Twilight of the Sultanate c15.s4.64

c15.s4.64

The battle was now in full swing. The fire of Bābur's musketeers and artillery-men created more consternation than actual destruction,¹⁶¹ but the new weapons did not fail to inspire terror in the hearts of the Indian soldiers. Intermittent fire accompanied by the boom of guns and the rattle of matchlocks from the front, and the attack by arrow and sword on the flanks and from the rear on the jammed mass of the Afghan army, which it had become soon after the battle had begun, decided the day. By noon those of the Afghan army who could extricate themselves were fleeing for life, while the field was strewn with thousands of dead. When the day seemed to be irrevocably lost, Mahmūd Khan suggested to Ibrāhīm to leave the field, but the spirited Afghan would not listen to such advice.¹⁶² He fought to the bitter end and died like a soldier.¹⁶³ Around his body lay five to six thousand of his bravest warriors. The little army of Bābur had slain nearly three times its own number—"a terrible testimony alike to the skill of the leader and to the deadliness of his scientific combination of cavalry and artillery".¹⁶⁴