Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s14.15

v2.c27.s14.15

Abdāli, like a veteran general, grimly set his teeth and kept his army together, till his chance came towards the end of October. By reason of the flooded Jamunā he had not been able to raise a finger to save Delhi or Kunjpurā. And now the massacre of his partisans in the latter city roused him to the fury of impotent rage. “When the sack of Kunjpurā was reported to Ahmad Shah, his heart was inflamed to the extreme. Calling his Afghan generals together he told them that he could not bear it that while he was alive Afghan people should be so dishonoured.” [Nur-ud-din, 35b.] He had moved to Shāhdara, facing Delhi, sometime at the beginning of October, only to look helplessly across the Jamunā till the river should become fordable again. The fall of Kunjpurā forced his hands. On the 20th of that month he marched northwards and arrived within four *kos* of Bāghpat. Here he halted for four days to find out if the river could be forded. Some of his Durrānis who drove their horses into the river for discovering a fordable passage were swept away by the current and drowned. His Indo-Muslim allies, with all their local knowledge and influence, failed to provide a guide. So, the Shah fasted and prayed to God for two days, and on the third a ford was at last found. This miraculous reward of his piety roused the enthusiasm of the army to the highest pitch. The narrow passage across was lined with posts to mark it off from the deep water on the two sides, where men and horses would be drowned. The vanguard plunged into the river on 25th October, the day following the full moon, and reached the other bank in safety.