The Commissioner, supposing it to be a petition, stretched out his hand to take it, when the man instantly plunged a dagger into his breast.

The noise consequent on the struggle attracted the attention of some of the domestic servants and one of the Native officials.

The latter threw himself between Mackeson and the fanatic, and was himself slightly wounded in his efforts to rescue his Chief.
Mackeson lingered until the 14th September.

His death caused considerable excitement in the city and along the border, increasing to an alarming extent when it became known that the murderer had been hanged and his body burnt.

This mode of disposing of one of their dead is considered by Mahomedans as the greatest insult that can be offered to their religion, for in thus treating the corpse, as if it were that of (by them) a hated and despised Hindu, the dead man is supposed to be deprived of every chance of paradise.