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347 
W. Irvine —The Later Mug&als. 
and judgment he was found to excel his brothers. This youth was 
brought as he had been found, wearing his ordinary clothes, his only 
ornament being a necklace of pearls, taken by Qutb-ul-mulk from his 
own neck. The Nawab holding one hand and Ajlt Singh the other, 
they seated him straightway on the jewelled peacock throne, which 
two days before had been brought out into the Dlwdn-i^dm for the 
celebration of the Nauroz, or vernal festival. Those present offered 
their gifts, as is usual upon a fresh accession. Then, under the super¬ 
vision and control of Najm-ud-dln ‘All Khan. Rajah Ratn Cand, Rajah 
Bakht Mall and Dindar Khan, son of Jalal Khan, 1 at the head of a 
number of Afghans, were sent into the female apartments to arrest the 
deposed emperor. 2 
These men, some four hundred altogether, rushed tumultuously 
into the imperial apartments. A number of the women seized weapons 
and tried to resist; some were slain and some wounded. The weeping 
and lamentation of the ladies passed unheeded. The door of the small 
room where he was hiding having been broken in, the wretched 
Farrukhsiyar, despairing of life, came out armed with sword and 
shield, and dealt several blows at the stony-hearted ruffians. In that 
dire extremity these fruitless and untimely efforts availed him nothing 
His mother, his wife, his daughter and other ladies grouped themselves 
around him and tried to shelter him. The shrieking women were 
pushed on one side with scant ceremony. The men surrounded him 
and hemmed him in ; they then laid hold of him by the hand and neck, 
his turban fell off, and with every mark of indignity he was dragged 
and pushed from his retreat. It is said that Hafiz-ullah Khan, (sub¬ 
sequently known as Murtaza Khan) and Murid Khan, 3 in order to in¬ 
gratiate themselves with Qutb-ul-mulk, went with those hard-hearted 
men, thus in one moment wiping out the loyal services done to the line 
of Taimur, for more than a century past, by their grandfather and 
father, and at the same time oblivious of their having been themselves 
1 i.e., Jalal Khan of Jalalabad, parganah Thanah Bhawan. Khafi Khan, II, 
814, speaks also of one man (not named) “ son of Salabat Khan, Rohela.” Possibly 
this is a copyist’s mistake, ohaving been written in place of J** 
* Khafi Khan, 814, 816. 
8 Kamwar Kh an, p. 194. Hafiz-ullah Kh an received the title of Murtaza Kh an 
on the 29th Sha‘ban 1131H, and was made deputy of the Mir Atash (Kamwar Khan 
206). He was a Husaini Sayyad, his name being Hafiz-ullah, son of Mirza Shak- 
rullah, entitled Murtaza Khan (d. 1123 H. 1711-12). He died at Shahjahanabad on 
the 6th Jamadi II, 161 H. (2nd June, 1748) aged 63 years T-i-Mhdi. Murid Khan 
was rewarded with the appointment of Daroghah of the Mace-bearers on the day 
(29th Sha‘ban). 
