THE MAEATHAS CONQUER THE PANJAB 183

and Rohillas did as they pleased in the middle Doab and Rohilkhand, Gujarat and Malwa were Maratha prov- inces, and the Deccan, even the part held by the second nizam, was wholly beyond the mastery of Delhi. Meanwhile, Ahmad Shah still hovered over the Pan- jab, which was tamely ceded to him in the hope of checking worse demands; but a treacherous attack on his governor at Lahore roused him to a fresh invasion, and in 1756 Delhi again experienced all the horrors of a sack. When he withdrew in the following year, the old intrigues and jealousies revived; the Marathas were again called in, and this time the peshwa's brother actually occupied the capital, where a new puppet- emperor, Alamgir n, who had succeeded the debauched Ahmad in 1754, wa*s helpless between the rival inter- ests of the vizir, Ghazi-ad-din, and the Afghan chief of Rohilla, Najib-ad-daulah. The Marathas now made themselves masters of the Pan jab, and felt that they were within sight of the conquest of the whole of Hin- dustan. They were in the zenith of their power. Their domestic differences had been accommodated, and a gen- eral combination of all their forces was arranged. They were no longer the ill-disciplined band of ma- rauders that had baffled Aurangzib by their guerrilla tactics; besides such predatory hordes, they had well- ordered cavalry and infantry, and a better artillery train than the Moghuls themselves. Full of their strength and ambition, they raised the cry of Hindu- stan for the Hindus. It had become a religious war, centred round the