88 MODEKX HISTORY. [Part VJ. 



^•^- Vishnu Dewales, as if to shock and insult the o-ods as 



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■ well as the sex, the wife of Eheylapola and his children 

 were brought from prison, where they had been in charge 

 of female gaolers, and dehvered over to their execu- 

 tioners. The lady, ^\ith great resolution, maintamed hers 

 and her children's innocence and her lord's ; at the same 

 time, submitting to the king's pleasure, and offering up 

 her own and her offsprings' hves, with the fervent hope 

 that her husband would be benefited by the sacrifice. 

 Havino; uttered these sentiments aloud, she desii^ed her 

 eldest child to submit to his fate; the poor boy, who 

 was eleven years old, clung to his mother terrified and 

 crying ; her second son, of nine years, heroically stepped 

 forward : and bade his brother not to be afi^aid — he 

 would show him the way to die ! By the blow of a sword 

 the head of this noble child was severed from his body ; 

 streaming with blood, and hardly inanimate, it was 

 thrown into a rice mortar, the pestle was put into the 

 mother's hands, and she was ordered to pound it, or 

 be disgracefully tortured. To avoid the infamy, the 

 ■wi^etched woman did hft up the pestle and let it fall. 

 One by one the heaxls of her chikken were cut off; and 

 one by one the poor mother . . . but the circumstance 

 is too dreadful to be dwelt on. One of the children 

 was an infont, and it was plucked from its mother's 

 breast to be beheaded : when the head was severed from 

 the body, the milk it had just drawn ran out mmgled 

 with its blood. During this tragical scene, the crowd 

 who had assembled to mtness it wept and sobbed aloud, 

 unable to suppress their feehngs of grief and horror. 

 Pahhapane Dissave was so affected that he fainted, and 

 was expelled his office for showing such sensibility. 

 During two days, the Avhole of Kandy, with the ex- 

 ception of the tyrant's court, was as one house of moimi- 

 ing and lamentation, and so deep was the grief that not 

 a fire, it is said, was kindled, no food was dressed, and 

 a general fast was held. After the execution of her 

 children, the sufferings of the mother were speedily re- 



