Later Mughals v1.c7.s5.14

v1.c7.s5.14

When informed of the unexpected attack on Jahandar Shah, Zulfiqar Khan left his tents in great perturbation to search for his master. On his way spies brought him word that a few matchlockmen had engaged Jahan Shah, when separated from the main body of his army and followed by no more than one thousand horsemen. Zulfiqar Khan hastened to the spot thus indicated. His arrival encouraged the matchlockmen to redouble their exertions. Jahan Shah, noticing the slackness of his men, drove his elephant to the front. The musket-fire now began to tell so severely that Jahan Shah’s side relaxed all further effort, and most of them rode off. Excepting the few men round his elephant, the Prince was left alone. The other side now assumed the offensive, and the Prince’s son, Farkhanda Akhtar, who had claimed command of the vanguard, was shot through the head at the first discharge. A moment afterwards Jahan Shah followed his son into the realms of Death. By one of those sudden reversals of fortune, so frequent in Eastern story, just as Jahandar Shah was about to flee in despair from the battlefield, Zulfiqar Khan appeared with his rival’s head and laid it before him with his congratulations. As Shaikh Sadi Shirazi says, ‘A man wept all night at the bedside of a sick friend; when morning came, he was dead and the friend was living.’