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1666]

VISITS HOLY PLACES.

171

In one tow<n they were arrested on suspicion by the faujdar Ali Quli, who had learnt of Shivaji's flight from a letter of his Court agent before he received the official intimation of it. A close examination of the prisoners was begun. But at midnight Shivaji met the faujdar in private, boldly disclosed his identity and offered him a diamond and a ruby worth a lakh of Rupees as "the price of his liberation. The faujdar preferred the bribe to his duty. (K. K. ii. 218.)

After performing his bath at the junction of the Ganges and Jamuna at Allahabad, Shivaji proceeded to Benares. Here he hurriedly went through all the rites of a pilgrim in the dim morning twilight and slipped out of the town just as a courier arrived from Agra with the proclamation for his arrest and a hue and cry was started.* [1]

  1. ↑
    • In this connection Khafi Khan (ii. 219-220) writes: — "When I was at the port of Surat, a Brahman physician named Nabha [or BabhaJ used to tell the following tale: "I had been serving one of the Benares Brahmans as his pupil, but he stinted me in food. At last, one morning when it was
    still dark, I went to the river-side as usual; a man seized my hand, thrust into it a quantity of jewels, ashrafis and hurts, and said, 'Don't open your fist, but quickly finish the bathing rites for me.' I immediately hastened to shave and bathe him, but had not done ministering to him, when a hue and cry was raised and the news spread that sergeants at the mace had arrived [from the Court] in search of Shiva. When I became attentive I found that the man to whom I had been ministering had slipped away. I [thenl knew that it was
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