Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/260

212 was blown up with seventy or eighty cubits of the wall. Khan-khanan, Raja Jagannath, and the other amirs exerted themselves to incite their troops, and gave orders that the troops were to rush in and finish the work directly after the explosion. This order was duly executed, and a force under Yusuf Khan scaled the wall, by means of a mound, in another place. The assailants pressed on, and after a severe fight, in which a thousand of the besiegers fell, the fortress was captured.

A few days after, Bahadur sent Sadat Khan and Shaikh Pir Muhammad Husain, two of his chief men, to the emperor, with ten elephants and an entreaty for forgiveness. Two days later, Shaikh Pir Muhammad was sent back into the fortress and Sadat Khan was kept as the guest of Shaikh Farid. The escort which had come out with him was ordered to return with Pir Muhammad; but the men, about a hundred in number, declared that they would not return into the fortress and become prisoners in Asir. Permission to remain was given to those who could give some bail that they would not run away, otherwise they were to be put in confinement. In the end some found the required bail, and some went back into the fortress.

Among the causes which brought about the surrender of the fortress was the impurity of the atmosphere, which engendered two diseases. One was paralysis of the lower extremities from the waist downwards, which deprived the sufferer of the power of motion; the other was weakness of sight. These maladies greatly dis-