Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/204

162 Moghuls poured into the fortress and raised a shout of triumph. The only faithful amir, Abd-ar-Razzak, heard it, and leaping on a bare-backed horse, followed by a dozen retainers, galloped to the gate, through which the enemy were rushing. Covered with blood and reeling in his saddle, he found his way out, and they found him next day lying senseless under a cocoanut tree, with more than seventy wounds.

He was the hero of the siege. Aurangzib said that had Abu-l-Hasan possessed but one more servant as loyal as this, the contest might have gone on much longer. He sent a European and a Hindu surgeon to attend to the wounded man, and rejoiced when after sixteen days he at last opened his eyes. He showered favours upon the hero's sons, but nothing could shake the loyalty of the father. Lying on his sick-bed, he said that "no man who had eaten salt of Abu-l-Hasan could enter the service of Aurangzib." Contrasted with the universal self-seeking of the Moghul Court, such faithfulness was rare indeed, and no one honoured it more sincerely than the emperor who had never been disloyal to his standard of duty.

Meanwhile Abu-l-Hasan had heard the shouts and groans, and knew that his hour was come. He went into the harem and tried to comfort the women, and then, asking their pardon for his faults, he bade them farewell, and taking his seat in the audience-chamber waited calmly for his unbidden guests. He would not suffer his dinner-hour to be postponed for such a trifle as the Moghul conquest. When the officers of Au-