Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c12.s2.20

v1.c12.s2.20

It was the 12th of December, 1750. Evening came and with it the news that Holkar had arrived within twenty miles of the city. Ishwari Singh ordered his servant to bring a live cobra and some arsenic as needed for preparing a medicine. It was done. At midnight he swallowed the poison and caused the cobra to sting him. Three of his queens and one favourite concubine took poison along with him and all five of them died in the silence and seclusion of that palace chamber. None in the city, not even the ministers of State, heard of the tragedy. Only one valet held the secret of it, while the corpses lay unburnt and unattended for eighteen hours. [S. P. D., ii. 31; Vam. Bh. 3608-3611.]