Muntakhab al-tawarikh 78.35.6

78.35.6

This was a place he had all his life a hankering after, and kept it, as a mine of silver and gold in full view : continually concocting in the crucible of his guileless breast (which was large enough to contain a world) visions of golden and silver idol-temples and bricks of gold and silver. Then, without having received any orders authorizing him to do so, he turned to Basant-pur (an elevated and well-known place in the hill-district), and invested the place. Malik ush-Sharq, the tax-collector of T’hanesar shut the door of the fort : and the other tax-collectors in like manner, in a fright, having run into their holes, spread a false report that he was in rebellion, and sent a petition to that effect to the Court. The Emperor enquired of Sa'id Khan Moghul (who was a connection and very old friend of Husain Khan, and who had just come from Multan) whether this report was true ; this he firmly denied. But when the Emperor asked him to give, on the part of Husain Khan, a bond in writing for the cattle and goods which Husain Khan had carried off from the agriculturists he utterly declined to do so, and all that former love and friendship changed into an affectation of being utterly unacquainted with him : — “ These deceitful friends, whom you see, Are but flies about a sweetmeat. Before you they are truer to you than the light, Behind your back they are more evanescent than a shadow.”