Page:The Slave Girl of Agra.djvu/18

 town of Birnagar had witnessed stirring events in the years immediately preceding. Afghan Kings had ruled Bengal in peace for the best part of four centuries, but when Akbar the Great consolidated the Mogul Empire in Northern India, the rule of the Afghans in Bengal was doomed. Akbar himself took the great city of Patna in 1574, and in the succeeding years Bengal was often the scene of hostilities between the brave and conquering Moguls and the defeated but determined Afghans.

Hindu Zemindars ruled their own estates and villages like feudal lords in those days, and in India the nation lives in villages. The Zemindars paid the fixed revenue to the Afghan Rulers, but were supreme in their own estates. They punished crimes, adjudicated cases, and maintained order and peace. They were the patrons of letters and poetry; they encouraged industries and manufactures; and they maintained troops and elephants and boats for the service of the Rulers when needed.

The town of Birnagar, where our story opens, was the seat of an old Hindu House. When Akbar took Patna, and the Mogul troops spread over Bengal, the Zemindar of Birnagar remained true to the last Afghan King, Dayud Khan. Unable to defend his town he fled to the jungles, and Akbar's great generals, Munayim and Todar Mull, stabled their