boasting of your zeal! Let's take to our swords!' 'What hinders? Come along!' said Ibrāhīm Beg, from beside me. The senseless fellows were for displaying their zeal at a time of such disaster! Ill-timed zeal! That was no time to make stand or delay! We went off quickly, the enemy following and unhorsing our men. (_m. Bābur a fugitive before Taṃbal's men._) When we were passing Meadow-dome (Guṃbaz-i-chaman), two miles out of Akhsī, Ibrāhīm Beg called out to me. Looking [Sidenote: Fol. 114.] back, I saw a page of Shaikh Bāyazīd's striking at him and turned rein, but Bayān-qulī's Khān-qulī, said at my side, 'This is a bad time for going back,' seized my rein and pushed ahead. Many of our men had been unhorsed before we reached Sang, 4 miles (2 _shar`ī_) out of Akhsī.[660] Seeing no pursuers at Sang, we passed it by and turned straight up its water. In this position of our affairs there were eight men of us;—Nāṣir's Dost, Qāsim Beg's Qaṃbar-`alī, Bayān-qulī's Khān-qulī, Mīrzā Qulī _Kūkūldāsh_, Nāṣir's Shāham, Sayyidī Qarā's `Abdu'l-qadūs, Khwāja Ḥusainī and myself, the eighth. Turning up the stream, we found, in the broad valley, a good little road, far from the beaten track. We made straight up the valley, leaving the stream on the right, reached its waterless part and, near the Afternoon Prayer, got up out of it to level land. When we looked across the plain, we saw a blackness on it, far away. I made my party take cover and myself had gone to look out from higher ground, when a number of men came at a gallop up the hill behind us. Without waiting to know whether they were many or few, we mounted and rode off. There were 20 or 25; we, as has been said, were eight. If we had known their number at first, we should have made a good stand against them but we thought they would not be pursuing us, unless they had good support behind. A [Sidenote: Fol. 114b.] fleeing foe, even if he be many, cannot face a few pursuers, for as the saying is, '_Hāī_ is enough for the beaten ranks.'[661]