All who asked for mercy pretended to be able to
make something that these Tartars had taken a liking to. On coming
before Delhi, Timur's army encamped on the opposite or left bank of
the river Jumna; and here he learned that his soldiers had collected
together above one hundred thousand of these artificers, besides
their women and children. There were no soldiers among them; but
Timur thought it might be troublesome either to keep them or to turn
them away without their women and children; and still more so to make
his soldiers send away these women and children immediately. He asked
whether the prisoners were not for the most part unbelievers in his
prophet Muhammad; and being told that the majority were Hindoos, he
gave orders that every man should be put to death; and that any
officer or soldier who refused to kill or have killed all such men,
should suffer death. 'As soon as this order was made known,' says
Timur's historian and great eulogist, 'the officers and soldiers
began to put it in execution; and, in less than one hour, one hundred
thousand prisoners, according to the smallest computation, were put
to death and their bodies thrown into the river Jumna.
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