Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/39

32 Jehlam, and the Chenáb, and advanced within ten miles of Lahore. There he was met by, and there he defeated, the army of the adherents of the House of Lodí. Lahore fell a prize to his troops. But he halted there but four days; then pushing on, reached and stormed Dipálpúr. Here he was joined by Dáolát Khán and his sons. These, however, dissatisfied with the rewards meted out to them, began to intrigue against their new master. Bábar was approaching Sirhind, on his way to Delhi, when he discovered their machinations. He determined, then, to renounce for the moment his forward movement, and to return to Kábul. This he did after having parcelled out the Punjab among chiefs upon whom he hoped he could depend.

Scarcely had he crossed the Indus when the Punjab became the scene of a renewed struggle. Allah-u-din Lodí, to whom the district of Dipálpúr had been consigned, fled in despair to Kábul, hoping that Bábar would himself undertake the invasion of India. At the moment Bábar could not comply, for the Uzbeks were laying siege to Balkh. However he supplied Allah-u-din with troops and ordered his generals in the Punjab to support him. But again did the expedition of this prince fail, and he fled from Delhi in confusion to the Punjab. At the time that he entered it, a fugitive, Bábar was preparing for his fifth and last invasion of India.