had been wofully thinned by two months of fighting, and now the capture of five bastions of the lower fort made the stronghold untenable. Its fall was only a question of time. Shiva found it futile to prolong the resistance. The families of the Maratha officers were sheltered in Purandar, and its capture would mean their captivity and dishonour. He had also failed to prevent the Mughal flying columns
from ravaging his country. Failure and ruin stared him in the face wherever he looked.
With his usual foresight, he had for some time past been sending envoys to Jai Singh to beg for terms, but the astute Rajput did not take him seriously.*[1] Then, as the Mughal success became more and more evident, Shiva began to rise in his offer of tribute and forts as the price of peace; but his terms were not proportionate to the military advantage gained by Jai Singh, and were therefore uniformly rejected.
- ↑ * "After the arrived of the imperial army near Pabal. Shiva's agents began to visit me, and by the time of my arrival at Puna they had brought two letters from him. But I gave no answer and sent them back in disappointment.... Then he sent a long Hindi letter with a trusted servant named Karmaji, who repeatedly entreated me to read the contents only once. In it Shiva offered to be loyal and to help us in a war with Bijapur as more likely to succeed than a war in his hilly and intricate country.... In reply I asked him... to enter the Emperor's service if he desired his life and safety." (Ben. MS. 54a.)
