Page:History of India Vol 5.djvu/105

 MAHMUD DEFEATS CHAND KAI 73 trate and concealing even the direction of his flight, so that no man could know whither he was gone or whether he had sped by night or day. The object of Bhimpal in recommending the flight of Chand Rai was that the king should not fall into the net of the Sultan and thus be made a Mussulman, as had happened to Bhimpal 's uncle and relations, when they demanded quarter in their distress. Sultan Mahmud invested and captured the fort, notwithstanding its strength and height. Here he got plenty of supplies and booty, but he did not obtain the real object of his desire, which was to seize Chand Rai, and which he now determined to effect by pro- ceeding in pursuit of him. Accordingly, after marching fifteen parasangs, or leagues, through the jungle, which was so thorny that the faces of his men were scarred and bleeding, and through stony tracts which battered and injured the horses' shoes, he at last came up to his enemy shortly before midnight on the twenty-fifth of Sha'ban, 409 A. H. (January 6, 1019 A. D.). The Sultan summoned the most religiously disposed of his followers and ordered them to attack the enemy at once. Many infidels were consequently slain or taken prisoners in this sudden attack, but the Mussulmans paid no regard to the booty till they had sated them- selves with the slaughter of the infidels and worship- pers of the sun and fire. The soldiers of the Sultan searched the bodies of the slain for three whole days to obtain booty. The plunder of gold and silver, and of rubies and