to it. The ruffian and
remorseless violence of lawless banditti occupied and ravaged the city
and the plain. The story of their plunder of Lahore is rendered hideous
by every outrage that humanity can suffer, and by a promiscuous carnage,
for which the ferocity of unreasoning animals might pant, but which the
untiring fury of the wildest of brutes, the human savage, alone could
protract beyond satiety. The finger of their murderous rage pointed to
every assailable European officer, of whom some were assassinated, some
very narrowly escaped. Months rolled on under the terrible dominion of
these uncontrollable miscreants, while the length and the breadth of the
land were scourged by their cruelty, polluted by their lust, and
desolated by their rapine. The pestilence was partially arrested by a
glut of gold. A treasure of many lacs of rupees being intercepted on its
way to Lahore, enriched and mollified its captors. But at last, gorged
with slaughter, and surfeited with excess, they modified their claims
within limits to which the government intimated its willingness to
accede. The incurable evil was consummated. Henceforward the army has
been its own master, and the master of the government and the country.
A transitory _mirage_ of internal tranquillity and subordination
refreshed the Punjaub; the fiery elements of discord and ruin smouldered
unextinguishably behind it, awaiting the necessity or the opportunity of
a fresh eruption. The volcano was not permitted to slumber. Shere Singh,
liberated from the imminent oppression of the soldiery, plunged headlong
into a slough of detestable debauchery. But in our annals his memory
must survive,

"Link'd with one virtue and a thousand crimes."

Influenced by what good genius, or by what prescient timidity, it may be
difficult to discover, he was true to the British interest, and remained
obstinately deaf to the seductive animosity of the Sikh council, which
was prone to take advantage of the disasters in Caubul, and to attack
the avenging army of Sir George Pollock in its passage to Peshawer.
Loyalty to England was little less than an act of treason to the Sikh
chieftains and the Sikh soldiery, which, added to the Maharajah's total
neglect of public business, accelerated a fatal conspiracy by his
brother-in-law Ajeet Singh, and Dhyan Singh, "the close contriver of all
harms." Shere Singh, being invited to inspect his brother-in-law's
cavalry at a short distance from Lahore, w