The Abyssinian chieftains entered Beejapoor without opposition, and were honoured by the young king with dresses and other marks of ap­probation. Yekhlass Khan assumed the regency; and Chand Beeby, being conducted from her con­finement in Satara to the capital, was again in­trusted with the care of the young King's person. At her request, Afzul Khan Shirazy was appointed Peshwa, * and Yessoo Pundit Moostowfy of the kingdom; but the new regent, not long after, put the two latter to death, on suspicion of their en­tertaining designs prejudicial to his interest in concert with Chand Beeby. He banished many officers of rank from Beejapoor, and, in conjunc­tion with Humeed Khan and Dilawur Khan, ruled the state as his caprice directed. He invited Ein-ool-Moolk from his jageer to court; and on his arrival near the city, the minister, with his two companions, went out to meet him, as a mark of respect. Ein-ool-Moolk, seeing the three ministers with but few attendants, treacherously seized them, put heavy fetters on them, and the next morning prepared to enter the city with his prisoners upon elephants, in order to secure the government. On his entering the city he found that the garrison had shut the gates of the citadel, and meant to oppose him; upon which, without securing his captives, he withdrew with expedition, and again retired to his jageer. Yekhlass Khan and his companions, being thus unexpectedly re­leased, re-assumed their authority; but some of the nobility at court opposing them, great dissen­sions prevailed in Beejapoor, which gave encou­ragement to enemies to invade the kingdom.

Behzad-ool-Moolk, the general of Ahmud-nuggur who after his defeat had retreated, now returned with Syud Moortuza, the Ameer-ool-Omra of Berar. Mahomed Koolly Kootb Shah, also, having entered into alliance with Moortuza Nizam Shah, marched from Golconda, and joined his generals before Shahdoorg, to which place the allies laid close siege. The governor, notwith­standing the distracted state of affairs at Beejapoor, made a gallant defence, and refused splendid offers to betray his charge; observing, that he would not forfeit his honour, the loss of which no­thing could restore to him, as he must give up with it the esteem of the world. The allies, finding all their attempts fruitless, resolved to raise the siege, and to march against Beejapoor, where the dissensions among the ministers would probably favour their cause; and they concluded that if they succeeded in taking the capital, the depend­encies must soon fall. The allies, accordingly, broke up their camp from Shahdoorg, and appeared before Beejapoor with forty thousand horse.

As there were then at the capital not more than two or three thousand troops, the Abyssinians kept themselves close in the city till the arrival of Ein-ool-Moolk and Ankoos Khan, with eight thousand horse, who subsequently arrived and encamped near the Allapoor gate, and maintained repeated skirmishes with the enemy, notwithstanding their inferiority of numbers. At length about twenty yards of the wall of the city fell down, owing to heavy rain; and Ein-ool-Moolk and Ankoos Khan, disgusted at the conduct of the Abyssinian chiefs, went over to the enemy on the same night. The allies now resolved on making an assault; but Syud Moortuza, who was displeased at being super­seded by Behzad-ool-Moolk, prevented the imme­diate execution of that design, and the Beejapoor troops found time to repair the breach. At length the Abyssinian chiefs, finding that the principal nobles and officers disliked their authority, and on that account declined coming to the King's assist­ance, they represented to Chand Beeby, that they were willing to give up their power to whomsoever she chose to appoint, as they were loyal, and wished to see the government flourish, though they admitted they could not conduct it themselves, owing to the jealousy of the rest of the nobles.

Chand Beeby, relying on their declarations, conferred the robes of Ameer Joomlagy * on Shah Abool Hussun, son of Shah Tahir, who immedi­ately sent off expresses with orders to encourage the Bergy chiefs of the Carnatic to return to their duty. He also wrote to Syud Moortuza, who had a profound veneration for the family of Shah Tahir, advising him to prevail upon the allies to quit the territories of Beejapoor; threatening, if they did not, that when the Bergies joined the King (which would shortly take place) their retreat should be cut off. Syud Moortuza, the Berar general, unwilling that the efforts of the allies, under Kootb Shah and Behzad-ool-Moolk, should succeed, adopted measures to induce them to retreat. In the first place, he sent to Ein-ool-Moolk and Ankoos Khan, the two chiefs who had deserted from Beejapoor, recommending them to return; observing, that it was unworthy of them at such a moment of danger to quit the service of their king on pretence of dislike to his ministers. They accordingly re-entered Beejapoor the same evening, where they renewed their allegiance to Ibrahim Adil Shah. Most of the nobility and the Ber-gies, hearing of the change in the administra­tion, also hastened to court with their followers, and by the loyal exertions of Abool Hussun in less than a month an army of above twenty thou­sand men was collected at the capital, where affairs assumed a more propitious aspect. The Bergy chiefs were detached to harass and cut off the enemy's supplies; and succeeded so well, that in a short time famine pervaded their camp, and the allies repented of their expedition to Beejapoor.

As the distress of the besiegers increased, they held councils as to what measures they should adopt. It was at last determined that they should separate their forces; that Kootb Shah should proceed against Koolburga, and that Behzad-ool-Moolk and Syud Moortuza should recommence the siege of Shahdoorg. They accordingly moved suddenly from before Beejapoor; but the Nizam Shahy army, on account of some events which will hereafter be mentioned, returned to Ahmudnug-gur, plundering the districts of Kolhar and Mirch on their route; while Mahomed Koolly Kootb Shah, having left a detachment under his general Moostufa Khan to reduce some districts of Ibrahim Adil Shah, returned to his capital of Golconda. Moostufa Khan, at the end of three months, was totally defeated by an army sent from Beejapoor, under the command of Dilawur Khan, who, pursu­ing his success, followed the enemy to the gates of Golconda, and took much plunder on the road.

It will hardly be credited that the city of Beejapoor, which had been invested for twelve months by the united armies of the confederate sovereigns of Berar, Ahmudnuggur, and Golconda, and during which time a large breach was made in the city walls, and the garrison within mutin­ous, while the kingdom was in a state of anarchy: it will not be believed, I say, that, under such circumstances, the Beejapoor monarchy should have been saved by the exertions of one man. This person was Shah Abool Hussun, who in the course of two or three months brought to­gether an army of twenty thousand horse, and in one month afterwards not only attacked the enemy, and raised the siege, but even pursued the army of one of the confederates to the very gates of his capital, and took from him, among other spoils, no fewer than one hundred and fifty elephants. On the return of Dilawur Khan from his success­ful expedition against the Kootb Shahy troops, he became so elated that he aspired to the office of minister. To attain this end, he gained over Heidur Khan, the commandant of the citadel of Beejapoor, wherein the King resided, and resolved to seize the minister Yekhlass Khan. Every thing being ripe for the execution of his design, he marched expeditiously to the capital; and encamp­ing near the Allapoor gate, sent in such flattering messages and declarations of attachment to Yekhlass Khan as threw him off his guard, and rendered him neglectful of the security of the city and palace. One day when Yekhlass Khan was repos­ing in his own house without the citadel, Dilawur Khan with his sons, attended by seven hundred horse and fifteen elephants, suddenly entered the city, and proceeded to the palace, into which he was admitted, according to promise, by Heidur Khan; after this, having payed his compliments to the young king, he stationed his own guards in every direction. Yekhlass Khan soon after advanced towards the gates with four thousand men, but the cannon from the walls obliged him to retire to a distance. He now blocked up the citadel for nearly four months; but being deserted by Buleel Khan, his principal chief, with the greatest part of his followers, and disdaining to fly, he was taken in his own house by Dilawur Khan, who, forgetting all his favours and kindness, ungratefully put out his eyes, and confined him. On this occasion, much injury was sustained by the inhabitants of the town from both parties, and many fine edifices were destroyed by the cannon.

Dilawur Khan, on his accession to the regency, endeavoured to attach the nobility to his interest, by courting their alliance; strengthening, also, his own party, by placing his relations in the highest offices, particularly his sons, who held situations immediately about the King's person. Buleel Khan, who had by his desertion from Yekhlass Khan con­tributed greatly to his exaltation, was adopted by Dilawur Khan as his son, and retaining only about one hundred foreigners and sixty Abyssinians, he banished all the rest from the King's dominions. Shah Abool Hussun, the saviour of Beejapoor, who had been sent prisoner to a hill-fort subsequent to the siege by Yekhlass Khan, was first blinded by Dilawur Khan, and then put to death, as was also Hajy Basheer, a favourite of the late king; and the power of the Regent Chand Beeby was so completely nullified, that none of the court any longer attended to her commands. The new mi­nister by stratagem got into his power Ghalib Khan, governor of the fortress of Adony, who had rebelled, and caused him to be blinded. He established the Soony ceremonies of religion in Beejapoor. He ruled the kingdom with absolute sway and authority in every department for eight years, during which period he restored the pecu­niary resources of the government to a flourishing condition.