thoroughly alarmed. A vast army of two
hundred thousand men, under the joint
command of Devran Khan and Nizam-ool-Moolk
(who hated each other most cordially), was
collected outside the walls of the capital;
and, having been joined by Mohammed Shah
in person, with a splendid court, they
advanced to the plain of Kurnaul, about sixty
miles north of Delhi.

Having crossed the Indus, Nadir Shah
rested his army for a few days at Lahore, and
then advanced towards the plain of Kurnaul.
In twenty-eight months he had marched
eighteen hundred and fifty miles, and more.

At the same time the Mogul was
reinforced by Saadit Khan, a powerful omra,
with twenty thousand men: but the vast
assemblage of Indians, without discipline,
valour, or unanimity, had little chance
against the veterans of Nadir.

The engagement commenced by a party of
six thousand Kurds, who began to pillage
the baggage of Saadit Khan's division, on
the extreme right of the Indian army.
Devran Khan led his men up to strengthen
Saadit, and Nadir advancing at the same
time with a thousand chosen horse, the action
became warm; but the Indians, by the
judicious arrangement of the Persian, were
also attacked in flank, their brigade of
elephants was routed by the clever
contrivance of placing stages full of blazing
tow on the backs of camels, and a panic
seized their army. In the thick of the fight,
Devran Khan was mortally wounded, and
fell back senseless on his elephant.

Night put an end to the strife, but only a
small portion of the Indian right wing had
been engaged, and the Great Mogul was
desirous of renewing the battle on the following
day. But the cowardly or treacherous
counsel of Nizam-ool-Moolk prevailed, and
the Emperor of India submitted to the terms
of the rude conqueror.

Mohammed Shah, the following day, was
conducted to Nadir's tent by the Persian
vizier Tahmasp Khan; where he was
received with courtesy, but upbraided for
having given the conqueror the trouble to
march so far to chastise him. The Mogul
listened with silence and shame, and the next
day the melancholy march to Delhi
commenced.

The Great Mogul was attended by twelve
thousand Persians, followed by Nadir with
the bulk of his army, and in six days the
disgraced monarch found himself a prisoner
in his own capital. On the following morning
Nadir Shah made his entry into the city,
where every house was closed, and proceeded
straight to the palace. Here the Indian
lords, with true oriental servility, vied with
each other in obsequious flattery of their
new master. Saadit Khan, alone, preferred
a dose of poison.

Next day, Tahmasp sent some Persian
cavalry to open the granaries, which caused
the assemblage of a mob, and several Persians
were killed. Nadir issued out of the palace
to suppress the tumult, but moderation only
increased the insolence of the cowardly
Indians; and at length the fierce warrior's
wrath was kindled. He ordered the whole
city to be given up to pillage and massacre,
and, drawing his sword, stationed himself
on the roof of a mosque with three gilded
domes, near the centre of the city, whence he
overlooked the work of destruction in grim
and sullen silence. He had ordered that in
any street where the dead body of a Persian
was found, no soul should remain alive.
Neither age nor sex was spared, rivers of
blood flowed through the streets, and every
house, from the palace to the hovel, was
filled with mourning.

At length the wretched emperor threw
himself at Nadir's feet and implored him to
spare his people. The cruel conqueror
answered that the Mogul's prayer was granted.
He sheathed his sword, and the massacre
ceased. It had lasted from eight a.m. to
three p.m., and not less than one hundred
and twenty thousand souls, or, according to
another account, two hundred thousand, had
perished; while many women had suffered
most infamous treatment before they were
relieved by death.

Next day— under threat of punishment—
all persons were ordered to pursue their
usual employments, and a festival celebrated
the betrothal of Nadir's second son to a niece
of the Great Mogul.

The etiquette of the Imperial Court
required that the bridegroom should prove
seven generations of noble ancestry. "Tell
them," said Nadir, " that he is the son of
Nadir, the son of the sword, the grandson of
the sword, and so on for seventy— instead of
seven— generations, if they like." The fallen
monarch was satisfied with the nobility of
this terrible pedigree.

Tahmasp Khan, the Persian vizier, was
commissioned to inspect the collection of the
treasure to be extorted from the court and
people of Delhi. The contributions were
exacted from high and low, with the utmost
rigour; no cruelties were left unpractised;
and at length an enormous sum was amassed.
The jewels taken from the Mogul himself
and his nobles, amounted to forty-two million
five hundred thousand pounds; the famous
peacock throne being alone valued at eleven
million two hundred and fifty thousand
pounds. Gold and silver plate, melted into
large ingots, came to thirty-seven million five
hundred thousand pounds; and other spoils,
consisting of rich furniture, cannon, and
warlike stores, brought the amount of the
spoils up to the gigantic sum of eighty-seven
million five hundred thousand pounds.
Another account gives it at seventy million
pounds; and the lowest estimate is
considerably above thirty millions.

This wholesale spoliation gives some idea