A treasure of many lacs of rupees being intercepted on its way to Lahore, enriched and mollified its captors. But at last, gorged with slaughter, and surfeited with excess, they modified their claims within limits to which the government intimated its willingness to accede. The incurable evil was consummated. Henceforward the army has been its own master, and the master of the government and the country. A transitory _mirage_ of internal tranquillity and subordination refreshed the Punjaub; the fiery elements of discord and ruin smouldered unextinguishably behind it, awaiting the necessity or the opportunity of a fresh eruption. The volcano was not permitted to slumber. Shere Singh, liberated from the imminent oppression of the soldiery, plunged headlong into a slough of detestable debauchery. But in our annals his memory must survive, "Link'd with one virtue and a thousand crimes." Influenced by what good genius, or by what prescient timidity, it may be difficult to discover, he was true to the British interest, and remained obstinately deaf to the seductive animosity of the Sikh council, which was prone to take advantage of the disasters in Caubul, and to attack the avenging army of Sir George Pollock in its passage to Peshawer. Loyalty to England was little less than an act of treason to the Sikh chieftains and the Sikh soldiery, which, added to the Maharajah's total neglect of public business, accelerated a fatal conspiracy by his brother-in-law Ajeet Singh, and Dhyan Singh, "the close contriver of all harms." Shere Singh, being invited to inspect his brother-in-law's cavalry at a short distance from Lahore, was there shot by Ajeet. The assassin, riding quietly back to the city, met on the way the carriage of Dhyan Singh, dismounted, and, seating himself beside his accomplice in guilt, stabbed him to the heart. Now came confusion worse confounded. The nobles were divided; while the troops, as their inclinations or their hopes of pillage prompted them, flocked to the conflicting standards. Ajeet, after murdering the whole of the late Maharajah's family, including an infant one day old, fortified himself in the citadel of Lahore, from which he was dislodged to be immediately beheaded by Heera Singh, the son of the Rajah Dhyan Singh.