Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/196

 THE LAST SUTTEE

Not many years ago a King died in one of the Rajpoot States. His wives, disregarding the orders of the English against suttee, would have broken out of the palace had not the gates been barred. But one of them, disguised as the King's favourite dancing-girl, passed through the line of guards and reached the pyre. There, her courage failing, she prayed her cousin, a baron of the court, to kill her. This he did, not knowing who she was.

lay sick to death

In his hold by Gungra hill.

All night we heard the death-gongs ring

For the soul of the dying Rajpoot King,

All night beat up from the women's wing

A cry that we could not still.

All night the barons came and went,

The lords of the outer guard:

All night the cressets glimmered pale

On Ulwar sabre and Tonk jezail,

Mewar headstall and Marwar mail,

That clinked in the palace yard.