(_c. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's affairs resumed_).
Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā,āburnā on reaching Ḥiṣār, settled down at once to besiege it. There was no rest, day nor night, from the labours of mining and attack, of working catapults and mortars. Mines were run in four or five places. When one had gone well forward towards the Gate, the townsmen, countermining, struck it and forced smoke down on the Mīrzā's men; they, in turn, [Sidenote: Fol. 34b.] closed the hole, thus sent the smoke straight back and made the townsmen flee as from the very maw of death. In the end, the townsmen drove the besiegers out by pouring jar after jar of water in on them. Another day, a party dashed out from the town and drove off the Mīrzā's men from their own mine's mouth. Once the discharges from catapults and mortars in the Mīrzā's quarters on the north cracked a tower of the fort; it fell at the Bed-time Prayer; some of the Mīrzā's braves begged to assault at once but he refused, saying, "It is night." Before the shoot of the next day's dawn, the besieged had rebuilt the whole tower. That day too there was no assault; in fact, for the two to two and a half months of the siege, no attack was made except by keeping up the blockade,[290] by mining, rearing head-strikes,[291] and discharging stones.
When Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā and whatever (_nī kīm_) troops had been sent with him against Khusrau Shāh, dismounted some 16 m. (3 to 4 _yīghāch_) below Qūndūz,[292] Khusrau Shāh arrayed whatever men (_nī kīm_) he had, marched out, halted one night on the way, formed up to fight and came down upon the Mīrzā and his men. The Khurāsānīs may not have been twice as many as his men but what question is there they were half [Sidenote: Fol. 35.] as many more? None the less did such Mīrzās and such Commander-begs elect for prudence and remain in their entrenchments! Good and bad, small and great, Khusrau Shāh's force may have been of 4 or 5,000 men!
This was the one exploit of his life,—of this man who for the sake of this fleeting and unstable world and for the sake of shifting and faithless followers, chose such evil and such ill-repute, practised such tyranny and injustice, seized such wide lands, kept such hosts of retainers and followers,—latterly he led out between 20 and 30,000 and his countries and his districts (_parganāt_) exceeded those of his own ruler and that ruler's sons,[293]—for an exploit such as this his name and the names of his adherents were noised abroad for generalship and for this they were counted brave, while those timorous laggards, in the trenches, won the resounding fame of cowards.