The two boys were sitting beside each other, the eldest, Aga Allee, on the left, and the youngest, Nizam-od Dowla, on the right.  Eesa Meean sat down on the left side of the eldest, and congratulated both on the rapid progress they were making in their studies.  Three of his followers, while he was doing this, placed themselves on the left of the eldest, and the other three on the right of the youngest.  On a concerted signal all drew forth and cocked their pistols, and placed themselves at the only three doors that opened from the school-room, two at each, while at a signal made by the khidmutgar, eight more men came in armed in the same manner.  Two of them with naked daggers in their right hands seized the two boys with their left, and threatened them with instant death if they attempted to more or call for help.  The other six threatened to kill any one who should attempt to force his way into the apartment.  The khidmutgar, in the mean time, seized and brought into the room two large gharahs or pitchers of drinking water, that stood outside, as the weather was very hot, and the party would require it They were afraid that poison might be put into the water if left outside after they had commenced the assault.  Eesa Meean then declared, that he had been driven to this violent act by the detention of his girl by the Khasmahal, and must have her instantly surrendered, or they would put the boys to death.  Hearing the noise from his bathing-room, their tutor, Karamut Allee, rushed into the room with nothing on his person but his waist-band, and began to admonish the ruffians.  Seeing him unarmed, and respecting his peaceful character, they let him pass in and vociferate, but paid no regard to what he said.

The alarm had spread through the house and town, and many of the chief officers of the Court were permitted to enter the room unarmed.  Roshun-od Dowlah, Sobhan Allee Khan, Fakeer Mahomed Khan, Nuzee Allee Khan, (the Khasmahul’s son-in-law,) and others of equal rank, all in loud terms admonished the assailants, and demanded the surrender of the children, but all were alike unheeded.  The chief merchant of Lucknow, Sa Gobind Lal, came in; and thinking that all affairs could and ought to be settled in a business-like way, told the chief officers to fix the sum to be given, and he would at once pledge himself to the payment.  All agreed to this, and Sobhan Allee Khan, the Chief Secretary of the minister, set to work and drew up a long and eloquent paper of conditions.  On his beginning to read it, one of the ruffians, who had one eye, rushed in, snatched it from his hand, tore it to pieces, and threw the fragments into his chief’s, Eesa Meean’s, face, saying, “that this fellow would write them all out of their lives, as he was writing the people of Oude every day out of their properties; that if they must die, it should not be by pen and paper, but by swords and daggers in a fair fight; that all their lives had been staked, and all should die or live together.”  He was overpowered by the others, and other papers were drawn up by the ready writer and consummate knave Sobhan Allee, but the one-eyed man contrived to get hold of all, one after the other, and tear them up.