According to Akbar's
usual custom he exposed himself to showers of bullets without once
being hit (the superstition of his soldiers considered him
invulnerable) and finally the critical shot was one in which Akbar
with his own hand laid low the brave commander of Chitor. Then the
defenders considered their cause lost, and the next night saw a
barbarous sight, peculiarly Indian in character: the so-called Jauhar
demanded his offering according to an old Rajput custom. Many great
fires gleamed weirdly in the fortress. To escape imprisonment and to
save their honor from the horrors of captivity, the women mounted the
solemnly arranged funeral pyres, while all the men, clad in saffron
hued garments, consecrated themselves to death. When the victors
entered the city on the next morning a battle began which raged until
the third evening, when there was no one left to kill. Eight thousand
warriors had fallen, besides thirty thousand inhabitants of Chitor who
had participated in the fight.
With the conquest of Chitor which I have treated at considerable
length because it ended in a typically Indian manner, the resistance
of the Rajputs broke down. After Akbar had attained his purpose he was
on the friendliest terms with the vanquished.
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