Within the tent a profound, mysterious, silence fell, as the darkness of night descended on the land. The Rani clasped her hands upon her breast as her lips murmured a last prayer. "Great God of Gods. O most holy, omnipotent One. If I have sinned against the laws of my caste, it was for the love of my country. Surely thou wilt forgive a woman who has tried to inspire others to be brave and just. O India," she cried, raising herself with difficulty upon her side and stretching forth her arms, "farewell. Farewell my people, my brave soldiers whom I have loved to lead in battle against the foe. Not forever shall their horsemen ride triumphantly through the land. A day will come when their law shall be no longer obeyed, and our temples and palaces rise anew from their ruins. Farewell! Farewell! O Gods of my fathers, be with me now." She drew the folds of a shawl over her face to hide her death agony, and again lay down. The blackness of night grew deeper, the silence more intense. Presently, strange, warrior forms seemed to appear from the unknown and filled the Rani's tent. One supremely beautiful figure, in dazzling raiment, came forth to enfold the dying woman in her arms. In a little, a wail of lamentation rose across the intervening space between the camps of the two armies. The Foreign soldiers asked its meaning of one another. The answer might have been, that the spirit of the heroic Lachmi Bai had been gathered to the protecting arms of Param-eswara, the merciful, the just, the all supreme God, alike of the Hindu, the Mohammedan, and the Christian. The Rani of Jhansi was dead. * * * * * Great was the pomp and solemn the ceremony with which they carried out her last desire, so that even her body might not fall into the hands of the enemy. Before the day had come again, a long procession took its way from Sindhia's palace to a point on the bank of the Morar river, where a flower-decked funeral pyre had been erected. In the van troopers marched with mournful step, followed by officers bearing torches. Then came Brahman priests, naked to the waist in performance of their sacred office. They chanted from the Vedas and scattered rice upon the way. These preceded the bier, upon which, under a canopy of cloth of gold, lay the body of the Rani, attired in royal robes, with the marks of her high caste set upon her forehead. Directly following, walked her aged _guru_, whose solemn duty it would be, in the absence of a relative, to ignite the funeral pyre. Lastly, Prasad with the Rao Sahib, attended by all the nobles of the court. Beside the whole length of the route traversed by the procession, a multitude of people had gathered, whose lamentations rent the air. The bier was carried slowly to its destination, and seven times round the funeral pyre. Then the Rani's body was lifted tenderly and placed upon its last bed of death, rice was scattered over all, and the dry brush, saturated with _ghee_, ignited.