272 W. Irvine —The Bangash Nawcths of Karrukhahad. [No. 4, 
attacked and plundered. There was sometimes stiff fighting on these 
occasions, and stories are told of twelve and twenty men having been killed 
by Muhammad Khan’s own hand in the assault on some rich fort. The 
reward was sometimes plunder to the value of four or five lakhs of rupees. 
Once in those days, Muhammad Khan, at the head of three hundred 
horsemen, made an attack on a fort, at the instigation of some Rajah. He 
first tried an assault but failed, and then had recourse to besieging, with no 
better result. The men inside made a valiant defence. Now, it so hap¬ 
pened, that on one side of the fort was a large and deep piece of water. 
The Rajah, thinking that no one could attack him on that side, had left it 
quite unguarded. One night, at midnight, Muhammad Khan, taking with 
him several active men well armed, went into the tank and swam across to 
the foot ( fazil ) of the fort wall. Climbing up by the aid of a tree they 
then jumped down into the fort. The Rajah was asleep close by ; roused by 
their arrival, he got up and fled, calling upon his followers for aid. To 
save his life, he tried to hide in a room, but Muhammad Khan followed 
him into it and slew him. Meanwhile so many of the zamindars had col¬ 
lected, that all Muhammad Khan’s companions were killed, and the door of 
the room was shut upon him. Muhammad Khan, after commending him¬ 
self to God, fixed his shield into the shelf, and raised a beam by applying 
his head. He thus got through to the open air, with his ears all bleeding. 
When he had pushed half his body through the roof, the Rajah’s women, 
whose apartments were close by, renewed hostilities by hurling at him their 
rice-pestles and brass vessels. This attack put him still more out of breath, 
but brushing the women aside, he clambered off the roof down the wall by 
the aid of the same tree. Then, swimming across the lake, he regained his 
camp. Next morning the zamindars evacuated the fort, paid up their 
money and made Muhammad Khan an offering, touching his feet humbly 
and saying, “ Khan jiu , turn manai nahin , deota ho, tumhari sanmukh he 
“ ham nahin hain .” In his old age, the Nawab Sahib was fond of telling 
this story, saying, that though he had many a time been wounded, no pain 
had ever equalled that of pushing aside the rafters of that roof, and during 
an east wind the pain still troubled him. 
Hitherto Muhammad Khan had been little more than a petty free¬ 
booter, and having reached the age of forty-five, there seemed every likeli¬ 
hood that he would so remain during the rest of his career. Chance, 
however, called him to higher honours on a wider stage, to which we now 
propose to follow him. 
Muhammad Khan enters the Imperial service. 
In February, 1712, (Muharram 1124, H.) Bahadur Shah, successor of 
’Alamgir Aurangzeb, died after a reign of five years. A struggle for the 
