Part 14 (2/2)

A simple and admirable adjunct to the night-attack which followed, and which found the Rajputs unprepared, in fancied security.

About the false dawning, when even the noise of revelry in the opposite camp had quieted down to sleep, the Mahomedan army forded the river in silence, and drew up in order on the sands beyond. Some portion of it was actually within the Hindu lines ere the alarm was raised.

Even so, the Rajput cavalry was to the front immediately, and checked the advance.

For what followed, Mahomed Shahab-ud-din deserves unstinted praise. It was good general-s.h.i.+p.

He formed his bowmen into four divisions, and placing them one behind the other, ordered the first to come into fighting line, discharge their arrows, and wheel to the rear, thus giving place to the second fighting line, the whole army to retreat slowly, giving ground whenever hard pressed.

All that day he fought, biding his time with such patience as he and his twelve thousand steel-armoured hors.e.m.e.n could muster. The sun was just setting when, judging the delusion of victory had done its work in the hot heads of the Rajputs, he gave the orders for one desperate charge.

It did its work!

”Din! Din! Fateh Mahomed!” once and for all overcame the Hindu war-cry of, ”Victory, Victory!” In the years to come success and failure were to attend both; but only in detail. The great issue between Brahmanism and Mahomedism was fought out on the vast Karnal battle-plain in A.D.

1193, when, as the chronicler of Islam says,

”one desperate charge carried death and destruction throughout the Hindu ranks. The disorder increased everywhere, till at length the panic became general. The Moslems, as if they now only began to be in earnest, committed such havoc, that this prodigious army once shaken, like a great building tottered to its fall, and was lost in its own ruins.”

How many thousand pagans ”went below?” Who knows? But one is sure that Mahomed Shahab-ud-din duly praised G.o.d from whom all blessings flow.

His subsequent atrocities prove that he must have relied on something which he deemed Divine Guidance; mere humanity could never have been so cruel.

Half Rajput chivalry lay dead under the stars, but the flower of it was hiding in the sugar-cane brakes, stealing his way back to Delhi, to the Princess Sunjogata his wife, who, as she had watched him go forth, lance in rest, his sword buckled on by her own steady hands, had said with foreboding courage to her maidens: ”In Yoginapur (Delhi) I shall see him no more: we will meet in Swarga.” The tale of what happened is almost beyond telling.

Prithvi Rajah was murdered in cold blood, murdered ignominiously. The Princess Fortunata escaped a like, or a worse, fate by a funeral pyre, and Delhi was given over to such hideous devils work as even that long-suffering city has never seen before or since. The followers of the Prophet wiped out their own and their G.o.d's disgrace in torrents of blood, filled their pockets by the way, went on to Ajmir, enacted a like tragedy, and so returned northwards when the pink clouds of the low-lying groves of _dakh_ trees began to blossom about the battle-field where the sun of the Hindus had set for ever.

But Mahomed Shahab-ud-din left his pet Turki slave Kutb-din-Eibuk behind him at Delhi, and he, a.s.suming almost regal honours, ”compelled all the districts around to acknowledge the faith of Islam.”

How many murders go to the making of a Moslem is a question which might fairly be asked. Converts, however, hardly came in fast enough for Shahab-ud-din's zeal, so the next year saw him back again to help his slave in crus.h.i.+ng the Rajah of Kanauj, who, doubtless, had not been of Prithvi-Raj's host. Thence he marched to Benares, in which hot-bed of idolatry he thoroughly enjoyed himself by smas.h.i.+ng the idols in a thousand temples, which he subsequently purified by prayer and purgation, and thereinafter consecrated to the wors.h.i.+p of the true G.o.d.

This was his last real outing, for Fate--can it have been that she dissociated herself from his doubtful use of the white flag--began to play him false. His slave-viceroy showed inclination to plunder on his own behalf, and though the master once more returned to India, it was but a flying visit, apparently to check independence. To no avail, for Kutb-din-Eibuk, ”ambitious of extending his conquests, led an army into Rajputana, where, having experienced severe defeat, he was compelled to seek protection in the fort at Ajmir.”

For the fighting spirit in the Rajput was not to be quenched by blood, or burned out by fire. It was to flame up fiercely for many a century to come, until the wisdom of Akbar won it over to his side.

Mahomed Shahab-ud-din's hands were, however, too full to permit of his giving much attention to India. His brother, Ghia.s.s-ud-din, the mere figure-head of a king, died in A.D. 1202, and though Shahab-ud-din was crowned in his stead without any opposition, bad luck seemed to attend him afterwards. His army was literally cut down to a mere body-guard of a hundred troopers in Khora.s.san, and though his fortunes were recovered in some measure, his time seems to have been taken up in quelling the rebellions of his favourite slaves whom he had promoted to honour.

In India, Kutb-din, it is true, remained faithful in name, though his power and prestige rose above his master's, and he was virtually king, not viceroy.

Finally, in A.D. 1206, the leader of the last real raid of the Crescent into India was a.s.sa.s.sinated by the Ghakkars of the Salt Range upon the banks of the Indus.

”The weather being sultry, the King had ordered the screens which surround the royal tents to be struck in order to give free admission to the air. This afforded the a.s.sa.s.sins an opportunity of seeing into the sleeping apartments. So at night time they found their way up to the tents and hid themselves, while one of their number advanced boldly to the tent door. Challenged by a sentry, he plunged his dagger in the man's breast, and this rousing the guard, who ran out to see what was the matter, the hidden a.s.sa.s.sin took that opportunity of cutting a way into the King's tent.

”He was asleep, with two slaves fanning him. They stood petrified with terror as the Ghakkars sheathed their daggers in the King's body, which was afterwards found to have been pierced by no fewer than twenty-two wounds.”

THE SLAVE KINGS

A.D. 1206 TO A.D. 1288

<script>