Page:History of India Vol 3.djvu/209

 THE DEPARTURE OF TIMUR LANG 169 made to pay dearly for the legend. Crossing the Ganges, after a veritable orgy of slaughter, the soldier of the faith prostrated himself in gratitude to God, and felt that he had accomplished his mission in Hindustan. He had come, he said, for two purposes: to war with infidels for the sake of the rewards of the next world, and to seize this world's riches, since " plunder in war for the faith is as lawful to Moslems as their mother's milk, and the consumption of that which is lawful is a means of grace." Lacs of infidels had been des- patched " to the fires of hell," and the zealous warriors of Islam were laden with spoils. Enough had been done, and it was time to turn homewards and see what was going on at the other end of Asia. Fighting his way through the Siwalik hills, beneath Mussooree, driving the heathen into the Himalaya valleys, plundering and burning villages as he proceeded, seizing Nagarkot and Jammu, and detaching a force to take Lahore, Timur and his invincible host marched beneath the Himalayas of India, and, after a final rhinoceros hunt, disappeared up the Afghan valleys. In March the fearful visitation was over.. When the Scourge of God had departed, men came out of their hiding-places like the hare when the hunter has passed. Fortunately, in his haste to return to Sa- markand, Timur had been able to harry but a small part of India; but wherever his army had trampled, from the Indus to the Ganges, over the whole of the Panjab, deso- lation and famine were left behind. Thenceforward, until the days of the Moghul empire, Delhi never re-