Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/232

 224 RAE shortly afterwards at the Court of the Chauhan Raja of Mainpuri. Many stories are connected with their exile, of which perhaps the most striking is that which accounts for the assumption of the title of rája by Rae Tás. It is said that Sumer Sáh,* the Chauhan, ridiculed the lately established family of the Bais, and refused their chief the honours paid to an equal. On this Rác Tás challenged him to a pitched battle. On the morning of the fight all the Bais youths less than 20 years old, to the number of about 500, were directed to return to their home, and in the event of the defeat of their elders preserve their family from extinction. With a modified obedience, and a happy compromise between prudence and valour, they with- drew to an eminence at such a distance from the engagement that they would be able to participate in the success or get a good start in case of the defeat of their relations. They watched an indecisive conflict from morning till evening, and then, taking advantage of the fatigue of both parties, swooped down on the Chauhans and secured the victory. In consequence of this Sumer Sáh formally invested Ráe Tás with the rája's tilak, and gave him his daughter in marriage. The Bais is said to have entered the army of the Delhi emperor, and to have served with distinction, and most accounts represent that he died fighting under his standard against some rebellious chieftain, His son, Rája Satna, successfully invaded the territories of the Sharqi Sultan. Having re-occupied his ancestral dominions, and acquired the new territory of Khíron from the Bhars, he pusbed his conquests to the north, and taking advantage of the unsettled state of the Jaunpur empire, occu- pied the strong fort of Kakori after a severe contest with the Musalman Colonists. His success was the signal for a general rising against the hated conquerors. From Safipur and Kákori to Salon and Mávikpur, the Azán and the slaughter of kine were proscribed, and in most of the larger towns the new Mubammadan judges and tax collectors were murdered or driven away. At Salon, Sayyad Maúd, the ancestor of the present qázis of that town, was cut down at his prayers by the neighbouring rája, who was most pro- bably an ancestor of the Kanhpurias. His younger son was taken alive and kept in captivity by the Bhars. After a few years' imprisonment he made his escape to the court of the Jaunpur emperor. Even at Mánikpur, Aziz-ud-dín and Sharf-ud-dín Gardezi,t who had been left in charge the town, were obliged to fly to the opposite stronghold of Karra. Husen Shah on his accession to the throne immediately sent a force from Karra to retrieve these losses. He had no difficulty in restoring the qázis to the principal towns from which they had been ejected, but met with a stout resistance from Rája Satna before the fortress at Kákori. It was taken at length by force or by fraud, and the rája was killed. Some accounts say that he was bricked up in the wall alive, and others that he was decapita- ted, and his head buried where the Shekhan Darwaza now stands at Luck- The brave Rána Beni Mádho Bakhsh, whose estate was confiscated for mutiny, swore to recover the head of his ancestor, but his oath was unfulfilled. now. + The sons of Shaláb-ud-din, the founder of the family,
 * It is not however probable that Sumer Sáh was then the reigning rajz.