CHAPTER IV.
Akbar sent a Vakeel, offering to the besieged most liberal terms, which were indignantly rejected.
“Tell your king,” was the reply, “that we accept no terms from him who seeks to dispossess us of our homes. We deem that capitulation is a word only admitted into the vocabulary of cowards.”
The Vakeel returned, and Akbar determined to storm the town. On that very day two mines were sprung, which made a breach in the walls in two several places as before. The heroine who now commanded Chittore was undismayed at what she saw. The whole garrison had been cut off except about two hundred men.Multitudes of citizens had destroyed themselves and their families to escape falling into the conqueror’s hands. She, however, summoned as many of the inhabitants as were in a condition to make a final effort, determined to offer resistance to the enemy so long as there remained a man within the fortress able and willing to fight.
The moment the breaches were formed the heroic widow ordered new works to be raised, and thus a slight defence was opposed to the foe in an incredibly short space of time. High wooden frames, filled with mud, had been previously prepared, and were instantly placed in the openings of the rampart. Upon the battlements stood a small but determined band, with large vessels containing a boiling liquid of the consistence of pitch, ready to pour it upon the besiegers’ heads as they attempted to scale the shattered walls. A number of females armed with missiles likewise crowded the ramparts, determined to take their part in the close of this desperate game. All the principal women within the fortress had already suffered themselves to be sacrificed by their husbands, sons, or brothers; those that remained were only a few who had escaped the general massacre to die in the breaches of their native city.
While the inhabitants were working at the breaches Peirup Singh came before the mother of his beloved. She moved from him with a glance of scorn.
“Nay,” said he, “turn not from a despairing man. I come here to redeem that honour which you consider I have forfeited. The master-passion within me is now quelled, and I yield to the sadder circumstances of my destiny.”
“The man,” said the Rajpootni, “who prefers life to glory deserves not to die the warrior’s death. There are enough on these battlements to leave a record for the dark page of history of the desperate defence of Chittore. You may go and propitiate the conqueror, and live with the galling iron of bondage entering into your recreant soul. We seek no aid from Peirup Singh.”
The Rajpoot bit his lip, but stirred not. The hurried glance of his eye, which darted like a sunbeam towards the advancing hosts, expressed the fierce resolve which swelled his heart at this moment of advancing peril. It was the glance of a bayed tiger. He drewhis sword and walked with a deliberate but firm step to the least protected part of the breach.
The enemy advanced at a quick trot, and poured forward like a sudden irruption of the sea. When the foremost reached the trench the shock was terrific. They were forced back by the besieged with a resolution which nothing could withstand. The scalding preparation was poured upon their heads. This new mode of resistance confounded them. They drew back from the rampart, and renewed their attack only to meet with a similar reception. Time after time they were repulsed, but the besiegers being greatly exposed in the breaches, suffered extremely from the enemy’s matchlocks. Peirup Singh fought with the fury of a gored lion. He was twice severely wounded, but did not retire from the station he had chosen. Evening put an end to the struggle, and the Mahomedans were obliged to retreat.
Their temporary success elated the besieged, still it was evident that they could not maintain a successful opposition for another day. Their numbers had been much diminished by the enemy’s well-directed fire, and the temporary defences were considerably weakened by continual assaults. Nevertheless, it was determined that resistance should be offered so long as there was a man to stand in the trench.
Next morning the attack was renewed. Many of the Mahomedans were hurled headlong from the walls in attempting to scale them, but were succeeded by fresh troops equally resolute; and at length, in spite of the exertions of the despairing Hindoos, they obtained a footing, and the trench was carried. Peirup Singh, having killed several of the foe, was shot through the brain with a matchlock, and fell dead into the ditch. The heroic Rajpootni widow, who, though dangerously wounded, still stood upon the battlements encouraging the brave defenders of Chittore, rushed forward to meet death in the trench, but the enemy generously dropped their swords as she advanced, and attempted to take her alive. Perceiving the intention, she instantly retreated towards the town, followed by a party of Akbar’s soldiers. Though still reeking with her blood, she gained her home before them, and,having entered, securely fastened the door. Summoning her only remaining daughter, she cried—
“My child, the moment is come when we must consummate our triumph. We shall not fall alive into the hands of the foe.”
She seized a torch which had been kept ready lighted to meet such a melancholy contingency. The daughter had not the mother’s heroism—she shrieked as she advanced towards the pile, and would have retreated, but her resolute parent, with the last collected effort of strength, dragged her onward. “There is no alternative but death, my child,” she said, calmly. She reached the pyre, took the trembling girl in her arms, ascended the fatal platform, applied the torch, and in a few moments both mother and daughter were wrapped in the embrace of death. The soldiers entered, having burst open the door, and found their prey had escaped them. They gazed upon the flaming pile, upon which oil had been poured to excite it to quicker combustion. They were deprived of their victim. The flames were singing a fearful requiem over her ashes. It was a horrible sight to witness the combined consummation of superstition and despair.
The fortress was soon filled with the victorious Mahomedans. Those Hindoos who had not adopted the desperate resource of self-immolation, and had survived the carnage, thronged to the temples, the entrances of which they barricaded, determined to die in their sanctuaries rather than yield to the upholders of a different faith. Akbar himself entered the town, and ordered the temples to be forced. They who had sought sanctuary thither perished without a murmur. They attempted no resistance, but suffered themselves to be slaughtered like animals for the sacrifice. Several thousands thus became martyrs to their prejudices, and died with a smile of defiance upon their lips, without raising a hand in self-defence. The Emperor, however, did not evince that bigoted zeal which has so much disgraced the religion of every country in which it has been actively displayed, but spared the venerable monuments of an ancient, though besotted, superstition. His taste admired the structures, whilst his soul contemned the profane rites which they had been reared to consecrate, andthough he destroyed the monstrous idols of the heathens, he allowed their temples to stand, many of them noble monuments of Hindoo talent and architectural skill.
When the fortress was fully in possession of Akbar he gazed with astonishment upon the prodigal sacrifice of human life which had occurred in almost every house. The Johur had taken place, and many thousand females of all ages signalised the detestation of their foes by submitting to a voluntary death. Multitudes of either sex surrendered their lives, some by the sword, others on the flaming pile. Blood flowed in torrents. The steams of death rose to the fair heavens, which looked down calmly and beautifully, but through which glanced an omnipotent eye upon the violence, the follies, and the delinquencies of men.
So great had been the destruction that little treasure was found by the conquerors within the fortress. They who perished by a voluntary decease had taken care previously to consume or destroy everything of value which they possessed. Even the treasures of the temples had been disposed of, so that the conquerors entered a depopulated town, rendered a scene of utter desolation, a fit abode only for the reptile and beast of prey.
That portion of the garrison which had last sallied from the gates to die fighting for their country and its shrines perished in a cause which they imagined would end in their transportation to higher scenes of enjoyment in new states of being. They first purified themselves with water, offered adoration to the Divinity, made benefactions to the poor, placed a branch of the toolsi in their casques, and the saligram round their necks, emblems of death and the grave; and having cased themselves in armour, and put on the saffron robe, they bound the mor, a funeral coronet, round their heads, embraced each other for the last time, and rushed forth to perish in the fierce conflict of arms.
As the king walked through the now desolate streets he was deeply affected. Disfigured bodies, black and putrid, and exhaling the horrible odours of decay, lay before him in all their revolting deformity. The corpses of those who fell by their own hands had been just put under the surface of the ground, and wereseen protruding through the earth from their superficial graves, filling the air with the seeds of pestilence. Women and children were still among the dead and dying, at the last extremity, imploring piteously for a cup of water to slake the raging thirst that was consuming them, and adding intolerable torment to their expiring agonies.
All the corpses were ordered to be collected together and consumed upon one vast pile, and fires were kept burning for days to purify the air and cleanse the polluted town.
Such were the frightful circumstances under which the Mogul emperor became master of Chittore. It is, in truth, melancholy to contemplate the horrors which frequently follow on the heels of human ambition. It seems to look upon the sanguinary devastations of war as a sort of legalised licence to destruction, and they therefore fail to excite our sympathies; but if we consider what an awful amount of human beings have been cut off by the sword, or by those scourges so often the frightful handmaids of war, pestilence and famine, we should be startled at the prodigious total. Animals destroy each other singly, and in obedience to an irresistible instinct to support their own lives, which, to them, is the greatest boon of heaven, because they have no prospects beyond, but the rational portion of God’s creatures destroy each other by large masses and in mighty sums merely to substantiate the sordid calculations of interest, to appease their base passions, or to realize the aims of a bloated ambition.
Akbar having done all in his power to alleviate the miseries of the few surviving native inhabitants of Chittore, commanded the walls to be repaired, appointed Asuf Chan Hirvy governor of the fortress, leaving with him a numerous garrison, and returned with the rest of his army to his capital.