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MOOLTAN.
‘A company of Moolraj's Muzubees, or outcasts turned Sikhs, led on the mob. It was an appalling sight; and Sirdar Khan Sing begged of Mr. Agnew to be allowed to wave a sheet, and sue for mercy. Weak in body from loss of blood, Agnew's heart failed him not. He replied, “The time for mercy is 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 down here when we are gone, and annihilate Moolraj, and his soldiers, and his fort!” The crowd now rushed in with horrible shouts; made Khan Sing prisoner, and pushing aside the servants with the butts of their muskets, surrounded the two wounded officers. Lieutenant Anderson, from the first, had been too much wounded even to move; and now Mr. Agnew was sitting by his bedside, holding his hand, and talking in English. Doubtless, they were bidding each other farewell for all time. . . . . . Anderson was hacked to death with swords, and afterwards the two bodies were dragged outside, and slashed and insulted by the crowd, then left all night under the sky.’—Edwardes, Year on the Punjaub Frontier, vol. ii. p. 58. ‘The besieging army did not march away to other fields without performing its last melancholy duty to the memory of Agnew and Anderson. The bodies of those officers were carefully—I may say affectionately—removed from the careless grave where they lay side by side; and, wrapped in Cashmere shawls, (with a vain but natural desire to obliterate all traces of neglect,) were borne by the soldiers of the 1st Bombay Fusiliers (Anderson's own regiment) to an honoured resting-place on the summit of Moolraj's citadel. By what way borne? Through the gate where they had been first assaulted? Oh, no! through the broad and sloping breach, which had been made by the British guns in the walls of the rebellious fortress of Mooltan.’—The Same, p. 588.
Of this torn and shattered city, till their resting-place they reach.
In the place of foremost honour, lay these noble relics down.
Ah! in no triumphant battle, but beneath the assassin's knife.
Under England's ægis came ye to the chieftain of the land:
Faint, and bleeding, and forsaken, in your helplessness ye lay.
From the infuriate city rises high the wild and savage roar.
Tremble round those helpless couches an unarmed but faithful few:
Ere it be too late, disdain not mercy at their hands to crave.’
‘Nay, for mercy sue not; ask not what to ask from these were vain.
Yet, O friends, be sure that England owns beside us many a son.
Strong to hurl this guilty city with its murderers to the ground;
Rather than to leave unpunished them that wrought this bloody wrong.’
Accents of our native English, brothers grasping hand in hand.
Uttering words of lofty comfort each to each unto the last;
All of wrong and coward outrage, heaped on the unfeeling clay.
England's pledged and promised thousands, England's multitudes are here.
Girdling with a fiery girdle, blasting with a fiery breath;
And in his last lair the tiger toils of righteous wrath enfold.
Who on England's name and honour did in that dread hour confide:
What of earth they left behind them rescuing for a worthier grave.
Of this torn and shattered city, till their resting-place they reach.
In the place of foremost honour, lay these noble relics down.
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