Fol. 117.Near mid-day, Aḥmad the Falconer went along the Ghawā road for Akhsī. I thought of calling to him and of saying, with promise and fair word, ‘You take those horses,’ for they had had a day and a night’s strain and struggle, without corn, and were utterly done. But then again, we were a little uneasy as we did not entirely trust him. We decided that, as the men Bābā Sairāmī had seen on the road would be in Karnān that night, the two with me should fetch one of their horses for each of us, and that then we should go each his own way.
At mid-day, a something glittering was seen on a horse, as far away as eye can reach. We were not able to make out at all what it was. It must have been Muḥ. Bāqir Beg himself; he had been with us in Akhsī and when we got out and scattered, he must have come this way and have been moving then to a hiding-place.[663]
Banda-‘alī and Bābā Sairāmī said, ‘The horses have had no corn for two days and two nights; let us go down into the dale and put them there to graze.’ Accordingly we rode down and put them to the grass. At the Afternoon Prayer, a horseman passed along the rising-ground where we had been. We recognized him for Qādīr-bīrdī, the head-man of Ghawā. ‘Call him,’ I said. They called; he came. After questioning him, and speaking to him of favour and kindness, and giving him promise and fair word, I sent him to bring rope, and a grass-hook, and an axe, and material for crossing water,[664] and corn Fol. 117b.for the horses, and food and, if it were possible, other horses. We made tryst with him for that same spot at the Bed-time Prayer.
Near the Evening Prayer, a horseman passed from the direction of Karnān for Ghawā. ‘Who are you?’ we asked. He made some reply. He must have been Muḥ. Bāqir Beg himself, on his way from where we had seen him earlier, going at night-fall to some other hiding-place, but he so changed his voice that, though he had been years with me, I did not know it. It would have been well if I had recognized him and he had joined me. His passing caused much anxiety and alarm; tryst could not be kept with Qādīr-bīrdī of Ghawā. Banda-‘alī said, ‘There are retired gardens in the suburbs of Karnān where no one will suspect us of being; let us go there and send to Qādīr-bīrdī and have him brought there.’ With this idea, we mounted and went to the Karnān suburbs. It was winter and very cold. They found a worn, coarse sheepskin coat and brought it to me; I put it on. They brought me a bowl of millet-porridge; I ate it and was wonderfully refreshed. ‘Have you sent off the man to Qādīr-bīrdī?’ said I to Banda-‘alī. ‘I have sent,’ he said. But those luckless, clownish mannikins seem to have agreed together to send the man to Taṃbal in Akhsī!
We went into a house and for awhile my eyes closed in sleep. Those mannikins artfully said to me, ‘You must not bestir yourself to leave Karnān till there is news of Qādīr-bīrdī but this house is right amongst the suburbs; on the outskirts the orchards are empty; no-one will suspect if we goFol. 118. there.’ Accordingly we mounted at mid-night and went to a distant orchard. Bābā Sairāmī kept watch from the roof of a house. Near mid-day he came down and said, ‘Commandant Yūsuf is coming.’ Great fear fell upon me! ‘Find out,’ I said, ‘whether he comes because he knows about me.’ He went and after some exchange of words, came back and said, ‘He says he met a foot-soldier in the Gate of Akhsī who said to him, “The pādshāh is in such a place,” that he told no-one, put the man with Walī the Treasurer whom he had made prisoner in the fight, and then gallopped off here.’ Said I, ‘How does it strike you?’ ‘They are all your servants,’ he said, ‘you must go. What else can you do? They will make you their ruler.’ Said I, ‘After such rebellion and fighting, with what confidence could I go?’ We were saying this, when Yūsuf knelt before me, saying, ‘Why should it be hidden? Sl. Aḥmad Taṃbal has no news of you, but Shaikh Bāyazīd has and he sent me here.’ On hearing this, my state of mind was miserable indeed, for well is it understood that nothing in the world is worse than fear for one’s life. ‘Tell the truth!’ I said, ‘if the affair is likely to go on to worse, I will make Fol. 118b.ablution.’ Yūsuf swore oaths, but who would trust them? I knew the helplessness of my position. I rose and went to a corner of the garden, saying to myself, ‘If a man live a hundred years or a thousand years, at the last nothing ...’[665]
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.
Friends are likely to have rescued Bābur from his dangerous isolation. His presence in Karnān was known both in Ghawā and in Akhsī; Muḥ. Bāqir Beg was at hand (f. 117); some of those he had dropped in his flight would follow him when their horses had had rest; Jahāngīr was somewhere north of the river with the half of Bābur’s former force (f. 112); The Khāns, with their long-extended line of march, may have been on the main road through or near Karnān. If Yūsuf took Bābur as a prisoner along the Akhsī road, there were these various chances of his meeting friends.
His danger was evaded; he joined his uncles and was with them, leading 1000 men (Sh. N. p. 268), when they were defeated at Archīān just before or in the season of Cancer, i.e. circa June (T. R. p. 164). What he was doing between the winter cold of Karnān (f. 117b) and June might have been known from his lost pages. Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ writes at length of one affair falling within the time,—Jahāngīr’s occupation of Khujand, its siege and its capture by Shaibānī. This capture will have occurred considerably more than a month before the defeat of The Khāns (Sh. N. p. 230).
It is not easy to decide in what month of 908 AH. they went into Farghāna or how long their campaign lasted. Bābur chronicles a series of occurrences, previous to the march of the army, which must have filled some time. The road over the Kīndīrlīk-pass was taken, one closed in Bābur’s time (f. 1b) though now open through the winter. Looking at the rapidity of his own movements in Farghāna, it seems likely that the pass was crossed after and not before its closed time. If so, the campaign may have covered 4 or 5 months. Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ’s account of Shaibāq’s operations strengthens this view. News that Aḥmad had joined Maḥmūd in Tāshkīnt (f. 102) went to Shaibānī in Khusrau Shāh’s territories; he saw his interests in Samarkand threatened by this combination of the Chaghatāī brothers to restore Bābur in Farghāna, came north therefore in order to help Taṃbal. He then waited a month in Samarkand (Sh. N. p. 230), besieged Jahāngīr, went back and stayed in Samarkand long enough to give his retainers time to equip for a year’s campaigning (l. c. p. 244) then went to Akhsī and so to Archīān.