Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/205

Rh rangzib appeared, he saluted them as became a king, and spoke to them in choice Persian. He then called for his horse and rode with them to Prince A'zam, who presented him to Aurangzib. The Great Moghul treated him with grave courtesy, as king to king, for the gallantry of his defence of Golkonda atoned for his many sins of the past. He was then sent a prisoner to Daulatabad, where his ally of Bijapur was already a captive, and both their dynasties disappear from history, while Aurangzib appropriated a sum equivalent to about seven millions sterling from the royal property of Golkonda.

FORT OF GOLKONDA.

With the conquest of Golkonda and Bijapur, Aurangzib considered himself master of the Deccan. Yet the direct result of this destruction of the only powers that made for order and some sort of settled government in the peninsula was to strengthen the hands of