Page:History of India Vol 3.djvu/85

 FIKST ENCOUNTER WITH THE KAJPUTS 57 Mohammad Ghori's first encounter with the Rajputs was like to have been his last. The two armies met in 1191 at Narain, ten miles north of Karnal, on another part of the great plain which includes the historic field of Panipat, and on which the fate of India has been de- cided again and again. All the dash of the Moslem cavalry was powerless against the Hindus. The Afghan charges were met by skilful flanking movements, and the Sultan found himself cut off from his shattered wings and hemmed in by Rajput squadrons. He tried to save the day by personal gallantry, charged up to the standard of the raja's brother, the viceroy of Delhi, and with his spear drove his teeth down his throat; but his rash exposure nearly cost him his life, and he was saved only by the devotion of a Khalji retainer who mounted behind him and carried him off the field. The Sultan's retirement led to a panic. The Moslems were soon in full retreat, pursued for forty miles by the enemy, and Mohammad did not even stop at Lahore, but hastened to cross the Indus into his own country. Never had the armies of Islam been so worsted by the infidels. The Sultan could not forget the disaster. At Ghazni, he confessed, " he never slumbered in ease nor waked but in sorrow and anxiety." The next year saw him again in India, at the head of 120,000 men, Afghans, Turks, and Persians. Prithivi Raja had taken Sirhind, after a year's siege, and awaited his enemy on the same field of Narain. The Sultan had profited by his former lesson. His cavalry in four divisions of ten thousand