Part 18 (1/2)

This so exasperated Timur that every living soul in the city was ma.s.sacred, and the place itself reduced to ashes.

To Saraswati, to Fatehabad, to Rajpur, he carried his flaming sword; then at Kaitul he rejoined the main body of his army--for he had only commanded a flying column hitherto--and settled his face fairly towards his goal--Delhi.

But now abject fear was beforehand with him, and he marched through desolate fields, deserted houses, empty cities.

A strange march of Death indeed! The young green wheat showing green as ever, the hearth fires still burning bravely, the litter and leavings of human life lying about in the sunlight; but life itself?--nowhere! Everything, gold, gems, home, country left, but that had gone. It must have angered the horde of butchers to find no blood with which to wet their swords, to hear no piteous cries for mercy as they rode. The very hands must have grown listless as they gathered in the unresisting spoils.

Perhaps that was the reason why Timur, arriving within touch of Delhi, sought to revive his soldiery by an order for the wholesale slaughter of all prisoners.

And all this time at Delhi the puppet-king Mahmud, the last degenerate scion of the House of Toghluk, had sate in the ma.s.sive palace of his forefathers, waiting.

”Delhi dur ust.”

[”It is a far cry to Delhi.”]

This had been his hope as he waited. But early in January an old man--for Timur was now past sixty years of age, and his life had been a strenuous one--crossed the river with a small body of seven hundred horse, and calmly reconnoitered Toghlukabad.

Seven hundred horse only! Mahmud took courage, sallied out with five thousand, was contemptuously driven within the walls again, until Timur, ”having made the observations he wished, repa.s.sed the river, and rejoined his army.”

A good general this, trusting to no Intelligence Department, but to his own eyes.

That night the one thousand prisoners (the figure is that given by Mahomedan historians) were slain in cold blood. Next day, 13th January, he and his army forded the river without opposition and entrenched themselves close to the gates of Toghlukabad. Despising the astrologers, who p.r.o.nounced the 15th of January to be an unlucky day, Timur chose it for his attack, and drew up his army in order of battle. His foes were barely worthy of such trouble. They certainly returned the challenge by marching out, elephants covered in mail, warriors in armour, pennants flying, drums sounding; but at the first charge of Moghul hors.e.m.e.n, the elephants' drivers were unseated, and leviathan in terror fled to the rear, communicating confusion to the ranks.

So almost without a blow the Tartar found himself by nightfall at the very gates of the city.

A fateful night! The king fled in it, the chief men in the city resolved during it on submission, and were promised protection on payment of a heavy indemnity.

Next morning, Timur was proclaimed Emperor in every mosque, guards were placed at Treasury and gates, and troops sent to enforce immediate payment.

What followed may have been due to insubordination on the part of the pillaging soldiery; on the other hand, it occurred far too often in Timur's career to make us quite unsuspicious of perfidy. Anyhow, whether by collision between the populace and the troops, or by mere wanton violence, resistance was aroused even amid the panic-stricken inhabitants, and the greatest tragedy Delhi has ever seen began. Once more the cry, ”Johar! Johar!” echoed out helplessly, the gates were overpowered by mob-force and closed, the houses were set on fire, and while women and children perished in the flames, the men fought desperately to death in the streets, hand to hand with their butchers.

The lanes were barricaded by the bodies of the dead, lives were sold dear, and a scene of carnage beyond description ensued; until the gates being once more forced, the whole Moghul army was let loose, to deal inevitable death on the almost unarmed crowd.

Five days afterwards Timur offered up to G.o.d ”his sincere and humble tribute of grateful praise for his victory” in the splendid mosque of marble which Feroze Toghluk had built on the banks of the Jumna.

Once more we are reminded of that idle rhyme--

”Three thousand Frenchmen sent below, Praise G.o.d from whom all blessings flow.”

The primitive pa.s.sions change very little.

After that he departed, his work accomplished, his task done. He took with him plunder inconceivable, and with a few minor excursions to ”put every inhabitant to the sword,” made his way back to Samarkhund by the Kabul route. To the last exposing himself to every fatigue, every privation which he imposed upon his army.

So he quitted India, taking no trouble to make provision for holding the empire he had won. He left anarchy, famine, pestilence, behind him. For two months Delhi was a city of the dead, and for thirty-six years India owned no government either in name or in reality. Dazed, depopulated, despairing, she dreamt evil dreams--dreams almost worse than the nightmare of the past.

No greater proof of the totality of Timur's destruction is needed than this--a whole generation had to pa.s.s away ere men could be found with hope enough wherewith to face the future.

DEVASTATED INDIA