Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c42.s2.33

v3.c42.s2.33

The merit of efficacy cannot be denied to the Ruhela's methods of torture. However inhuman their character, they bore speedy fruit. Maid-servants through fear of torture or greed of reward or spite, divulged the secret chambers where coins, gems, gold and silver plate and costly clothing were kept concealed. Some of these, from having been buried underground or kept in cellars (*sard-āba*) for generations, had become utterly discoloured. Some of the cloth of gold and diamonds and pearls now dug out were so rare and precious that when Ghulām Qādir asked the Delhi jewellers to value them, they confessed that they had never before seen anything of such high value and could make no guess at their prices, nor could a single purchaser for them be found nowadays. The total spoils of Delhi, in cash and kind, were estimated by his own wife at twenty-five krors* of Rupees [Ibr. iii. 175], and some more coins and jewels were found by Rana Khan and the palace servants among the debris left behind by his excavations. The champion of crescentade against the Kafirs from the South, removed the gold coating of one cupola of the Jāmi' Masjid and sold it, but was prevented from similarly stripping the remainder by Maniyār Singh who warned him that such an outrage on the holy edifice would rouse the entire city population in arms against him. [Ibr. 158.]