Failure stamped every effort of the final years. The emperor's long absence had given the rein to disorders in the north; the Rajputs were in open rebellion, the Jats had risen about Agra, and the Sikhs began to make their name notorious in Multan. The Deccan was a desert, where the path of the Marathas was traced by pillaged towns, ravaged fields, and smoking villages. The Moghul army was enfeebled and demoralized; "those infernal foot-soldiers" were croaking like rooks in an invaded rookery, clamouring for their arrears of pay. The finances were in hopeless confusion, and Aurangzib refused to be troubled with them. The Marathas became so bold that they plundered on the skirts of the Grand Army and openly scoffed at the emperor, and no man dared leave the Moghul lines without a strong escort. There was even a talk of making terms with the insolent bandits.
At last the emperor led the dejected remnant of his once powerful army, in confusion and alarm, and pursued by skirmishing bodies of exultant Marathas, back to Ahmadnagar, whence, more than twenty years before, he had set out, full of sanguine hope and at the head of a splendid and invincible host. His long privations had at length told upon his health, and when he entered the city he said that his journeys were over. Even when convinced that the end was near, his invincible suspicions still mastered his natural affections. He kept all his sons away, lest they should do even as he had done to his own father. Alone he had lived, and alone he made ready to die. He had all the puritan's
