It was more than ever evident to Sivaji, that to attempt to oppose Afzool Khan in the field with the men about him, would be madness; but he might be drawn on, by specious promises of submission, into wilds where his cavalry and artillery would be useless, and in those jungles the men then present would be ample against ten thousand Mahomedan infantry.
Then it was determined to send those agents to Afzool Khan's camp with whose arrival there we are already acquainted.
[CHAPTER LXXIV.]
But the arrival of an Envoy from the Mahomedan General was an event of no small importance to the Rajah Sivaji. In order to further the plan he had conceived, and partly executed, in the despatch of envoys to the Mahomedan camp—it was his object to disarm all suspicion; and while assuming an appearance of insignificance and weakness which should impress upon the mind of a new-comer his insufficiency to make any resistance, the Rajah was making arrangements which, as Maloosray and other friends knew, boded action of no ordinary kind. When the time came, he would act, he said, as the goddess directed. His mother had been silent for many days, and almost constantly sat in the temple before the altar; and it was certain there would be some special revelation. She had spread the end of her garment[16] before the Mother, and she had never done so, they said, in vain; but she was silent, and so they waited.
Afzool Khan's Envoy had been received with the utmost distinction. When within a few miles of the fort he had been met by a deputation of Brahmuns and inferior military officers, and delayed only long enough to have the necessary astrological calculations made as to a propitious moment for entrance into the town. There, a house was assigned to him: servants of the Rajah appointed to attend on him: and his escort was supplied with forage and food in abundance. Nothing was wanting to give assurance of simple but earnest hospitality.
The day after, an audience of the Rajah was fixed upon. The Envoy was desired to choose his own time; and the astrologer in his suite, with that of the Rajah, having ascertained a lucky conjunction of planets, the Envoy was carried up the mountain-side in a palankeen to the fort-gate, where sheep were sacrificed before him, cannon fired from the ramparts, and the fort pipers, drummers, and horn-blowers, performed a rude and very noisy welcome. Then the men on guard at the gate, with others of the garrison of the fort, formed a street, which reached as far as the Rajah's pavilion; and the palankeen being carried along this, amidst the firing of matchlocks and shouting of the title of the King of Beejapoor by the royal bard and herald in his suite, the Envoy was set down before the same rude pavilion which we have before described, where the Rajah Sivaji awaited him.
To all appearance an insignificant little man, dark, youthful in appearance, with only one ornament in his turban, dressed in the plainest clothes, and without even the gold embroidered cushion on which he had been seated on the day of the Kutha. Punto Gopináth wondered much when he remembered the exaggerated accounts of the Prince which were sung in ballads, told by bards and reciters, and were believed by the people. Was this the saviour who was to come? Was this the man who was to rescue the Hindu faith from obloquy, if not from destruction:—protect Brahmuns, foster learning, endow and enrich temples? Above all, was this the man who was to defy the forces of Beejapoor, the fierce Abyssinians, the fiery Dekhanies—the noble park of artillery? There were no troops, no means of offence visible. True, the fort itself was strong, but the garrison was small, and unworthy of consideration in comparison with the thousands who were even now nigh at hand.