The Nizam granted him protection, which was a source of extreme mortification to the Emperor, who, knowing the abilities of Lody, was fearful that he might offer a successful resistance to the imperial arms with the resources which his powerful ally would place at his disposal. He saw that there was no time to be lost, as delay would only enable his foe to unite the jarring interests of the Deccan princes, who were all avowed enemies to the house of Timour. He determined, therefore, to follow Eradit in person, with a numerous reinforcement. The Emperor’s arrival in the Deccan had a sinister influence upon the cause of the magnanimous Lody. The refractory princes knew their sovereign’s abilities, and dreaded his power. As they saw a storm impending, each fearing that it might fall upon himself, withdrew his aid from him to whom they had promised assistance, and all returned to their allegiance.
Shah Jehan, enraged with the Nizam for having received his enemy, determined to humble that haughty prince. He therefore despatched three armies against Dowlatabad: one under Eradit, amounting to twenty-five thousand men, and two others, of the same strength, under the separate commands of Raja Gop Singh and Shaista Chan.
For some time, through the talents of Chan Lody, the Nizam’s troops baffled every attempt against his capital. According to his former policy, Lody had secured the passes of the mountains, and upon one occasion, rushing down upon Eradit, at the head of twelve thousand men, he defeated him with great slaughter, and obliged him to retire out of the province. This so exasperated Shah Jehan, that he suspended Eradit from the command, and put the army under that of his Vizier, whose reputation as a general considerably damped the ardour of the Nizam’s forces. Lody still retained possession of the passes, from which every effort hitherto made to dislodge him had proved ineffectual.
Prince Morad accompanied the Vizier. His love for the heroic daughter of the refractory Omrah had not abated. Her beauty had at first forged a fetter round his heart, and her heroism riveted the chain.
One night, after a day of severe skirmishing with the enemy, Jahanira, who always followed her father to the field, had quitted her tent to breathe the fresh air of heaven. The night dews fell upon her burning brow and cooled her brain, which ached with the concurring excitement of bodily exertion and mental anxiety.
She saw that the arm of destiny was raised to smite. She wept. Her father’s wrongs were not yet half avenged. That very day the Nizam had withdrawn his forces, and abandoned his brave ally, with whom there remained only a few hundred followers, to contend with an army of above eighty thousand men. The Nizam had submitted to the Vizier, and Lody was left without a single friend. Jahanira perceiving that his determination to die in arms was shortly to be realised, resolved to go with him to the peace of a less distracted world.
Absorbed in the intensity of these reflections, she had wandered beyond the boundary of the camp. The night was still and balmy; fresh dews descended from the hills, and moistened her blanched cheek, which was fanned by the passing breeze. The distant cries of jackals interrupted at intervals the repose of this solemn scene; and the lulling gush of a stream, which flowed through a neighbouring ravine, suited the melancholy temper of her spirit at this hour of darkness and of silence. She strolled onward thoughtfully. Raising her eyes to the side of a hill, where a narrow path diverged from the main road, she saw a figure emerge from a clump of trees, and stand in complete relief against the sky. She drew her dagger, and, approaching cautiously, cried, “Who’s there?” at the same moment springing forward, and standing with her drawn crease within a few yards of the intruder.
“Jahanira!” exclaimed a voice, which she instantly recognised to be that of Morad.
“Why this intrusion, prince? Are you come a spy upon our path? Can the foe so fear to approach the bayed lion, that he is obliged to resort to stratagem? Locusts, prince, will desolate a country by the mere force of numbers: your armies may likewise overwhelm Chan Lody, but you will not subdue him.”
“I come not as a spy, lady,” replied Morad earnestly, “but to renew my vows of eternal attachment to the noblest woman in the universe. If the lovely Jahanira will accept an alliance with the family of Timour, and become the wife of Morad, her father may be restored to his honours and influence in the state. All that is past will be forgotten.”