Storia do Mogor 172.10

172.10

Then in the evening the Rana sent in the Mogul's wife (Udepuri Begam), in the company of his soldiers, again begging him as a favour to withdraw and leave his kingdom in peace, and made the excuse that his soldiers had stopped the roads without his orders. This would have been enough to pacify the most barbarous of kings, enraged by some great insult or another which he had received ; while, on the contrary, this was a king unjustly assailed who yet granted life to his enemy, when he could have killed him with impunity. But not for such courtesies would Aurangzeb refrain from his fixed purpose ; on the contrary, he sent order upon order to his sons and generals to penetrate farther and farther. He himself withdrew to Ajmer, so as not to incur again any evil fortune. Leaving himself with no more than two thousand men, made up of household slaves and clerks, he divided up his forces and sent them to all four quarters with orders to invade without hesitation. But his sons and generals, more prudent than Aurangzeb himself, perpetually made excuses, for they knew how easy it is to get into a labyrinth, yet how difficult to follow it up to the appointed limit, and then return by the same route. They knew the mishap that had happened to the king himself. Yet he, in his over-boldness, would not agree to desist from the enterprise, and insisted on carrying all before him.