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152
RANJÍT SINGH

population has enormously increased, and the cultivated area in a still greater ratio. And if England were to withdraw her protecting hand, if she were to proclaim the Pax Britannica at an end and retire from India in a cowardly denial of her duties and her rights, is there any one of knowledge who doubts that in a very short time anarchy would return once more; that Sikhs, Maráthás, and Afgháns would again be fighting à outrance; that the children would again be tossed on the sword and spear-points of invaders, and the Punjab maidens again become the prey of the ravisher, while the light of flaming villages would nightly illumine the ancient walls of Delhi and Lahore?