ons, all who were young or fair women betook
themselves to a great underground chamber, and the fires were lit and
the entrance was walled up and they died. The Rajputs opened the gates
and fought till they could fight no more, and Ala-ud-din the victorious
entered a wasted and desolated city. He wrecked everything except only
the palace of Pudmini and the old Jain tower before mentioned. That was
all he could do, for there were few men alive of the defenders of Chitor
when the day was won, and the women were ashes underground.

Ajai Singh, the one surviving son of Lakshman Singh, had at his father's
insistence, escaped from Chitor to "carry on the line" when better days
should come. He brought up Hamir, son of one of his elder brothers, to
be a thorn in the side of the invader, and Hamir overthrew Maldeo, chief
of Jhalore and vassal of Ala-ud-din, into whose hands Ala-ud-din had,
not too generously, given what was left of Chitor. So the Sesodias came
to their own again, and the successors of Hamir extended their kingdoms
and rebuilt Chitor, as kings know how to rebuild cities in a land where
human labour and life are cheaper than bread and water. For two
centuries, saith Tod, Mewar flourished exceedingly and was the paramount
kingdom of all Rajasthan. Greatest of all the successors of Hamir, was
Kumbha Rana who, when the Ghilzai dynasty was rotting away and Viceroys
declared themselves kings, met, defeated, took captive, and released
without ransom, Mahmoud of Malwa. Kumbha Rana built a Tower of Victory,
nine stories high, to commemorate this and the other successes of his
reign, and the tower stands to-day a mark for miles across the plains.

But the well-established kingdom weakened, and the rulers took
favourites and disgusted their best supporters--after the immemorial
custom of too prosperous rulers. Also they murdered one another. In 1535
A.D. Bahadur Shah, King of Gujarat, seeing the decay, and remembering
how one of his predecessors, together with Mahmoud of Malwa, had been
humbled by Mewar in years gone by, set out to take his revenge of Time
and Mewar then ruled by Rana Bikrmajit, who had made a new capital at
Deola. Bikrmajit did not stay to give battle in that place. His chiefs
were out of hand, and Chitor was the heart and brain of Mewar; so he
marched thither, and the Gods were against him. Bahadur Shah mined one
of the Chitor bastions, and wiped out in the explosion the Hara Prince
of Boondee, with five