Page:Historic Landmarks of the Deccan.djvu/22

Rh this the Deccanis and the foreigners dwelt for some time in apparent amity, but the former had no intention of allowing the latter to have that share in the administration which they had promised to them and Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk plotted with Qivam-ul-Mulk the elder to have Yusuf Adil Khan assassinated in order that Abdullah Adil Khan, the Deccani, Qivam-ul-Mulk's deputy in Warangal, might be appointed to the government of the province of Bijapur. In pursuance of this design Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk issued farmans ordering the attendance of Adil Khan the Deccani and Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk of Gawil at court. These two amirs came with their armies and Hasan felt himself strong enough to act, but as a measure of precaution persuaded his friend Qivam-ul-Mulk the elder to keep his foreign troops in their quarters on the day agreed upon for the massacre, Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk was to lend a hand, and the arrangement was that his troops and those of Adil Khan, the Deccani, should defile past the Sultan, who would be seated on the battlements of his palace, and then fall on the foreigners. Qivam-ul-Mulk the elder, a simpleton who hated Yusuf Adil Khan and relied on tlie professed friendship of the crafty Brahman* Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk, performed his part of the compact by preventing his troops from assisting their fellow foreigners, but though Hasan had thus thrown dust in the eyes of the Turk he had failed to conciliate a caste fellow †, and Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk contrived that Yusuf Adil Khan, who had ever been his friend, should have sanctuary in the palace at the time when the plot was to be put into execution.

Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk's plot was a failure. His miserable dupe, Qivam-ul-Mulk the elder and many of the foreign troops under his command were slain, but those of Yusuf's followers who were within the palace contrived to escape from the city, performing prodigies of valour, to give the alarm to the Turki troops encamped without the walls and to lead 10,000, or, according to another authority, 20,000 cavalry into the city. For no less than twenty days the city was a scene of conflict between Deccanis and foreigners, and at the end of this time a peace was patched up by the terms of which Yusuf Adil Khan