About sunset, the gates were burned; but the quantity of hot ashes yet glowing prevented any one passing in or out till midnight, when Mirza Khan and his friends rushed from the citadel, and tried to make their escape. Numbers of others were slain in the attempt by the populace, but Mirza Khan having effected his retreat, fled towards the fort of Joonere. The Deccany troops, the Abyssinians, and the mob, having entered the fort, put to death every foreigner they found within, amounting to nearly 300, among whom were several persons of high rank and eminent character. Their bodies were dragged out on the open plain, and orders given that they should lie unburied. Not content with the past slaughter, Jumal Khan commanded his adherents to murder the foreigners of every rank and occupation in the city, and to plunder and burn their dwellings. The soldiers and their followers, being once let loose, put to death indiscriminately the noble, the master, the servant, the merchant, the pilgrim, and the travelling stranger. Their houses were set on fire, and the heads of those lately exalted to the skies were brought low, and trampled in the dust; while the very females, who from modesty concealed their faces from the sun and moon, were dragged by the hair into the assemblages of the drunken. On the fourth day, Mirza Khan, who had been seized near Joonere, was brought to Jumal Khan, and being first carried through the city on an ass, his body was hewn in pieces, which were affixed on different buildings. Several of his friends taken with him were also put to death, and their bodies being rammed into cannon, were blown into the air. In the space of seven days, nearly a thousand foreigners were murdered; some few only escaping under the protection of Deccany or Abyssinian officers. The reign of Meeran Hoossein Nizam Shah lasted only ten months and three days. Among those princes recorded in history as murderers of their fathers, we find none whose reigns extended beyond one year; and a poet observes, “Royalty befitteth not the destroyer of a parent, nor will the reign of such a wretch be long.” * * *
Beny Ray having recovered from his wounds, the King used every effort to persuade both him and his minister to embrace the Mahomedan faith. They, however, persisted in refusing, swearing that they preferred death to abjuring their religion. Mahmood Shah was in hopes of shaking their constancy by confining them separately, and treating them harshly. This conduct only tended to support their resolution, till at length the King, at the instigation of some holy men about his person, ordered them to be put to death.