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DECCAN CONQUESTS 119 cessful frontier fighting of Ghazi Malik, afterwards Sultan Taghlak, the governor of the Pan jab, a worthy successor of Sher Khan. Freed by these reforms from the fear of conspiracy and invasion, Sultan Ala-ad-din resumed his plans of conquest. He had reduced two great Hindu fortresses, Rantambhor and Chitor, though at enormous cost. He now turned again towards the Deccan. An army under Malik Kafur Hazardinari (the " five-hundred- guinea man"), a handsome castrato who had fascinated the Sultan, was sent in 1308 to recover Devagiri, where the Yadava ruler Rama Deva had reasserted his in- dependence and neglected to pay the tribute he prom- ised at the time of Ala-ad-din's conquest fifteen years before. The campaign was successful. Kafur, assisted by the muster-master Khwaja Hajji, laid the country waste, took much booty, and brought the rebel Hindu and his sons to Delhi. The Sultan treated the cap- tive raja with all honour, gave him a royal canopy and the style of " King of Kings," and presenting him with a lac of tankas (10,000) sent him back to govern Devagiri as his vassal. In the following year Kafur and Hajji were des- patched on a more ambitious errand: they were or- dered to take the fort of Warangal, in Telingana, towards the eastern Ghats, the capital of the Kaka- tiya rajas. On the march through his territories Rama Deva displayed the dutiful behaviour of a vassal, assisted the army in every way, and contributed a contingent of Marathas, thus justifying the Sultan's