Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/208

202 save when his religion or his throne was at stake, were no doubt partly due to a politic desire to avoid making needless enemies. Aurangzíb was naturally clement, just, and benevolent: but all his really kind actions were marred by the taint of suspicion, and lacked the quickening touch of trusting love. He never made a friend.

The end of the lonely unloved life was approaching. Failure stamped every effort of the final years. The Emperor's long absence had given the rein to disorders in the north; the Rájputs were in open rebellion, the Játs had risen about Agra, and the Sikhs began to make their name notorious in Multán. The Deccan was a desert, where the track of the Maráthás was traced by pillaged towns, ravaged fields, and smoking villages. The Mughal army was enfeebled and demoralized, 'those infernal foot-soldiers' were croaking like rooks in an invaded rookery, clamouring for their arrears of pay. The finances were in hopeless confusion, and Aurangzíb refused to be pestered about them. The Maráthás became so bold that they plundered on the skirts of the Grand Army, and openly scoffed at the Emperor, and no man dared leave the Mughal lines without a strong escort. There was even a talk of making terms with the insolent bandits.

At last the Emperor led the dejected remnant of his once powerful army, in confusion and alarm, pursued by skirmshing bodies of exultant Maráthás, back to Ahmadnagar, whence, more than twenty yours before, he had set out full of sanguine hope, and at