Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c28.s3.t1.84.4

v2.c28.s3.t1.84.4

Thus, in order to encompass the destruction of the Pokaran chief, he would not have scrupled to involve all the rest. The prince, with his own mouth, desired the confidential servant of Anar Singh, who was his personal friend, to attend with the others. Their distrust saved him. The same night, the mercenary bands, to the number of eight thousand men, with guns, attacked Surthan Singh in his dwelling. With one hundred and eighty of his clan, he defended himself against great guns and small arms, as long as the house was tenable, and then sallied out sword in hand, and, with his brother and eighty of his kin, fell nobly in the midst of his foes. The remainder retreated with their arms to defend Nimaj and their infant chief. This gallant defence, in which many of the townspeople were slain, prevented a repetition of the attempt against the Pokaran chief, who remained on the defensive; until, seeing an opportunity, he fled to his asylum in the desert, or he would that day have renounced " the sheath of the dagger which held the fortunes of Marwar," and which now contained the accumulated revenge of four generations: of Deo Singh, of Sabhala, of Sawai, and his own. His death would have terminated this branch of Ajit's issue, adopted into the house of [158] Pokaran, in the history of which we have a tolerable picture of the precariousness of existence in Marwar.¹