Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s17.19

v2.c27.s17.19

The horizon now totally darkened round the Bhāu and his pent up army. Their food supply was exhausted, their horses and gun-cattle were lean with fasting and dying by the hundred, and no relief was visible as far as the human eye could gaze into the future. At first a few grain convoys had come from the Patiala district in the north-west through the favour of Ala Singh; but a punitive expedition by a Durrāni detachment effectually cowed that Rajah into neutrality. Even after that, the offer of large rewards had induced some Banjaras to smuggle grain into Pānipat by obscure jungly tracks at night. But the vigilance of the Durrani night-patrols and the wide sweep of their powerful chargers closed that path. Even the untenanted jungle stretching for miles and miles west and south-west of Pānipat city became inaccessible to the beleaguered army. "One day, near the end of the night, when 20,000 or rather more of their camp-followers had gone out of the trenches to gather grass and wood in a jungle of Dhāk trees, they were overtaken by a body of 5,000 horse under Shah Pasand Khan, . . . who surrounded them and put the whole to the sword. On account of its being night, no one came to their assistance from the Maratha camp. On the scene of slaughter the dead bodies were piled up into a perfect mountain. . . . The grief and terror which this event struck into the Marathas is indescribable; even the Bhāu himself began to yield to fear and despair." [Kāshirāj.]