CHAPTER III.
The Mahratta, who had been wounded by Sevajee, on being lowered from the fortress, lay some time upon the ground exhausted from loss of blood. As evening advanced, he crawled into a thicket, and threw himself at the root of a tree surrounded with high coarse grass, upon which he slept until the morning. He tore his turban into strips as well as he was able, stanched the blood that flowed copiously from his wounds, and bound themup. By the next morning his limbs were so stiff that he could scarcely move; he was parched with a painful thirst; his head was confused, and objects floated before his sight in ten thousand fantastic configurations. A thin spring welled from a chasm in the hill; and being acquainted with the locality, thither he dragged his enfeebled body, and bathed his temple in the limpid waters. He drank copiously of the pure element, and was somewhat refreshed. Still, unable to use much exertion, he cast himself again at the root of the tree and slept.
Thus passed the day. The second night came, and he was still there, helpless as a babe. He thought that here his death-bed was made, and resigned himself with sullen courage to his fate. The cries of the jackal disturbed his slumbers, and continually reminded him that he was at the mercy of the prowling beast of the forest. The bright moon looked from her glorious temple of serene and delicate blue, illuminating the boundless expanse through which she marched to her zenith with the majesty and beauty of a thing of heaven, and poured the gentle stream of her light upon the wounded Mahratta, who slept in spite of bodily prostration and of mental suffering. The morning broke upon him bright and cloudless. He was relieved, and his limbs less stiff; for it is astonishing how rapidly the natives of eastern countries recover from the most desperate wounds, owing to their habits of excessive temperance. He quitted the jungle, and proceeded leisurely down the mountain. His progress was slow and difficult; and he was frequently obliged to seek the cool recesses of the forest in order to recruit his exhausted frame.
After a toilsome march of two days he reached the bottom of the Ghauts. He knew that a detachment of Aurungzebe’s army lay encamped in the plains. It was commanded by a general of reputation, and amounted to fifteen thousand men, prepared to attack Sevajee in his stronghold; but the difficulty was how to reach this through the numerous mountain ravines among which it was concealed and protected.
The wounded man crawled into the camp and desired to be conducted to the general’s tent. “I can lead you to the abode ofSevajee,” he cried. This was sufficient to remove all reluctance from the minds of the soldiers, who at first showed a disinclination to conduct the stranger to their general. They suspected him to be a spy; but the possibility of his being a traitor gave him a better claim to their courtesy, and they brought him to the tent of the Omrah, under whose command they acted.
“What is your motive, soldier,” inquired the general, “for entering an enemy’s camp.”
“Behold these wounds!” said the man. “They were inflicted by the tyrant who now holds sway over the Mahrattas. That is my sufficient answer why I appear in the Mogul camp.”
“Personal enmities are but a poor recommendation to confidence. He who would betray a friend would be little likely to serve a foe.”
“Where a person has his revenge to gratify, you have the strongest guarantee for confidence. Apart from all motives that raise man in the scale of moral dignity, that wrong which stimulates to vengeance will render him true to those who promote his deadly purposes; for vengeance is like the raging thirst of fever, never to be slaked till the cause is removed. Until mine is appeased, you may trust me; after that I make no pledges. Do you accept my services?”
“What do you undertake to perform?”
“For a sum of ten thousand rupees, to be paid after the terms of the contract have been fulfilled, I undertake to conduct you to the fortress in these mountains where Sevajee usually resides, and to put you in possession of it. I have a brother among the troops who compose the garrison. He will, I know, promote any scheme that shall bring retribution upon him by whom I have been so grievously wronged. Send a body of fifteen hundred men, when I am sufficiently recovered to march with them, and my life for the issue.”
This plan was concurred in, the man taken to a tent, and his wounds dressed. In three weeks he was in a condition to proceed against the stronghold of the Mahratta chief. Fifteen hundred men were selected for the enterprise; and these were followedat a short distance by another strong detachment, unknown to the Mahratta guide in case of treachery.
For two days they threaded the mazes of the hills by paths almost impracticable, and halted in the evening of the second day in a wood about three miles from the fortress. The Mahratta, quitting the camp, proceeded up the hill alone, and making a certain signal, well known to the garrison was drawn up the rock. The soldiers were surprised at beholding their old comrade, who had been so recently expelled, and whom they all considered to have furnished a feast for vultures or jackals. He desired to be conducted before their chief, to whom he expressed the deepest contrition for what had passed, and begged to be again admitted among that community from which he had been expelled. Sevajee, deceived by the soldier’s apparent contrition, and knowing him to be a man of great daring and skill in conducting a perilous enterprise, consented to his re-admission among his hardy band of mountain warriors.
Before quitting his new allies, the traitor had arranged that, should he gain admission into the fort, he would, in conjunction with his brother, admit them during the midnight watch: that if the thing turned out not to be practicable on that night, they must retire into the thickets, and there await the desired opportunity.
An hour before midnight a body of four hundred men wound slowly up the hill by the dim light of the stars, and concealed themselves in a hollow about two hundred yards from the fort. This hollow was covered with a thick growth of jungle grass and underwood, which effectually concealed them from observation. The Mahratta had contrived that his brother should be upon guard at midnight at that part of the ramparts where admission was obtained into the fort.
The matter had been so secretly arranged, that nearly a hundred of the Moguls were drawn up into the fortress before any alarm was given. A soldier hurried to Sevajee’s apartment, and roused him with the unexpected cry of—“We are surprised! the Moguls have obtained possession of our mountain citadel.”The Mahratta chief grasped his sword, and hurried to that part of the ramparts where the two brothers were in the act of drawing up the enemy. As there was but an uncertain light, his approach was not observed. With the quickness of thought he severed the cord just as a Mogul soldier had been drawn to the landing place. He did not stay to hear the crash of the succeeding fall, but cutting down the traitor who had admitted the foe, made a speedy retreat to collect the slumbering garrison. He was shortly surrounded by his faithful followers, who all flew to the ramparts.
The Moguls had already destroyed several of the Mahrattas who were taken by surprise, and in the suddenness of their alarm had started unarmed from their beds. Sevajee fought like a lion. The darkness gave him a great advantage over the enemy, who were perfectly ignorant of the localities, though their guide, the treacherous Mahratta, had given them what information the hurry and confusion of the scene permitted. Sevajee sought him out amid the fierce struggle of attack and resistance. They perceived each other in the imperfect light; the rebel would have retired, but the indignant chief arrested his purpose, and compelled him to turn in self-defence. Knowing Sevajee’s skill at his weapon, the Mahratta sprang upon and closed with him, hoping to despatch him with his own dagger; but this purpose was foiled by his active foe, who drew it suddenly from his cumberbund, and flung it over the battlements. The struggle was now desperate. They tugged and strained with the fury of gored bulls. They glared in each other’s faces, inhaling the hot breath as it came quick and gasping from their parched throats, and steaming at every pore with the might of their exertions. At length Sevajee, dashing his head in the face of his foe, obliged him partially to relax his hold, and at the same moment springing backward, entirely disengaged himself; and while the other was half stunned, he suddenly rushed forward, forced his head between the traitor’s legs, raised him upon his neck, and with irresistible force flung him over the battlements.
Sevajee again seized his sword; but perceiving that the Mogulswere masters of the fortress, he flew to the princess:—“You are in the enemy’s power—you will be taken to your friends, and have therefore nothing to fear—with me, captivity is the harbinger of death.”
“Fly,” said Rochinara eagerly; “if there is yet a chance of escape, seize it, and leave me to make my peace with the victors.”
There was no time for parley. Sevajee proceeded to a part of the rampart which abutted upon a face of the hill, where the precipice was here and there feathered with shrubs, that grew from the interstices of the rock, and its surface broken into inequalities by projecting ledges, which would not have afforded footing for a goat. At the bottom rolled a deep stream, that gurgled through a straitened channel, and foamed between large masses which had fallen into it from the superincumbent mountain.
The moment was critical. Sevajee commenced this perilous descent. His danger was imminent. The small projections to which he was obliged to trust his footing frequently gave way under the pressure of his step, and he several times despaired of making his escape. About midway the shrub which he had grasped proved too weak to support his weight, and he slipped several yards down the precipice. His course was luckily arrested by a thick bush, something like a huge tuft of birch, which at once broke his fall and arrested his progress.
He was now within forty feet of the water. Here, to the edge of the rivulet, the hill was less precipitous; and having paused a few moments to rest himself, he determined to slide down the rest of the precipice into the stream, which would break the force of his fall, though it would expose him to the chance of being drowned. Tearing up part of the bush, he placed it under him, in order to prevent himself from being wounded by the rocky projections of the hill. It was a desperate hazard; but he at length let himself slip from the ledge. Sustaining some severe bruises, he was precipitated with considerable violence into the rivulet, which fortunately happened at this spot to be deep, andits channel tolerably free from masses of rock. After a short struggle he gained the opposite bank, and was soon beyond the reach of pursuit.
Meanwhile the princess was taken from the fortress, and borne by easy marches to Delhi, whither her father had retired, leaving his generals to complete the conquest of the Deccan and the subjection of the Mahrattas.
Aurungzebe was greatly exasperated when he discovered that she was about to become a mother. She had ever been his favourite child, and he calculated upon marrying her to some powerful prince, who would strengthen his political influence. She was confined to the harem, and he refused to see her. As soon as her babe was born, it was taken from her, and put under the care of a nurse, no one knew where. It being a boy, the Emperor was determined that it should be brought up in ignorance of its birth. The mother was wretched at being separated from her infant. The Mahratta chief had ever treated her with tenderness and respect, and she was far less happy amid the splendours of the imperial palace than in the rude citadel of the mountain warrior. She implored to be allowed to see her child; but her parent was inexorable, and the bereaved mother poured out her silent sorrows amid the monotonous seclusion of the harem, where she found neither sympathy nor consolation.