Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/35

Rh 'emancipated' agnostic, called him 'that saint'; but it remains to be proved that they were deceived in their estimate of their brother, – a rare experience among close relations, – or that his accepted rôle as a devotee raised his character in the estimation of either the nobles or the people. Moreover, had he been so deeply designing an impostor, he would have played his part so long as was necessary to develop his plans; he would have waited till the opportunity came to strike, for which he was watching in his lonely cell. Instead of this, in a year's time Aurangzíb was out of his seclusion, exercising all the powers of a Viceroy in the important province of Gújarát. Henceforward we shall see him always to the fore when war was going on, keeping himself steadily before the eyes of the people. The truth seems to be that his temporary retirement from the world was the youthful impulse of a morbid nature excited by religious enthusiasm. The novelty of the experiment soon faded away; the fakír grew heartily tired of his retreat; and the young Prince returned to carry out his notions of asceticism in a sphere where they were more creditable to his self-denial, and more operative upon the great world in which he was born to work. He was not destined to be a

'Deedless dreamer, lazying out a life self-suppression:'

his ascetic mind was fated to influence the course of an empire.

The youthful dream was soon dispelled, and the