to his own, saying, that he hoped God would forgive them for the sake of the relief which they had afforded to sufferers.

In the latter end of October, Beharee Lal took off all the force that could be spared, to attack the Rajah of Bhinga, and plunder his estate in the same manner; and Kurum Hoseyn took another to plunder Koelee, Murdunpoor, Budrolee, and some other villages of the Bondee estate, which had suffered least in the last attack. He collected two thousand plough-bullocks, and sold them for little to Nuzur Allee and Sufder Allee, who commanded detachments under him. He soon after made an attack upon Sookha and other villages, in the vicinity of Busuntpoor, and collected between twenty and thirty thousand head of cattle; but, on his way back, he was attacked by a party of twenty brave men (under a landholder named Nabee Buksh, whom he wished to seize), and driven back to his camp at Busuntpoor, with the loss of all his booty. He attempted no more enterprises after this check. The tortures ceased, and ten days after he ran off, on hearing that Rughbur Sing had been deprived of his charge by orders from Lucknow. At this time one hundred and fifty prisoners remained at Busuntpoor, and they were released by Incha Sing, the successor and uncle of Rughbur Sing.