His son Arâm (Leisure) appears to have deserved his name. He never gripped the kingdom, and lost it fatuously after less than a year. Apparently he was not deemed worth the killing, and Altâmish, a favourite slave of the slave Eîbuk, took his place by virtue of being son-in-law to the dead king. Altâmish was also of Turki extraction. As a youth, the fame of his beauty and talents was noised abroad, and Shahâb-ud-din was in the bidding for him, but hung back at the price; whereupon Eîbuk the Lavish put down the fifty thousand pieces of silver, and carried off the prize. Years after, he was married to the Princess-Royal, and so, adding Shums-ud-din (Sword of the Faith) to his name, ascended the throne, and reigned for no less than twenty-six years. So Delhi, indeed, was founded by slaves! Atlâmish appears to have been of the regulation type. He was, so to speak, Kutb-ud-din and water. The largest number of Hindus he is recorded to have killed at one time is three hundred; a sad falling-off in _Ghâzi_-dom.[3] On the other hand, he was the barbarian who, taking Ujjain, destroyed the magnificent temple of Mâhâ-Kâli which it had taken three hundred years to build. The idols thereof, and also a "statue of Vikramadîtya, who had been formerly prince of this country, and so renowned that the Hindus have taken an era from his death," were conveyed solemnly to Delhi, and there broken at the door of the great mosque of which the magnificent ruins--spoils of many a Jain and Hindu temple--still lie about the foot of the Kutb Minâr, a monument to the slave Eîbuk who commenced it, the slave Altâmish who finished it. --------------------- [Footnote 3: A Ghazi is the title of honour given to one who has killed the infidel.] --------------------- This solemn smashing was doubtless a fine ceremony, yet as we of the present day contemplate it, regret goes forth, especially for the statue of Vikramadjît. How many a riddle might it not have solved concerning the Unknown King! We are told that Altâmish was an "enterprising, able, and good prince"; he has, however, another, and in the history of the world, quite unique claim to regard. The father of seven children, six of them in turn mounted the throne with more or less success. Considerably less as regards the first occupant, Ruku-ud-din (Prop of the Faith), who spent his six months and twenty-eight days tenancy in lavishing his inherited treasures on dancing girls, pimps and prostitutes. This might have been borne for longer, but the hideous cruelties of his mother, a Turki slave to whom he entrusted the reins of government, were such as to rouse even the dull humanity of a thirteenth-century Mahomedan. She had murdered horribly every one of the dead king's women, and had begun on his son's, when the patience of the various viceroys gave way. They entered into a conspiracy, deposed the king, and threw his mother into prison--a lenient punishment for such a monster of cruelty.