Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/21

14 if there had not existed jealousies and divisions in the hostile camp. These worked for him so as to secure to him all that remained of Fergháná. But he had lost the important towns of Khojend, Marghinan,and Uratiupé.

For two years after the retirement of the invader, the boy rested, consolidating his resources, and watching his opportunity. Then, troubles having arisen in Samarkand, he made a dash at that city, then the most important in Central Asia. He forced its surronder (November, 1497), but as he would not allow his troops to pillage, these deserted him by thousands. He held on, however, until the news that Fergháná was invaded compelled him to quit his hold. On the eve of his departure he was prostrated by a severe illness, and when at length he reached Fergháná it was to hear that his capital had surrendered to his enemies. He was, in fact, a king without a kingdom. 'To save Andijan,' he wrote, 'I had given up Samarkand: and now I found that I had lost the one without preserving the other.'

He persevered, however, recovered Fergháná, though a Fergháná somewhat shorn of its proportions, and once more made a dash at Samarkand. The Uzbeks, however, forced him to raise the siege, and, his own dominions having in the interval been overrun and conquered, he fell back in the direction of Kesh, his birthplace. After many adventures and strivings with fortune, he resolved with the aid of the very few adherents who remained to him, to return and