The generalissimo, in white muslin, carrying for ornament only a stiff, straight sword of state, awaiting on a rocky plateau with one single attendant the advance of Siva-ji, who, also in white muslin, was seen slowly descending the steps of his eyrie, apparently unarmed, and also with but one attendant. A slim little bit of a fellow this Siva-ji, timid, hesitating. But appearances are deceitful: underneath his muslin robing was chain armour, within his closed left hand were the "tiger's claws" (sharp hooks of steel fastened on to the fingers with which to grapple with the foe), and close to his outstretched, salaaming right hand was a poniard. It was all over in a second. The tiger's claws gripped and held, the dagger did its work. And then Siva-ji's wild robber hordes, conveniently disposed beforehand by secret paths round the royal troops, fell upon them and spared not until victory was secure. For in truth Siva-ji appears to have been of the noble highwayman type--that is to say, not set on murder if he can gain gold without it. Siva-ji's next exploit was less blameworthy. Shayista-Khân, who commanded Aurungzebe's forces in the Dekkan, marched to annihilate the little robber, and, succeeding in worsting him in the open, took up quarters at Poona; curiously enough, occupying the very house in which Siva-ji had spent his youth. Possibly the intimate knowledge of back-door passages, which he must thus have possessed, suggested what was more a boyish escapade than a serious attack. Siva-ji, with some twenty followers, entered Poona at night by joining a marriage procession, made his way straight to the house, entered by a side door, and was in Shayista-Khân's bedroom but half a minute too late, yet just in time to cut off with his sword the two fingers that clung to the window-sill as the Mahomedan general let himself down into the courtyard below. Whereupon, seeing that same courtyard full of ramping soldiery, Siva-ji retired as he came, until, once outside the city gates, he lit up torches and flambeaux; so making his way back to his hill eyrie, some 12 miles off, in a blaze of triumph that was visible to every Moghul in the place. This tale is still told by the Mahratta bards with immense enthusiasm, though the story of his march against Aurungzebe at Delhi is really more exciting. They were birds of a feather these two: both small, slippery, absolutely untrustworthy; both playing consistently for their own hands. At one time, however, Siva-ji seems to have been inclined to yield to Aurungzebe, and honest, liberal treatment might have turned the rebel freebooter into a staunch adherent; but it was not in Aurungzebe to trust any one. So, mistaking his man utterly, he received the little Mahratta cavalierly, and when he stormed and raged and positively swooned with vexation, made him virtually a prisoner.