Page:History of India Vol 3.djvu/83

 MOHAMMAD GHORI 55 ever, Mohammad Ghori ravaged the territory of Lahore and fortified Sialkot. This was coming to close quar- ters, and the king in desperation called in the help of the Gakkars and laid siege to the fortress. The Ghorian outmanoeuvred hi by a trick, and getting between Khusru and his capital, compelled him to surrender (1185 or 1186). The prisoner and his son were taken to Firoz-kuh and confined in a fort, where after five years the last of the Ghaznavids were put to death. Mohammad Ghori had thus rid himself of all Moslem rivals in India: he could now turn to the Hindus. From the accounts of the Persian historians, it is clear that the process of assimilation which had been going on between the Turkish conquerors and the subject Hindus was now checked. The policy of employing native In- dian regiments was abandoned, and the new invaders, Afghan Moslems, numerously supported by Turks, were full of religious zeal, and eager to send the " grovelling crow-faced Hindus to the fire of hell." Mohammad's first step was to seize and garrison Sirhind. This brought upon him the whole force of the Rajputs, led by Prithivi Raja, the chief of the Chohan dynasty that had succeeded the Tomaras in Delhi and Ajmir. These were a different kind of enemy from those the Afghans had been accustomed to meet. They were well ac- quainted with the modes of fighting of the Seljuks and other Turks of the Oxus land, but in the Rajputs they encountered a soldiery second to none in the world, a race of born fighters who fought to the death, and many of whose principalities never submitted in more