India Through the Ages: A Popular and Picturesque History of HindustanSteel, Flora Annie Webster
History
India Through the Ages: A Popular and Picturesque History of Hindustan
Steel, Flora Annie Webster
India -- History
So little Akbar was once more in his father's arms. In his mother's
also, ere long, for Hamida-Bânu-Begum rejoined her husband in the
spring. Regarding this, a pretty story is told by Aunt Rosebody in her
Memoirs. Humâyon, ever a lover of pleasure, devised a sumptuous
entertainment to welcome his wife, and amongst the many devices for
amusement was this. All the ladies of the family, unveiled,
resplendent in jewels, were to range themselves in a circle round a
hall; and to this dazzling company the baby-prince--he was but
four--was to be introduced to choose for himself a mother! One can
imagine the scene. Those laughing faces-all but one--around the child
who had not seen her he sought for two long years. The pause for
hesitation, the sickening suffocation of one heart, the sudden sense
of shyness, of loneliness, making one little mouth droop.
And then?
Then a quick cry, "_Amna! Amna-jân!_" and Hamida's arms closed
convulsively over the sobbing child. What laughter! What tears! As
Auntie Rosebody loves to say of all things that bring the sudden
vivifying touch of emotion, "It was like the Day of Resurrection." But
the young Akbar's trials were not yet over, neither were his father's
dangers. In the summer of 1548 Humâyon once more pursued Kamrân,
taking with him at first both Akbar and Akbar's mother--for whom the
king (or, as he was now called, the emperor) had an affection that
never wavered. Finding the way rough, he sent them back to Kâbul; and
when he marched out from that city the next time on the same bootless
errand, he left the boy, who was now eight years old, behind him as
Governor of Kâbul, under tutorship. Whereupon Kamrân, who appears to
have had the faculty of doubling like a hare, taking advantage of a
serious wound which delayed his brother in the Sertun Pass, slipped to
his rear, and for the third time captured Kâbul and that apple of
Humâyon's eyes, Prince Akbar.
This was the last of Kamrân's exploits, however, for Humâyon, after
suffering agonies of fear lest evil should happen to his heir, gained
a complete and final victory over his brother, who fled once more;
not, however, to the emperor's great relief, taking Akbar with him. He
was soon after captured by the King of the Ghakkur tribe, that warlike
race of the Indian Salt Range who broke the ranks of the Ghuzni
Mahmûd, and assassinated his successor in campaign, Ghori-Mahomed.
Being immediately betrayed to Humâyon, he met his fate at last. Yet
even now, after treasons seventy-and-seven, he was nearly forgiven;
would have been forgiven but for the fact that Humâyon's favourite
brother, Hindal, had been killed in the pursuit of him. He deserved
death, but the blindness which was meted out to him leaves us with a
revulsion of feeling against the man who was driven by his adherents
into giving the order. A revulsion which Humâyon hardly deserved,
since, opium-soddened, flighty in a way, unreliable as he was, cruelty
was not one of his faults.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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