6_Glorious_Epochs_of_Indian_History

5TH GLORIOUS EPOCH 227
ladies in the palace and caused his followers to perpetrate
elsewhere in the city is beyond all description ! The young
and fair ones of the royal ladies were first put to inhuman
torture and then brutally ravished. Tipu locked in his harem
the exceptionally beautiful young lady from the royal family
and took her to his capital. The sight of the inhuman and
disgraceful treatment meted out to her daughters and daugh­
ters-in-law, nieces and grand-daughters broke the heart of
Pethe's grand old mother and she died instantaneously.
567. Tipu's army too spared no pains in torturing and
violating the Hindu men and women in the city of Nargund
and plundered to their fullest satisfaction the palatial resi­
dences of the wealthy Lingayats as also every single house of
the commonest of Hindu citizens. Pinally, setting fire to
their houses, Tipu carried away the select Hindu men and
women as abject slaves**.
568. Tipu next fell violently on the other Hindu state
of Kittur and stamped it out of existence in like manner.
He himself repeated and made his army repeat to the latter
all the infernal outrages, which were performed at Nargund,
•on the Kittur ruler, his family, all the men and women in his
pay and all the people in the city**.
569. By this time the main body of the Maratha army
was advancing rapidly reconquering the regions and cities
formerly subjugated by Tipu. Skipping over the other
details of this campaign on Tipu, which are not quite
pertinent to the topic in hand, we think it quite sufficient
to say that in the end Sardar Patwardhan, Phadke, Behare
Holkar, Bhonsale and other Maratha chieftains routed the
Muslim armies of Tipu on various battle-fields and after
rescuing the whole of Karnatak** pressed him back up to
Mysore and there encircled him into a tight grip ! Snatching
this opportunity of Tipu's distress, the English at Madras
too marched on him. As the strokes of the Maratha swords
and the thrusts of their spears began to make bloody
incisions on the back of Tipu's religious fanaticism, the devil
in him began to relent and his haughtiness began to temper