326 HISTORY OF AURANGZIB. [CHAP. XIII. The despatches of victory and the keys of the fort were presented to Murad at Ahmadabad on 26th December. But money was a more accept- able present, and he pressed his officers at Surat to send him all that they could, loaded on fast camels; for, in the meantime he had crowned himself and begun to bestow offices and rewards and to enlist new troops on a scale that soon exhausted his treasury. When the news of Shah Jahan's illness was Murad forms an alliance with Au- rangzib against Dara. followed by no tidings of his re- covery, but letters from Delhi came fitfully and then stopped altogether, Murad's suspicions deepened into certainty. He concluded that Shah Jahan was already dead, and so got ready to contest the throne. It was necessary to look around for allies, and none was nearer to him than Aurangzib, his immediately elder brother, govern- ing a neighbouring province and united to him by a common hatred of Dara. On 23rd Decem- ber, 1652, he had met Aurangzib,† then journey- ing to the Deccan across his province of Malwa, the contribution impossed was 7 lakhs, of which a part was realised and a bond taken for the remainder. The money was collected from the merchants in the city long before the fall of the fort.
- Faiyaz-ul-qawanin, 461, 465.
+ Faiyaz, 412. Adab, 23b. Digitized by Microsoft Ⓡ
