Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/58

Rh entire edifice crumbled in his hand. After some adventures, Humáyún found himself, January, 1541, a fugitive with a mere handful of followers, at Rohri opposite the island of Bukkur on the Indus, in Sind. He had lost the inheritance bequeathed him by his father.

Humáyún spent altogether two and a half years in Sind, engaged in a vain attempt to establish himself in that province. The most memorable event of his sojourn there was the birth, on the 15th of October, 1542, of a son, called by him Jalál-ud-dín Muhammad Akbar. I propose to relate now the incidents which led to a result so important in the history of India.

In 1541, Humáyún, whose troops were engaged in besieging Bukkur, distrusting the designs of his brother Hindal, whom he had commissioned to attack and occupy the rich province of Sehwán, appointed a meeting with the latter at the town of Pátar, some twenty miles to the west of the Indus. There he found Hindal, surrounded by his nobles, prepared to receive him right royally. During the festivities which followed, the mother of Hindal — who, it may be remarked, was not the mother of Humáyún — gave a grand entertainment, to which she invited all the ladies of the court. Amongst these Humáyún especially noted a girl called Hámidá, the daughter of a nobleman who had been preceptor to Hindal. So struck was he that he inquired on the spot whether the girl were betrothed. He was told in reply that, although she had been promised, no cere-