Shivaji and His Times c8.s27.11

c8.s27.11

He took counsel with his devoted followers and with Raghunath Pant Korde, his agent at the imperial Court, as to how he could effect his release. They advised him to play on the Emperor's greed of territory and to promise the conquest of Bijapur and Golkonda* as the price of his restoration to liberty. A petition to this effect was presented by the hand of Raghunath Korde, but the Emperor only answered, "Wait a little and I shall do what you ask for." Shiva knew the answer was evasive. He had begged for a private interview with the Emperor in which he promised to make a secret communication very much to the benefit of the latter. The Maratha chronicles say that the prime-minister Jafar Khan, warned by a letter from Shaista Khan, dissuaded the Emperor from risking his person in a private interview with a magician like Shiva. But Aurangzib hardly needed other people's advice in such a matter. He was too wise to meet in a small room with a few guards the man who had slain Afzal Khan almost within sight of his 10,000 soldiers, and wounded Shaista Khan in the very bosom of his harem amidst a ring of 20,000 Mughal troops, and escaped unscathed. Popular report credited Shiva with being a wizard with "an airy body," able to jump across 40 or 50 yards of space upon the person of his victim. The private audience was refused.