Among those who in the fall of the Khalsa suffered life’s last and sorest loss was Raee Singh, an aged man, in whose veins ran the blood of the gentle Nanuk.  On that March morning when the disbanded army went to lay down their arms before a victorious foe, he descended the mountain slope very slowly.  The rest walked in bands of five, of ten, of twenty, but Raee Singh walked alone.  Although his flowing beard was white, he did not bear himself erect in the dignity of years; his eyes were fixed on the ground, for the shadow of defeat and dishonour which rested on him was hard to bear.

Presently he stood before the tent of the British general.  A great heap of weapons lay there glittering in the sun.  As he looked, the pile grew larger, for each Sikh cast his sword there.  Raee also extended his arm, grasping his tulwar, but he did not let it go until an officer touched his shoulder and spoke.  The blade fell then with a clang, and he turned away.  He passed from the camp without seeing it, and took his homeward way as silently as he had come.  The dreams of youth make the habit of age, and Raee had revered the Khalsa in childhood, and in manhood he had urged its high commission to his own hurt.  As a Khivan proverb has it, “That which goes in with the milk only goes out with the soul,” and the soul of Raee Singh gathered the fragments of its broken faith and prepared to depart with them to the Land of Restoration.

He lay for four days, taking no food, and only wetting his lips with the water which his sole surviving son proffered from time to time.  His heart was crushed, he was full of years, his end was near; and his son, knowing this, was dumb with sorrow.  On the evening of the fourth day he turned his face to the boy, and spoke,

“Son, well beloved,
My parting hour is nigh;
A heavenly peace should glorify
A life approved
By God, by man, by mine own soul;
The record of my stainless years unroll—­
My years beset
From infancy to age with pitfalls deep
In pathway winding aye on mountain steep
Of perilous obedience, and yet
In bitterness of soul I lay me down,
Of home bereft, with hope and creed o’erthrown
In woe that will not weep;
My reeling spirit ere from sense set free
Is loosed from mooring, beaten to and fro,
And in the throbbing, quick’ning flesh I know
The lone desertion of the Shoreless Sea. 
O Brotherhood! 
O hope so high, so fair,
That would the wreck of this sad world repair
Had ye but stood! 
Can God forget? 
This Khalsa of his own supreme decree
Vanquished, debased, in loss of liberty
Has lost its own mysterious entity. 
And yet, and yet,
A strange persuasion fills my breast that He
Who wrecked my home,
Who bade my people from their mountains flee
And friendless roam,
Will soon with tenderest pity welcome me,
And, if my lips be dumb,
Will frame the prayer that fills my dying breast,