Such news! coming on such despair and whirl-of-mind! Off we hurried, that very hour,—it was sun-set,—without reflecting, without a moment's delay, just as if for a sudden raid, straight for Marghīnān. From where we were to Marghīnān may have been 24 or 25 _yīghāch_ of road.[442] Through that night it was rushed without delaying anywhere, and on next day till at the Mid-day Prayer, halt was made at Tang-āb (Narrow-water), one of the villages of Khujand. There we cooled down our horses and gave them corn. We rode out again at beat of (twilight-) drum[443] and on through that night till shoot of dawn, and through the next day till sunset, and on through that night till, just before dawn, we were one _yīghāch_ from Marghīnān. Here Wais Beg and others represented to me with some anxiety what sort of an evil-doer `Ali-dost was. 'No-one,' they said, 'has come and gone, time and again, between him and us; no terms and compact have been made; trusting to what are we going?' In truth their fears were just! After waiting awhile to consult, we at last agreed that [Sidenote: Fol. 61.] reasonable as anxiety was, it ought to have been earlier; that there we were after coming three nights and two days without rest or halt; in what horse or in what man was any strength left?—from where we were, how could return be made? and, if made, where were we to go?—that, having come so far, on we must, and that nothing happens without God's will. At this we left the matter and moved on, our trust set on Him. At the Sunnat Prayer[444] we reached Fort Marghīnān. `Alī-dost T̤aghāī kept himself behind (_arqa_) the closed gate and asked for terms; these granted, he opened it. He did me obeisance between the (two) gates.[445] After seeing him, we dismounted at a suitable house in the walled-town. With me, great and small, were 240 men. As Aūzūn Ḥasan and Taṃbal had been tyrannical and oppressive, all the clans of the country were asking for me. We therefore, after two or three days spent in Marghīnān, joined to Qāsim Beg over a hundred men of the Pashāgharīs, the new retainers of Marghīnān and of `Alī-dost's following, and sent them to bring over to me, by force or fair words, such hill-people of the south of Andijān as the Ashpārī, Tūrūqshār, [Sidenote: Fol. 61b.] Chīkrāk and others roundabout. Ibrāhīm Sārū and Wais _Lāgharī_ and Sayyidī Qarā were also sent out, to cross the Khujand-water and, by whatever means, to induce the people on that side to turn their eyes to me.