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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JULY, 1920
would a social banquet. Victory, he said, depended on the will of God, and it behoved the Gujaratis to consider carefully what was likely to be the upshot of this affair. Should the victory be theirs, people would say that Sultan Mahmûd had come with an overwhelming army and had overpowered a small force; but if, on the other hand, the reverse should be the case, Sultan Mahmûd's dynasty would incur a disgrace which would never be wiped out till the end of time.
Before the minister's letter reached the Gujaratis it fortunately happened that Ahmad Nizâm Shah was able to devise a scheme for throwing the army of the enemy into oonfusion, The scheme was as follows. The king called a mahaut to him in private and ordered him to make his way into Sultan Mahmûd's camp and there make friends with the mahaut who had the charge of Biri Sål, the largest and fiercest of all Sultan Mahmud's elephants, and to per guade him by stimulating his avarice to loose Biri Sal in the camp in the middle of the night, when Sultan Mahmud and his army were all asleep, and thus throw the camp into confusion, when the two mahauts would have an excellent opportunity of plundering and of dividing their spoil one with the other. Ahmad Nizam Shah also arranged to send on that night with the mahaut a force of rooketeers and musketeers, who were to conceal themselves in the vicinity of the camp and listen for the sound of the confusion in the enemy's camp, on hearing which they were to come forth and fire their rockets and muskets into the camp, at the same time making a fearful noise with drums and trumpets.
Ahmad Ni Am Shah's device succeeded. The mahaut and the force of infantry set out for the enemy's camp and the infantry lay in ambush, waiting for the mahaut to fulfil his promise. The mahaut, in accordance with his undertaking, made friends with Sultan Mahmûd's mahaut, and then succeeded in persuading him to fall in with his proposale. In the middle of that dark night Biri Sal's mahaut unfastened his leg chains and loosed the elephant in the camp. The elephant ran about trumpeting hither and thither in the camp, killing people as he went, and shouts of confusion arose from the camp of the Gujaratis. Ahmad Nizim Shah's infantry, who were awaiting this sound, sprang from their ambush with shouts, and with rockets and muskets ready. When the Gujaratis saw that disaster was looming upon them from all directions and heard shouts from every side, they were convinced that Nizam Shah had made a night attack on their camp, but since they could not see their enemy and did not know which way to turn in order to face him, flight was the only choice left for them, and Sultan Mahmud and his army left their camp and fled in disorder, and did not check their flight until they had covered a distance of nearly twenty miles.
The next day spies announced to Ahmad Nizam Shah the joyful news of the defeat of the enemy. And Ahmad Nizam Shah marched from Burhanpur and occupied the camp which Sultan Mahmud had left.
When Sultan Mahmûd learnt that the disgraceful flight of his army had been occasioned by nothing which should have caused alarm, he was overwhelmed with shame. At this moment the letter of Masnad-1- Ali Nagir-ul-Mulk reached his camp and was shown to him. As the Sultan already repented of his coming in person, he confirmed the truth of what Nasir-ul-Mulk had written and said that what he had written had actually come to pass. He ordered his ministers to write to Naşir-ul-Mulk and say that if he would persuade his master to retreat, the army of Gujarat would return to its own country. A letter in these terms was aent to Naptr-ul-Mulk and he shewed it to Ahmad Nigam Shah. But Ahmad Nizam Shah
