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.
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