ver", said the Raja exultingly, "and they were all
afterwards very glad of it. The tigers in the Tarai do not often kill
men, sir, for they find plenty of deer and cattle to eat,"'

CHAPTER 21

Burning of Deori by a Freebooter--A Suttee.

Sarimant had been one of the few who escaped from the flames which
consumed his capital of Deori in the month of April 1813, and were
supposed to have destroyed thirty thousand souls. I asked him to tell
me how this happened, and he referred me to his attendant, a learned
old pundit, Ram Chand, who stood by his side, as he was himself, he
said, then only five years of age, and could recollect nothing of it.

'Mardan Singh,' said the pundit, 'the father of Raja Arpan Singh,
whom you saw at Seori, was then our neighbour, reigning over Garha
Kota;[1] and he had a worthless nephew, Zalim Singh, who had
collected together an army of five thousand men, in the hope of
getting a little principality for himself in the general scramble for
dominion incident on the rise of the Pindharis and Amir Khan,[2] and
the destruction of all balance of power among the great sovereigns of
Central India. He came to attack our capital, which was an emporium
of considerable trade and the seat of many useful manufactures, in
the expectation of being able to squeeze out of us a good sum to aid
him in his enterprise. While his troops blocked up every gate, fire
was, by accident, set to the fence of some man's garden within. There
had been no rain for six months; and everything was so much dried up
that the flames spread rapidly; and, though there was no wind when
they began, it soon blew a gale. The Sarimant was then a little boy
with his mother in the fortress, where she lived with his father[3]
and nine other relations. The flames soon extended to the fortress,
and the powder-magazine blew up. The house in which they lived was
burned down, and every soul, except the lieutenant [_sic_] himself,
perished in it. His mother tried to bear him off in her arms, but
fell down in her struggle to get out with him and died. His nurse,
Tulsi Kurmin,[4] snatched him up, and ran with him outside of the
fortress to the bank of the river, where she made him over unhurt to
Hariram, the Marwari merchant.[5] He was mounted on a good horse,
and, making off across the river, he carried him safely to his
friends at Gaurjhamar; but poor Tulsi the Kurmin fell down exhausted
when she saw her charge safe, and died.

'The wi