Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/152

116 needs dismount. Murad Bakhsh was still there on his gory elephant, with his howdah stuck as full of arrows as a porcupine with quills, grimly dealing blow for blow and shaft for shaft. Aurangzib towered high above a seething scrimmage of Rajputs. But where was Dara? It was though the sun had vanished in mid-heaven. A blind panic seized upon the all but victorious army, and every man fled for dear life. Once a panic has got hold of an Indian army, no power can save it. In one brief moment the tide had turned, and the all but vanquished became the victors. For a terrible moment Aurangzib had steadily maintained his seat on his besieged elephant, and his reward was the Peacock Throne. A little too soon Dara had dismounted, to be "numbered among the most miserable of princes," a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth. Then, and not till then, did Aurangzib descend from his elephant, and, prostrating himself on the bloody field, give thanks to God for this great and glorious victory.

The victory of Samugarh was the signal for all the world to come and tender their homage to Aurangzib, who remained on the field of his triumph, busily engaged night and day in negotiating with his father's amirs. They required little inducement to come over to the side of the rising man. The Raja Jai Singh, who commanded the army which had successfully repulsed Shuja' in Bengal, gave his adhesion to the future emperor. The Maharaja Jaswant Singh presently followed his example and tendered his fealty to the new power. Dara had already fled with a few hundred