Meanwhile the princess was taken from the fortress, and borne by easy marches to Delhi, whither her father had retired, leaving his generals to complete the conquest of the Deccan and the subjection of the Mahrattas.
Aurungzebe was greatly exasperated when he discovered that she was about to become a mother. She had ever been his favourite child, and he calculated upon marrying her to some powerful prince, who would strengthen his political influence. She was confined to the harem, and he refused to see her. As soon as her babe was born, it was taken from her, and put under the care of a nurse, no one knew where. It being a boy, the Emperor was determined that it should be brought up in ignorance of its birth. The mother was wretched at being separated from her infant. The Mahratta chief had ever treated her with tenderness and respect, and she was far less happy amid the splendours of the imperial palace than in the rude citadel of the mountain warrior. She implored to be allowed to see her child; but her parent was inexorable, and the bereaved mother poured out her silent sorrows amid the monotonous seclusion of the harem, where she found neither sympathy nor consolation.
CHAPTER IV.
Sevajee soon summoned his warriors into the field, and, at the head of ten thousand men, invested the fortress of which the Moguls had possessed themselves. In the course of a few weeks he starved them into a surrender. From this time he so rapidly extended his conquests that he was looked upon as a formidable potentate even by the haughty Aurungzebe. He sacked the neighbouring cities, and so enriched himself with the plunder, that he was finally enabled to appear in the field at the head of a very formidable army. His personal prowess and conduct as a leader were the theme of universal praise. Though he could neither read nor write, yet so exact and tenacious was his memory, that the smallest disbursements of his government were never forgotten, and no one could dare attempt to deceive him, even in the minutest matters of financial computation, without certainty of detection. He knew the name of almost every man in his army.
Some time after his escape from the fortress, he was surprised by the imperial general with only a few hundred followers. In this dilemma the Mahratta chief intimated to the Mogul general that he should be very willing to submit to his master’s clemency, but was afraid to trust his own person to the mercy of a man who felt such deadly hostility towards him. He consequently proposed a meeting between himself and the imperial general at a distance from their respective armies, and that each party should repair to the spot accompanied by only one attendant. Not doubting that this proposal would be acceded to, the wily Mahratta put a suit of strong chain armour under his cotton robe, and a steel cap under his turban. Then arming himself with a dagger, he proceeded to the place of meeting.
According to his military code of morals, treachery towards an enemy was, under any circumstances, justifiable: he therefore determined to employ it upon the present occasion at all hazards. Distributing his men in ambuscades near the spot, he soon had the satisfaction of seeing the Mogul draw near with an escort of eight hundred men, whom he left at some distance, and advanced with a single follower to the appointed place of meeting. Sevajee appeared apparently unarmed, expressing great apprehension and affecting alarm at the presence of his enemy. At length, coming up with hesitating steps, according to the Oriental custom, he embraced his foe, at the same moment drawing his dagger and plunging it into his body. The Mogul, feeling himself wounded, instantly drew his sword and struck Sevajee on the head, which was protected by the steel cap; the blow therefore fell harmless, and the wounded general sank under the repeated stabs of his treacherous assailant. His attendant, rushing to his master’s assistance, was likewise slain.
The blast of a horn roused the Mahrattas from their ambuscade, and falling upon the Moguls thus taken by surprise, they slew a great number, and the rest, panic-stricken, fell back upon the main body, carrying the melancholy intelligence of their leader’s death. Meanwhile the Mahrattas escaped among the intricacies of the mountains, and the Moguls were forced to retreat. Sevajee next marched with his victorious troops to Singurh, one of his strongest fortresses, which had been wrested from him by the Moguls. Like all hill-forts, it was built upon the summit of a lofty rock that rose to the height of ninety feet from a deep glen. It was considered inaccessible on all sides. At the back, where the precipice declined gradually inward from the summit, the ramparts were not so strong, as any attempt on that side appeared utterly impracticable. On the ridge just outside the parapet that beetled over the base of the rock, grew several trees, the roots of which were partly bared, and projected from the naked face of the hill, in which they were fixed with a tenacity peculiar to those mountain trees that vegetate amid the most scanty supplies of earth, and insert their tough fibres between the fissures of rock composing the face of the precipice.
The daring Mahratta was determined upon regaining possession of this stronghold, and having fixed upon the point of attack, prepared his followers for the desperate enterprise. These consisted of a thousand Mawabees, mountain marauders, who followed the fortunes of their leader, seduced by the hope of plunder and the love of adventure. Choosing a dark night, he resolved to enter the fort on the least practicable side, where he knew such an attempt would never be suspected. Having procured a long cord as thick as a man’s thumb, he caused it to be knotted at intervals of about two feet. When this was prepared, he placed it upon his shoulder and proceeded alone to the fortress through an unfrequented part of the mountain, ordering his men to follow in small parties, and unite in a thicket a few hundred yards from the base of the rock.
Arriving at the desired spot, Sevajee took a leaden ball, and attaching it securely to a slight cord, threw the former, with a precision which only long practice in similar feats could have produced, over the projecting root of one of the trees that grew beneath the battlements. This done, he drew the rope with which he had come provided gradually up, and contrived, by means of the small cord, to pass a hook, fixed to the end of the knotted rope, over the root. The hook, upon being pressed by means of a spring, clasped the object upon which it rested with a perfectly secure hold.
Everything being now ready, the Mahratta summoned his band. There were no sentinels placed upon that side of the rampart, on account of the supposed impracticability of an ascent. The night happened to be extremely dark, which favoured the purpose of the assailants. Sevajee mounted first. With the agility of a cat he clambered up the rope and quickly gained the ramparts. The next that followed, being a heavy man, and not over active, paused about twenty feet from the ground, alarmed at the motion of the rope, which swayed with such a rapid and violent oscillation that he was unable to proceed; and after hanging a few moments by his hands, his feet having slipped from the knot on which they rested, he quitted his hold and fell to the ground.