Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s23.1

v2.c27.s23.1

At a quarter past two Vishwās Rāo was shot dead with a bullet, after receiving a sword cut in the neck and an arrow wound on his left eye-brow. The fatal news was brought to the Bhāu. He ordered his nephew's body to be laid on the back of his own riding elephant in the rear seat of which Bapuji M. Hingané was posted, and then came to view it. There, with his legs dangling by the elephant's head, lay the darling of a nation, a youth of seventeen only, whose placid beauty in death was to extort the admiring cry even of the fierce Durrāni soldiery when his body was taken to their camp after the battle. "Though he was an Indian, yet no man of such light complexion and beautiful shape had ever come in their sight. His colour was that of the *champa* flower, his limbs well-formed, his arms reaching down to the knees. His eyes were half open ; he seemed to be gently asleep"—as if death could achieve no victory over him.