Page:History of Aurangzib (based on original sources) Vol 1.djvu/191

CHAP. VIII.] officers who had opened the magazine were confined to bed by their burns.

But with all these disasters to the garrison,

the Imperialists were no nearer success. Shah Jahan had strictly enjoined that there was to be no assault before breaching the wall, and a breach with their few guns and bad gunners was out of the question. Aurangzib therefore wrote to the Emperor on 3rd July, soliciting a distinct order to storm the walls which were still intact. It would have been madness to sanction such an enterprise. Shah Jahan had been already in- formed by Sadullah Khan that his guns could effect nothing, and that the munitions had run short, and on 1st July he had replied that the siege was to be abandoned. Aurangzib pleaded hard for a short delay; he offered to lead a desperate assault on the walls, for to leave Qandahar untaken after such grand preparations would destroy his reputation for ever. But the news that a retreat had been ordered spread through the camp, the scouts fell back on the army, and the trenches were deserted. When Shah Jahan at last grudgingly consented to