Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/26

8 Akbar's foster-father, the prime minister Shams-ad-din, in 1563, and then stood at the door of the harem as if in sanctuary, his cup was full. The emperor rushed out, sword in hand, felled the assassin with a blow of his fist, and, foster-brother though he was, Adham was instantly thrown over the battlements of the palace. It broke his mother's heart, and she survived him but forty days.

It was time that Akbar freed himself from this harem influence. Adham had already tarnished the emperor's name in Malwa, where, after expelling the pleasure-loving and cultured Afghan governor, Baz Bahadur, he behaved grossly toward the vanquished. "Baz Bahadur," writes Elphinstone, "had a Hindu mistress who is said to have been one of the most beautiful women ever seen in India. She was as accomplished as she was fair, and was celebrated for her verses in the Hindi language. She fell into the hands of Adham Khan on the flight of Baz Bahadur, and, finding herself unable to resist his importunities and threatened violence, she appointed an hour to receive him, put on her most splendid dress, on which she sprinkled the richest perfumes, and lay down on a couch with her mantle drawn over her face. Her attendants thought that she had fallen asleep, but on endeavouring to awake her on the approach of the khan, they found she had taken poison and was already dead." Nor was this all. Other ladies of Baz Bahadur's harem were in Adham's possession, and when Akbar himself rode to Malwa in hot haste and bitter