The want of provisions, and the approach of seventy thousand men from Bijapur, compelled the Moguls to retreat a few days after the storm. Bahadur Shah was now brought from the fort of Chawund, where he had been held prisoner, and was placed on the throne. But the ambition and duplicity of the Ahmednuggur nobles brought about a second siege in 1599. Chand Sultana, afraid to trust any of them, applied to Humeed Khan, an officer of high rank, who recommended her to defend the place to the last extremity; but Chand declared that so many chiefs had acted treacherously, it was plain no reliance could be placed on them, and she proposed that they should negotiate with the besiegers. Humeed Khan rushed into the streets, crying out that Chand Sultana was treating with the Moguls to surrender the fort. The ungrateful and short-sighted mob, believing him, and forgetting the former services of the heroine, rushed to the private apartments of Chand Sultana, and murdered her in their fury. It is satisfactory to know that the ungrateful people got the reward they so richly merited. For, a few days after the death of Chand, the Moguls captured the fort, giving little or no quarter. * * * * * Mher-Ul-Nissa, or Nour Mahal, the "Light of the Harem," sometimes styled Nour Jehan, the "Light of the World," was the favourite Sultana of Jehanghire, the "World-subduing Emperor" of Hindostan. A romantic story is told of her strange birth, her desertion by her parents, and how, like Moses, she was entrusted to the care of her own mother by her kind preserver, and how, by the benevolence of the latter, the family rose from poverty and obscurity to the government of the greatest empire in Asia. The beauty of Nour Mahal was famous throughout the East; Moore, in his "Feast of Roses," has painted her portrait most exquisitely. Her personal charms were rivalled by her mental powers; and her political talents were speedily seen by the numerous reforms and improvements effected throughout the empire. Nour Mahal was a widow when, in 1611, she became the bride of Jehanghire, and it is said that she took for her second husband the murderer of her first. Her influence over the Emperor soon became paramount. They had many tastes in common, amongst others the passion for hunting; Nour Mahal was as fond of the chase as Zenobia. In company with Jehanghire she would slay tigers and other savage beasts of the jungle, charming her lord by the adroitness with which she handled the bow or the more unwieldy matchlock.