Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/64

Rh Humáyún ordered the firing to cease. He continued the siege, however, and on the 28th of April (1547) entered the city a conqueror. Kámrán had escaped the previous night.

Kámrán had fled to Badakshán. Thither Humáyún followed him. But, in the winter that followed, some of his most powerful nobles revolted, and deserted to Kámrán. Humáyún, after some marches and countermarches, determined in the summer of 1548 to make a decisive effort to settle his northern dominions. He marched, then, in June from Kábul, taking with him Akbar and Akbar's mother. On reaching Gulbahan he sent back to Kábul Akbar and his mother, and marching on Talikán, forced Kámrán to surrender. Having settled his northern territories the Emperor, as he was still styled, returned to Kábul.

He quitted it again, in the late spring of 1549, to attempt Balkh, in the western Kunduz territory. The Uzbeks, however, repulsed him, and he returned to Kábul for the winter of 1550. Then ensued a very curious scene. Kámrán, whose failure to join Humáyún in the expedition against Balkh had been the main cause of his retreat, and who had subsequently gone into open rebellion, had, after Humáyún's defeat, made a disastrous campaign on the Oxus, and had sent his submission to Humáyún. That prince, consigning the government of Kábul to Akbar, then