§6. Maratha plot to seize Bijapur.
In this danger Siddi Masaud immediately asked for help from Shiva, as agreed upon. The Rajah sent six to seven thousand well-armed cavalry to guard Bijapur. Masaud could not fully trust his ally, he asked the Maratha contingent to halt beside the stream of the village Itangihal (5 m. n. w. of the city), but they came nearer, encamped at Khanapur and Khusraupur, and demanded that one of the gates and towers of the fort should be entrusted to them. Masaud wisely declined. Then they moved to Zuhrapur and encamped on the plain just outside the walls, thus increasing Masaud 's suspicion. Soon the allies began to quarrel openly.*[1] The Marathas were detected in trying to smuggle arms and men into the fort, by concealing the arms in sacks of grain and disguising themselves as drivers of the pack-oxen ! Then Shiva threw off the mask. He began to plunder and devastate Adil-Shahi territory again. His men looted the suburbs of Bijapur, — Daulatpura ( = Khawaspura), Khusraupura and Zuhrapura, and carried off the rich banias for ransom. Near the tomb of Shaikh Ahmad Khawas-Khani, they
- ↑ * "It is reported that Shivaji has in person plundered Shahpur, the suburbs of Bijapur, and had liked to have got into the royal city, the conquest whereof is his sole aim, lest it should fall into the Mughal's hands, and then he knows he could not long subsist." (Bombay to Surat, 4 April 1679, in Orme MSS. 116.)
