after the usage of Room (Turkey in Europe), to prevent the enemy's
foot from making night-attacks. Here he halted for forty days." We
are now, therefore, probably in the dry season at the beginning of
the year A.D. 1423, for if the river had been in flood there would
have been no fear of the enemy's crossing it. In the early months of
the Christian year that river is usually shallow in the open country
east of the Hindu capital and away from the hills that surround it,
having only thin streams running in its rocky bed. Indeed, Firishtah
himself tells us that the river was at that time fordable.

Then ensued a dramatic episode. The Muhammadan cavalry had crossed the
river and devastated the country of the Raya, who remained inactive,
and the Sultan determined on a direct frontal attack. The troops of
Warangal deserted the Raya and withdrew.

"Early in the morning Lodi Khan, Aulum Khan, and Dillawer Khan,
who had marched during the night and forded the river at distance,
reached the environs of the enemy's camp. It happened that the roy was
sleeping, attended by only a few persons, in a garden, close to which
was a thick plantation of sugar-cane.[104] A body of the mussulmauns
entered the garden for plunder, and Dewul Roy, being alarmed, fled
almost naked into the sugar-cane plantation. Here he was found by
the soldiers, who thought him only a common person, and -- having
loaded him with a bundle of canes, obliged him to run with it before
them. Dewul Roy, rejoiced at his being undiscovered, held his peace,
and took up the burden readily, hoping that he should be discharged
as a poor person or be able to make his escape.

"They had not gone far when the alarm of Sultan Ahmed Shaw's having
crossed the river, and the loss of the roy, filled the camp, and the