Page:The Sikhs (Gordon).djvu/204

168 submission, Vans Agnew saying: "The time for mercy has gone; let none be asked for. They can kill us two if they like, but we are not the last of the English. Thousands of Englishmen will come here after we are gone and annihilate Mul Raj and his soldiers and his fort." The loyal Sikh sardar Kahan Singh and his son were imprisoned, and taunted with showing sympathy for the foreigners. When the fort was ultimately captured by the British, their dead bodies were found in the ruins of their prison clasped in one another's arms.

Mul Raj declared war against the British, and, gathering a force of some thousands, put his fort in a state of defence by making a deep ditch lined with masonry round a wall thirty feet high. Great importance was attached to the possession of this celebrated old stronghold for which so many battles had been fought in ancient and modern times—the scene of one of the great Alexander's exploits on his march down the Indus valley, where,