e
opening of the fourteenth century, Chitor must have been taken by the
Mussulman, for it is written that one prince "recovered Chitor and made
the name of Rana to be recognised by all." Six princes were slain in
battles against the Mussulman, in vain attempts to clear the land from
the presence of the infidel.

Then Ala-ud-din Khilji, the Pathan Emperor, swept the country to the
Dekkan. In those days, and these things are confusedly set down as
having happened at the end of the thirteenth century, a relative of Rana
Lakhsman Singh, the then Rana of Chitor, had married a Rajput princess
of Ceylon--Pudmini, "And she was fairest of all flesh on earth." Her
fame was sung through the land by the poets, and she became, in some
sort, the Helen of Chitor. Ala-ud-din heard of her beauty and promptly
besieged the Fort. When he found his enterprise too difficult, he prayed
that he might be permitted to see Pudmini's face in a mirror, and this
wish, so says the tale, was granted. Knowing that the Rajput was a
gentleman, he entered Chitor almost unarmed, saw the face in the mirror,
and was well treated; the husband of the fair Pudmini accompanying him,
in return, to the camp at the foot of the hill. Like Raja Runjeet in the
ballad the Rajput he--

"... trusted a Mussulman's word
Wah! Wah! Trust a liar to lie.
Out of his eyrie they tempted my bird,
Fettered his wings that he could not fly."

Pudmini's husband was caught by a trick, and Ala-ud-din demanded Pudmini
as the price of his return. The Rajputs here showed that they too could
scheme, and sent, in great state, Pudmini's litter to the besiegers'
intrenchments. But there was no Pudmini in the litter, and her following
of handmaidens was a band of seven hundred armed men. Thus, in the
confusion of a camp-fight, Pudmini's husband was rescued, and
Ala-ud-din's soldiery followed hard on his heels to the gates of Chitor,
where the best and bravest on the rock were killed before Ala-ud-din
withdrew, only to return soon after and, with a doubled army, besiege in
earnest. His first attack men called the half-sack of Chitor, for,
though he failed to win within the walls, he killed the flower of the
Rajputs. The second attack ended in the first sack and the awful _sati_
of the women on the rock.

When everything was hopeless and the very terrible Goddess, who lives in
the bowels of Chitor, had spoken and claimed for death eleven out of the
twelve of the Rana's s