Page:Sir Henry Lawrence, the Pacificator.djvu/108

Rh result, that they refused to believe that the coming struggle was not deliberately desired and determined by the Commander-in-Chief and the Government — notwithstanding all Lord Hardinge's policy and Lawrence's efforts in the opposite direction. The general story is well known; and its details need not be given here, though a slight sketch may be useful. Mulráj forthwith prepared Múltán for defence, and all the Darbár troops on the spot joined him. Lieutenant Edwardes — opposite Múltán, on the Indus, to the west — held his own against Mulráj's outlying detachments, and roused the Baháwalpur State, peopled by a Muhammadan race called Dáúdputras that lay to the south, to rise and co-operate against Mulráj. He raised levies of friendly Trans-Indus frontier and other tribes, and, duly obtaining sanction and gathering all these native troops together, met and defeated Mulráj's army in the field twice, and drove them into the fort of Múltán. This was done in June, in the height of the fiercest heat.

The Lahore Darbár had, as already said, despatched troops towards Múltán, ostensibly to operate against Mulráj, now a rebel against them. These troops were in three separate columns under Rájá Sher Singh, Diwán Jawáhir Mall, and Sheikh Emam-ud-dín respectively. The two latter commanders, being loyal and distrusting the Sikhs of their columns, sent them back to Lahore, and came onward with their Muhammadans only; Sher Singh, however, brought on his whole force. Edwardes had soon begun to besiege