Next morning the empress led a party across the river to rescue Jehanghire. She was armed with a bow and two quivers of arrows, and sat in a howdah on the back of an elephant. In fording the stream, hundreds were swept away by the force of the current. Those who escaped drowning were weighed down by their armour and their wet clothes, and had their powder spoilt. In this disastrous condition they were obliged to fight hand to hand with the rebels before a landing could be effected. Nour Mahal, with her brother and a handful of the bravest chiefs, was amongst the first who reached the shore; but this little band could make no impression on the ranks of Mohabat Khan, whose soldiers poured volley after volley, shot, arrows, and rockets, upon the men struggling in the water. The ford was soon choked up with men, horses, and elephants, dead or dying.
The contest raged fiercest round the elephant of Nour Mahal, who never quailed before the infuriated rebels who sought her life. Her gallant defenders fell one after another, fighting manfully to the last; but she herself appeared to bear a charmed life amidst the perfect hail of bullets and winged shafts, though her infant granddaughter, who sat close beside her, was wounded, the driver of her elephant was shot, and the beast himself received a cut across the trunk. Half-maddened with pain, the animal plunged into the river, and was carried away by the stream. When at length the elephant struggled up the bank, Nour Mahal was discovered calmly extracting an arrow from the wound of her grandchild, as cool and collected as though she had been a spectator at a review in place of the leading actor in a fierce encounter. The howdah was saturated with blood.
The failure of this rash, though gallant attempt, proved that Mohabat was too strong to be subdued by open force; Nour Mahal therefore resolved to lull his suspicions, and trust to chance for some expedient to crush him. Next day she went to his camp and surrendered herself a prisoner. For a time Mohabat Khan ruled paramount throughout the empire; but in a few months Nour Mahal, partly by cunning, partly by appealing to the loyalty of the omrahs, rescued her husband from the clutches of this man, whose power thenceforth ceased for ever.