Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/235

Rh Mohammedans. Twenty-eight thousand Afghan horsemen rode with Ahmad Shah, whose army was brought up to a total of eighty thousand horse and foot by large bodies of infantry from his own dominions, and by the contingents of the Indian Mohammedans. The regular troops of the Marathas were reckoned at seventy-five thousand horse and fifteen thousand infantry; fifteen thousand Pindaris, or foraging freebooters, followed their standard; a countless swarm of armed banditti thronged their camp; and they had not less than two hundred guns. The artillery on both sides included strong rocket batteries.

The Marathas, who issued out of their entrenched camp at dawn, at first carried all before their furious onset; they broke through the lines of Persian musketeers, camel gunners, and light cavalry. The right wing of the Afghan army was thrown into confusion; its centre gave way under the crushing artillery fire. Ahmad Shah's vizir, who commanded the centre, threw himself from his horse and strove to rally his men on foot, crying to them that their country was far distant and that flight was useless; but to his rage and despair he found himself being overwhelmed by the torrent.

In this peril, the Afghan king, very unlike the half-hearted Nawabs whom the English were routing farther south, proved his courage and high military capacity. With his right wing broken and his centre pierced, he checked or cut down the fugitives, brought up his reserves to the last man, and sent a strong reinforcement to his vizir, with orders to make a desperate