his subjects. To this the ambassadors, who had full powers, agreed,
and the money was paid at the instant. Mahummud Shaw then said,
'Praise be to God that what I ordered has been performed. I would
not let a light word be recorded of me in the pages of time!' "

The ambassadors then pleaded that no religion ordained that the
innocent, and particularly helpless women and children, should suffer
for the guilty: --

"If Kishen Roy had been faulty, the poor and wretched had not been
partakers in his crimes. Mahummud Shaw replied that the decrees of
providence had so ordered, and that he had no power to alter them."

The ambassadors finally urged that as the two nations were neighbours,
it were surely best to avoid unnecessary cruelty, which would only
embitter their relations with one another; and this argument had
effect.

"Mahummud Shaw was struck by their remarks, and took an oath that
he would not in future put to death a single enemy after victory,
and would bind his successors to observe the same lenity."

For some years, no doubt, the promise was fulfilled, but we read of
wholesale massacres perpetrated by sovereigns of later date. As to
Muhammad, Firishtah glories in the statement that he had slaughtered
500,000 Hindus, and so wasted the districts of the Carnatic that for
several decades they did not recover their natural population.

Thus ended the war, and for some years there was peace between
Vijayanagar and Kulbarga.