§ 31.] the ROMANTIC POETRY OF MALIK MUHAMMAD. [1540 A.D.] 
17 
The Raj’put, unwilling to be outdone in confidence, accompanied the 
king to the foot of the fortress. Here Ala had an ambush waiting. 
Bhlm’si was made prisoner, and his liberty made to depend on the 
surrender of PadminT. She being informed of this, agreed to give herself 
up as a ransom for her husband; and having provided wherewithal to 
secure her from dishonour, she designed, with two chiefs of her own 
kin of Ceylon—her uncle Gora and her nephew Badal —a plan for the 
liberation of the prince without hazarding her life and fame. She was 
accompanied into Ala’s camp by a procession of litters, borne by, and 
filled with, armed men disguised as females and handmaids, some of 
whom returned, taking Padmini and Bhlm’sl with them in disguise; 
the rest remained in the enemy’s camp till the ruse was discovered, 
when they covered the retreat of their master and were cut down to a 
man in doing so. Bhlm’si and Padmini escaped into Chitaur, and after 
an unsuccessful attempt at storming the citadel (in which Cora was 
killed) Alau’d-dln raised the siege. He returned again to the siege in 
1290 (Firishta says thirteen years later), and one by one eleven out of 
twelve sons of Bhlm’sl were slain. Then, having made arrangements 
for the escape of Ajaisl, his second son, to continue the family line, the 
Rana himself, calling around him his devoted clans, for whom life had 
no longer any charms, threw open the portals and carried death into, 
and met it in the crowded ranks of Ala. ‘ But another awful sacrifice 
preceded this act of self-devotion, in that horrible rite the Jmhar, 
where the females are immolated to preserve them from pollution or 
captivity. The funeral pyre was lighted within the great subterranean 
retreat, in chambers impervious to the light of day, and the defenders 
of Chitaur beheld in procession its queens, their own wives and daugh¬ 
ters, to the number of several thousands. The fair Padmini closed the 
throng, which was augmented by whatever of female beauty or 
youth could be tainted by Tatar lust. They were conveyed to the 
cavern, and the opening closed upon them, leaving them to find 
security from dishonour in the devouring element.’ The Tatar 
conqueror took possession of an inanimate capital, strewed with the 
bodies of its brave defenders, the smoke yet issuing from the recesses 
where lay consumed the once fair object of his desire. 
Malik Muhammad has changed the name of the hero from Bhim’si to 
Ratan, the name of the king of Mewar who ruled at Chitaur at about 
the time that the poem was written (Tod, i, 309; Calc. ed. i, 328). 1 
1 It is worthy of note that the second sack of Chitaur, that by Bahadur of 
Gni’rat, took place in 1533 (Tod, i, 311; Calc. ed. 331). 
B 
