Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s17.30

v2.c27.s17.30

The Bhāu’s decision to fight that day had been taken so suddenly that Abdali had received no intelligence of it before his enemies were actually on the march towards him. After surrendering to his army’s clamour at midnight, Sadāshiv Rāo had made a last despairing attempt to avert the fatal conflict. He had sent off his favourite valet Bālakrām, who used to serve him his betel-leaf, with a short note to Kāshirāj, a Maratha clerk of Shujā, urging him to appeal to his master to arrange a peaceful settlement, now or never. “The flood,” so ran his expressive language, “has risen above my head. If anything can be done, do it or else inform me plainly at once, for hereafter there will be no time for writing or speaking.” Shujā, learning from Bālakrām that the Maratha army had started, rode immediately to Abdali’s tent, waked him by pleading the urgency of the situation, and told him what he had heard from the Bhāu’s valet and his own spies. The Shah promptly took horse and rode out a mile to the front to observe, ordering his guards to get ready and his long Persian pipe to be lighted and brought to him, as a sedative in that intensely cold night air. That day Shah Pasand Khan was in command of the night-patrol, and his men discovered the march of the Maratha artillery by the clatter of the iron chains of the guns and their wheels. The Maratha guns on taking up their allotted position fired a salvo and this confirmed the news brought by Shujā beyond any doubt.