Her proud spirit could not
brook this, and she instantly swallowed arsenic. The King relented,
and every remedy was tried, but in vain. The King watched over her
agonies till she was about to expire, when he fled in a frantic state
and took refuge in the apartments of the race-stand, about three
miles from the palace, till the funeral ceremonies were over. It is
said, that in her anxiety to give birth to an heir to the throne, she
got the husband, from whom she had been divorced, smuggled into her
apartments in the palace in a female dress more than once; and that
this was reported to the King, and became the real cause of the
dispute.
The Mogulanee attendant, who had accumulated twenty lacs of rupees,
was seized and commanded to disgorge. She offered five lacs to Court
favourites on condition that they saw her safely over the river
Ganges into British territory. The most grave of them were
commissioned to wait upon his Majesty, and entreat him most earnestly
to banish her forthwith from his territories, as she was known, in
the first place, to be one of the most _potent sorceresses_ in India;
and, in the next, to have been exceedingly attached to her late
mistress: that they had strong grounds to believe that it was her
intention to send his Majesty's spirit after hers, that they might be
united in the next world us they had been in this. The King got
angry, and said, that he had no dread of sorceresses, and would make
the old lady disgorge her twenty lacs.
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