Later Mughals v1.c9.s37.10

v1.c9.s37.10

These men, some four hundred altogether, rushed tumultuously into the imperial apartments. A number of the women seized weapons and tried to resist; some were slain and some wounded. The weeping and lamentation of the ladies passed unheeded. The door of the small room where he was hiding having been broken in, the wretched Farrukh-siyar, despairing of life, came out armed with sword and shield, and dealt several blows at the stony-hearted ruffians. In that dire extremity these fruitless and untimely efforts availed him nothing. His mother, his wife, his daughter and other ladies grouped themselves around him and tried to shelter him. The shrieking women were pushed on one side with scant ceremony. The men surrounded him and hemmed him in; they then laid hold of him by the hand and neck, his turban fell off, and with every mark of indignity he was dragged and pushed from his retreat. It is said that Hifz-ullah Khan, (subsequently known as Murtaza Khan) and Murid Khan,* in order to ingratiate themselves with Qutb-ul-mulk, went with those hard-hearted men, thus in one moment wiping out the loyal services done to the line of Taimur, for more than a century past, by their grandfather and father, and at the same time oblivious of their having been themselves the fallen man's companions and confidants. It was pitiful to see this strong man, perhaps the handsomest and most powerfully-built of Babar's race that had ever occupied the throne, dragged bareheaded and barefooted, subjected at every moment to blows and the vilest abuse, into the Diwan-i-khas to the presence of Qutb-ul-mulk. The Nawab opened his pen box, took out a needle used by him for applying collyrium (surma) to his eyes, and giving it to one of the men, ordered them to throw down their prisoner and blind him. Whatever was found in the female apartments and storehouses, or on the people of the harem—cash, clothes, gold silver and copper vessels, ornaments and jewels—all was taken, nay, even the slave-girls and the concubines were appropriated.