Page:History of India Vol 5.djvu/126

 94 TWO OF THE SLAVE KINGS Bokhari, and lie sold him to another merchant named Jamal-ad-din Chast Kaba, who brought him to Ghazni. No slave equal to him in beauty, virtue, intelligence, and nobility had ever been brought to that city. Men- tion was made of him before his Majesty Sultan Mu'izz- ad-din Mohammad Sam of Ghor, who commanded a price to be named for him. A thousand dinars in refined gold was fixed as his value, but Jamal-ad-din Chast Kaba declined to sell him for that price, and the Sultan accordingly gave orders that nobody should purchase him. After this, Jamal-ad-din Chast Kaba staid for a year in Ghazni, and then went to Bokhara, carrying the future Sultan with him. After staying there three years, he brought him back to Ghazni; but no one ventured to purchase him, for fear of the king's orders. The youth had been there a year, when Kutb-ad-din returned to Ghazni with Malik Nasir-ad-din Husain after the invasion of Nahrwala and the conquest of Gujarat. Kutb heard an account of Shams-ad-din Alta- mish and asked Sultan Mu'izz-ad-din for permission to purchase him. The Sultan replied that orders had been issued that he should not be purchased in Ghazni, but said that he might take him to Delhi and buy him there. Kutb-ad-din entrusted the manage- ment of the affair to Nizam-ad-din Mohammad and ordered him to take Jamal-ad-din Chast Kaba with him to Hindustan, that he might purchase Shams-ad-din Altamish there. According to these directions, Nizam- ad-din took them to Delhi, where Kutb-ad-din pur-