Shivaji and His Times c8.s9.1

c8.s9.1

The cowardly governor Inayet Khan, who had run into the fort in Tuesday night, formed an infamous plot from his safe refuge. On Thursday he sent a young follower of his to Shivaji with pretended terms of peace. These were so manifestly unreasonable that Shiva scornfully asked the envoy, "Your master is now cooped up in his chamber like a woman. Does he think of me too as a woman that he expects me to accept such terms as these?" The young man immediately replied, "We are not women; I have something more to say to you;" and whipping out a concealed dagger he ran full at Shivaji's breast. A Maratha body-guard that stood before the Rajah with a drawn sword, struck off the assassin's hand with one blow. But so great was the force of the desperado's rush that he did not stop but drove the bloody stump of his arm on Shiva's person and the two rolled on the ground together. The blood being seen on Shiva's dress, his followers imagined that he had been murdered, and the cry ran through the camp to kill the prisoners. But the same guardsman clove the assassin's skull; Shiva rose up from the ground and forbade any massacre. Then he ordered the prisoners to be brought before him and cut off the heads of four and the hands of 24 others from among them at his caprice, but spared the rest.*