Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/74

Rh India that Hemu was preparing to supplement the occupation of Delhi by the conquest of the Punjab. To be beforehand with him, to transfer the initiative to themselves, always a great matter with Asiatics, was almost a necessity to secure success. Akbar marched then from Jálandhar in October, and crossing the Sutlej, gained the town of Sirhind. There he was joined by Tardí Beg and the nobles who had been defeated by Hemu under the walls of Delhi. The circumstances which followed their arrival sowed in the heart of Akbar the first seeds of revolt against the licence of power assumed by his Atálik. Tardí Beg was a Turkí nobleman, who, in the contest between Humáyún and his brothers, had more than once shifted his allegiance, but he had finally enrolled himself as a partisan of the father of Akbar. When Humáyún died, it was Tardí Beg who by his tact and loyalty succeeded in arranging for the bloodless succession of Akbar, though a son of Kámrán was in Delhi at the time. After his defeat by Hemu, he had, it is true, in the opinion of some of the other nobles, too hastily evacuated Delhi; but an error in tactics is not a crime, and he had at least brought a powerful reinforcement to Akbar in Sirhind. But there had ever been jealousy between Bairám Khán and Tardí Beg, This jealousy was increased in the heart of Bairám by religious differences, for Bairám belonged to the Shí'áh division of the Muhammadan creed, and Tardí Beg was a Sunni. On the arrival of the latter at Sirhind, then, Bairám summoned him to his tent