The siege lasted six months. Then, pressed by famine and weakened by desertions, Sikandar sent some of his nobles to ask for terms. Akbar acceded to his request that his enemy might be allowed to retire to Bengal, leaving his son as a hostage that he would not again war against the Emperor. The fort then surrendered, and Akbar returned to Lahore; spent four months and fourteen days there to arrange the province, and then marched on Delhi. As he halted at Jalandhar, there took place the marriage of Bairam Khan with a cousin of the late emperor, Humayun. This marriage had been arranged by Humayun, and to the young prince his father's wishes on such subjects were a law. Akbar reentered Delhi on the 15th of March, 1558. Bairam Khan was still, in actual management of affairs, the Atalik, the tutor, of the sovereign, and he continued to be so during the two years that followed, 1558 and 1559. It is not easy for a young boy to shake off all at once the influence of a great general under whom he had been placed to learn his trade, and possibly Akbar, though he did not approve many of the acts {86} authorised in his name by his Atalik, did not feel himself strong enough to throw off the yoke. But the removal by the strong hand of men whom Akbar liked, but who had incurred without reason the enmity of Bairam, gradually estranged the heart of the sovereign from his too autocratic minister. The estrangement, once begun, rapidly increased. Bairam did not recognise the fact that every year was developing the strong points in the character of his master; that he was adding experience and knowledge of affairs to the great natural gifts with which he had been endowed. He still continued to see in him the boy of whom he had been the tutor, whose armies he had led to victory, and whose dominions he was administering. The exercise of power without a check had made the exercise of such power necessary to him, and he continued to wield it with all the self-sufficiency of a singularly determined nature.