Page:Cradle Tales of Hinduism .djvu/313

PRITHI RAI 289 to fight great battles. For across the border lived a Saracen people under a chief called Mahmoud of Ghazni, and six times this chieftain had invaded India, and six times Prithi Rai had met and overcome him. Only, fighting as a good knight should, for glory and not for greed, each time he had conquered him he had also set him free, and Mahmoud had gone home again. And the last of these battles had been fought at Thaneswar, where the Afghan was badly wounded.

Just at this time, it very unfortunately happened that the King of Ajmere died, and left no son or grandson to succeed him. But he had had a daughter who had married the King of Delhi, and Prithi Rai was her son. So, as the old man had no son's son to leave his throne to, it seemed natural enough to leave it to his daughter's son, Prithi Rai, who thus became King of Delhi and Ajmere, and in this way the most powerful monarch in India. But this made one man very angry. The King of Kanauj claimed that he ought to have had Ajmere, for he had been married to a sister of the old King. Probably he had always been jealous of Prithi Rai, but now he began to hate him with his whole heart.

In all countries always it has been believed that the bravest knight should wed the fairest lady. Now in the India of that day it was