१८५७ का स्वातन्त्र्य समर (वीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर - अंग्रेजों द्वारा छपने से पूर्व प्रतिबन्धित महाग्रन्थ)

RANEE LAKSHMI BAI
looted, guards were massacred, and buildings were
destroyed. At last, alas ! Jhansi had fallen into the
enemy’s hands !
Standing on the ramparts, the Ranee looked back for one
moment at Jhansi. Before her rose the hideous picture
of the terrible disaster that had happened near the south
gate. The enemy had, after all, defiled her Jhansi ! Her
eyes were ablaze with anger ; she was almost mad with
rage. She took up her sword and, with her small force
of a thousand or fifteen hundred men, she marched down
the fort. The tigress to avenge her cubs runs not so
fleetingly. As soon as she saw the white troops near the
southern gate, she rushed for them, and then, “ swords
crossed, the two armies were mixed up before you could
count even fifty ; swords flourished and dealt hard blows.
Many Englishmen were killed. The rest ran towards the
town and began to fire shots from under cover ! ” By
this sight of Feringhi blood, the anger of this Kali was
a little appeased, and now she saw that it was foolhardy
to fight alone so far from the fort. But echoes of such
daring heroism were now to be heard in every street in
the city. Fifty stablemen in the palace, while the whole
town and the palace itself was bathed in blood shed by
English swords, refused to give up the stables ! “ Sur-
render ” was a word not to be found in their dictionary.
Everyone of these men cut down the enemy as hard as
he could, and it was only when everyone of them was
killed that the pâgâ fell into the enemy’s hands ! The
English had, by now, rendered the whole town desolate.
Everyone who fell into their hands, from children of five
to old men of eighty, were massacred ; the whole city
was set fire to ; wailings from the wounded and the dying,
and the cries of those who killed, filled the air. A huge
wail rose from the whole town !
When the Queen stood on the walls of the fortress (which
the enemy had decided to storm only the next day on
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