Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/153

Rh left in peace. This was just what the new Viceroy was least disposed to grant. He had done with his dream of a hermit's contemplative life, and his experience of war in Afghánistán had roused all his inborn passion for conquest. The fact that the Deccan kings were of the heretical sect of the Shí'a, or followers of 'Alí, gave his designs the sacred character of a Jihád. From this time to his dying day he never for a moment lost sight of his ambition to recover the empire which had once belonged to Muhammad ibn Taghlak. At last his ambition led him on and on, till for twenty-six years he never set foot in Hindústán, and finally found the grave of his hopes, as of his body, in the land which even his iron will could not subdue.

His first decided step towards the goal he was fated never to reach was an unprovoked attack upon 'Abdallah, the King of Golkonda. The pretext was an internal dispute with which the Mughals had no concern, but it served their purpose. Mír Jumla, the vizier of Golkonda, was by birth a Persian, and a diamond merchant by trade, who had risen to his high office as much by transcendent ability as by fabulous wealth. He was wont to reckon the produce of his diamond mines by the sackful, and used his riches as a serviceable grease to the wheels of success. But he was also a brilliant general, and his campaigns in the Carnatic had brought him fame as well as treasure. In pursuit of both he had shown himself a very scourge of idolatry, and plundered temples and violated idols throughout the peninsula