Page:Historic Landmarks of the Deccan.djvu/24

Ahmad should he advance on Chakan. When the news of Yusuf Adil Khan's action reached Warangal it caused a sudden fall of Hasan's prestige and Mahmud Shah appears to have realized that a minister whose order could be thus flouted by the provincial governors was but a broken reed. He turned to Qasim Barid and Dastur Dinar the African for advice, and finding them ready to profit by Hasan's downfall, ordered them to have him put to death. Hasan, on learning what had passed, fled from the royal camp at dead of night, but instead of joining his son at Junnar, entered Bidar with a view to securing the royal treasure. Here he persuaded the governor, Dilpasand Khan, a Deccani, to raise the standard of revolt and ordered Malik Ahmad to join him from Junnar. Mahmud Shah now made Sultan Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk, a Turk of a noble family of Hamadan, governor of Warangal, and marched with all speed on the capital. Hasan had no troops wherewith to withstand the royal army and, having secured the treasure, made preparations to flee to Junnar but Dilpasand Khan prevented him from carrying out this design and informed the king by a secret message that he was faithful and had merely feigned to fall in with Hasan's plans in order to detain him in Bidar and prevent him from joining his son. The king replied that he could readily prove his loyalty by sending him Hasan's head, and Dilpasand Khan after receiving this message, entered Hasan's chamber on pretence of taking counsel with him, strangled the hoary villain with his own hands, cut off his head, and sent it to the king. Mahmud Shah then returned to the capital, composed all disputes between the Deccanis and the foreigners, and gave promise of ruling well, but the temptations of the wine cup were too strong for him and he soon gave himself up to debauchery, leaving the aff'airs of the kingdom in the hands of the amirs. Disputes again arose between the two parties in the state, and in 1487 the Deccanis and the Africans entered into a plot against the king's life. A band of them entered the royal palace, and shutting the gates lest the foreign troops should come to the rescue, attempted to assassinate the king. The few foreign attendants with Mahmud Shah carried him to the Shah Burj, or royal bastion of the fort, and, all unarmed as they were, kept the traitors at bay. Thence they contrived to send a message to the foreign nobles in the city who brought up a few troops and rescued the king, but meanwhile the Deccanis and Africans plundered