Having concluded these operations, the invader retired into cantonments at Anupshahar, on the Ganges, and there proceeded to parcel out the Empire among such of the Indian chiefs as he delighted to honour. He then appointed Najib to the office of Amir-ul-umra, an office which involved the personal charge of the Palace and its inmates; and departed to his own country, from which he had lately received some unsatisfactory intelligence. The Emperor endeavoured to engage his influence to bring about a marriage which he desired to contract with a daughter of the penultimate Emperor, Muhammad Shah: but the Abdali, on his attention being drawn to the young lady, resolved upon espousing her himself. He at the same time married his son Timur Shah to the daughter of the heir apparent, and, having left that son in charge of the Panjab, retired with the bulk of his army to Kandahar. Relieved for the present from his anxieties, the Minister gave sway to that morbid cruelty which detracted from the general sagacity of his character. He protected himself against his numerous enemies by subsidizing a vast body-guard of Mahratta mercenaries, to pay whom he was led to the most merciless exactions from the immediate subjects of the Empire. He easily expelled Najib (who since his elevation must be distinguished by his honorific name of Najib ud daula, "Hero of the State"): he destroyed or kept in close confinement the nobles who favoured the Emperor, and even sought to lay hands upon the heir apparent, Ali Gohar. This prince was now in his seven-and-thirtieth year, and exhibited all those generous qualities which we find in the men of his race as long as they are not enervated by the voluptuous repose of the Palace. He had been for some time residing in a kind of open arrest in the house of Ali Mardan Khan, a fortified building on the banks of the river. Here he learned that the Minister contemplated transferring him to the close captivity of Salim Garh, the state prison which stood within the precincts of the Palace. Upon this he consulted with his companions, Rajah Ramnath and a Musalman gentleman, Saiyid Ali, who with four private troopers agreed to join in the hazardous enterprise of forcing their way through the bands which by this time invested the premises. Early the following morning they descended to the courtyard and mounted their horses in silence.