“Are our means sufficient?”
“You have the confidence of the army and of the chief Omrahs, and the enemy can only hope to seduce under their banners the disaffected, who are as likely to become traitors to their present masters as they were to their former. We have no alternative but a resolute and fierce resistance; let me entreat you, therefore, to return an unqualified defiance to those haughty rebels, who seek to subvert your government.”
Shums-ood-Deen being thus prevailed upon by his mother to act with instant decision, returned an answer to Feroze and Ahmud Chan which served only to inflame those princes without bettering his own cause. They, with the assistance of Suddoo, having collected three thousand horse and foot, proceeded towards the capital, calculating with much confidence that other troops would join them on their march. Disappointed, however, in this expectation, they halted for some time on the banks of the river Beema, without receiving any reinforcements. All the chiefs withheld their aid, as if they considered the good cause desperate. This, nevertheless, did not deter the princes from proceeding with their present means to put into immediate execution their design of vindicating the wrongs of a much-injured sovereign. It was accordingly agreed that they should advance without further delay, with the regal canopy carried over the head of Feroze Chan. Upon this occasion his brother Ahmud was raised to the rank of Ameer-ool-Omrah, Suddoo to that of Meer Nobut, and Meer Feiz Oolla Anjoo to that of Vakeel or minister.
On the arrival of the princes within four coss of the city, Lallcheen marched out to meet them, accompanied by the young king. He had distributed great sums of money among the officers and troops, which had secured their present fidelity. Knowing that the means of his enemies were insufficient to purchase the treachery of his army, he advanced against them with great confidence. His own numerical superiority caused him to look upon victory as certain; and when he considered the raw, undisciplined state of the hostile forces, his confidence grew into arrogance, which eventually did fatal mischief to his cause.
Notwithstanding the disadvantages under which the princes laboured, they did not decline an engagement. They trusted to their good intentions, and the general enthusiasm of their troops. A severe battle was consequently fought in the vicinity of the town of Merkole; and the brothers being defeated, after an obstinate resistance, fled with their adherents to the fort of Sagur.
The victors were beyond measure elated at the successful issue of this first battle. The power of Lallcheen increased his presumption and that of the queen-mother, which at length rose to such a height that many officers of the court privately offered their services to the defeated princes, whom they advised to lose no time in procuring pardon from Shums-ood-Deen, by offers of immediately returning to their allegiance, and repairing to the capital without loss of time, in order to concert future plans for punishing the traitor and re-establishing the lawful supremacy.
Lallcheen was too much engrossed by the views of his ambition, which rose with his success, to observe that a silent but secret disaffection was working among the nobles and some of the most influential officers of the army. Confidence rendered him haughty, and where he was in the habit of conciliating he began to command.
CHAPTER V.
The disgust which the pampered minion daily excited by his arrogance rendered him shortly so unpopular, that the brothers Feroze and Ahmud Chan resolved to embrace the advice of those Omrahs who had promised to favour their cause. Relying upon their assurances, in the sincerity of which they were confirmed by the growing unpopularity of Lallcheen, they sent Meir Feiz Oolla Anjoo, Syud Kumal-ood-Deen, and other persons of distinction, to the slave and the queen-mother, representing that fear only had occasioned their rebellion, of which they now sincerely repented, and promising that, if the sovereign would send them written assurances of pardon, they would repair to court. The traitor, imagining that if they were once in the capital he should have the means of disposing of them at pleasure, was elated by these overtures; and repairing forthwith to the king, persuaded him to listen favourably to their supplications. Accordingly letters, containing flattering assurances of forgiveness, were immediately despatched to the refractory princes.
Since her last positive refusal to espouse the king, Agha had never been once permitted to leave her apartment; but having found means to corrupt the two women to whose custody she was consigned, she quitted her father’s house unobserved, and left the city in a covered litter. Knowing that Feroze and Ahmud Chan were at the Fort of Sagur, she determined to proceed thither, and cast herself upon their protection. They received her with the greatest respect. Her story deeply interested them. Her generous forbearance in refusing to marry the reigning sovereign because his ascent to the musnud had been stained with blood exalted her highly in their estimation, and in their overtures to the king they stipulated in her favour for oblivion of the past and assurances of future kind treatment. The father, though exasperated at her escape, thought that the wisest policy would be to dissemble his anger, hoping yet to overcome her repugnance, and to see her queen of the Deccan. She, however, refused to return to the capital unless she were guaranteed the protection of some influential person who could shield her from her father’s violence. It was ultimately agreed that she should dwell with the queen, who offered her an asylum in her palace.