Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/122

Rh thousand strong, appeared in sight. These too were disposed of, and their leader was killed. In the battle and in the pursuit the rebels lost about two thousand men. Akbar then advanced to Ahmadábád, rested there five days, engaged in rewarding the deserving, and in arranging for the permanent security of the province. He then marched to Mahmudábád, a town in the Kaira district, and thence to Sirohí. From Sirohí he went direct to Ajmere, visited there the mausoleum of the famous saint, thence, marching night and day, stopped at a village about fourteen miles from Jaipur to arrange with Rájá Todar Mall, whom he met there, one of the ablest of his officers, afterwards to become Diwán, or Chancellor, of the Empire, regarding the mode of levying the revenues of Gujarát. From that village the Emperor proceeded direct to Fatehpur-Síkrí, where he arrived in triumph, after an absence of forty-three days.

His plan of bringing under his sceptre the whole of India had so far matured that he ruled now, at the end of the eighteenth year of his reign, over North-western, Central, and Western India, inclusive of the Punjab and Kábul. Eastward, his authority extended to the banks of the Karamnásá. Beyond that river lay Behar and Bengal, independent, and under certain circumstances threatening danger. He had fully resolved, then, that unless the unforeseen should occur, the nineteenth year of his reign should be devoted to the conquest of Bengal and the states tributary to Bengal. Before setting out on the