Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/97

90 the Punjab, Atjah Khán. In the battle that followed Bairám was defeated, and fled to Tilwára on the Sutlej, thirty miles to the west of Ludhiána. Akbar, who had been on his track when his lieutenant encountered and defeated him, followed his late Atálik, and reduced him to such straits that Bairám throw himself on his mercy. Then Akbar, remembering the great services he had rendered, pardoned him, and, furnishing him with a large sum of money, despatched him on the road to Mekka. Bairám reached Gujarát in safety, was well received there by the Governor, and was engaged in making his preparations to quit India, when he was assassinated by a Lohání Afghán whose father had boon killed at the battle of Machcíwára. Akbar, meanwhile, had returned to Delhi (November 9, 1560). He rested there a few days and then pushed on to Agra, there to execute the projects he had formed for the conquest, the union, the consolidation of the provinces he was resolved to weld into an empire. His reign, indeed, in the sense of ruling alone without a minister who assumed the airs of a master, commenced really from this date. The Atálik, who had monopolised the power of the State, was gone, and the future of the country depended now entirely upon the genius of the sovereign.