Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/91

84 plunge his sword into the body of the captured Hemu. But both Bairám and the other nobles of the court and army were not long kept in ignorance of the fact that in the son of Humáyún they had, not a boy who might be managed, but a master who would be obeyed.

Akbar remained one month at Delhi. He sent thence a force into Mewát to pursue the broken army of Hemu and to gain the large amount of treasure it was conveying. In this short campaign his general, Pir Muhammad Khán of Sherwán, at the time a follower of Bairám but afterwards persecuted by him, was eminently successful. Akbar then marched upon and recovered Agra.

But his conquests south of the Sutlej were not safe so long as the Punjab was not secure. And, as we have seen, he had been forced to leave at Mánkót, driven back but not overcome, a determined enemy of his House in the person of Sikandar Sur. In March of the following your (1557) he received information that the advanced guard of the troops he had left in the Punjab had been defeated by that prince some forty miles from Lahore. Noblemen who came from the Punjab told him that the business was very serious, as Sikandar had made sure of a very strong base at Mánkót, whence he might emerge to annoy even though he were defeated in the field, and that his victory had encouraged his partisans. Akbar recognised all the force of the argument, and resolved to put in force a maxim which constituted the great