"Oh, God! Creator of the World! My soul
I broke upon the Wheel of Evil sore.
Cleanse me from sin, my God, and make me whole,
Else cursed shall I be for evermore."
He felt better after thus committing his penitence to writing. So with renewed vitality, and gathering his force together as he went along, he crossed the Sind river to find the moment ripe for his emprise. India was in a turmoil, divided by two rival claimants to its throne.
The whole country was over-run by armies, more or less independent; the whilom Governor of Lahore at the head of one, numbering over forty thousand men, chiefly Afghâns.
It broke up, however, by sheer invertebrate disintegration, ere Babar could reach it, and he passed on, unopposed, by the lower Kashmir hills, by Bhimber and Jhelum till he arrived at Sialkot, keeping all the while close to the skirts of the mountains where retreat and safety might be found if needs be.
But now, before him, lay the wide plain of the Punjâb. Here for the first time in his life, Babar faced a real galloping country where horsemen could, indeed, charge to some purpose. But with flat plain behind him it was necessary that the plain should be friendly. To ensure this needed delay, he had to negotiate, to threaten, to pacify. Half-a-dozen petty chiefs had to be brought to their senses, and those senses were so dull, so rude, so provokingly stupid. What for instance could be said to a man who actually claimed to be seated in the Presence, when nobles and princes of the blood-royal stood by in all humility?
Babar's language on such occasions was always frank, truthful, utterly unanswerable.
"The Most-Clement hath settled his hash," remarked the Prime-Minister with a smile, when the old ex-governor of Lahore, having been caught, was brought before the Emperor, with the two swords which the rebel had boastfully hung round his neck as sign of unyielding opposition, still dangling under his chin. This by Babar's own order, to emphasise the trouncing which sent the old sinner away unharmed, but sadder and wiser.
"Yea!" replied the Emperor quite gravely. "Yet I told him naught but what he deserved most truly, for I had done much for him. And, as thou sawest, he had no answer. He did, indeed, stammer out a few words, but not at all to the purpose, for what reply could he make to such confounding truths?"
"Of a surety, none," assented his hearers, still with a smile. Folk had to smile often over Babar's frank, outspoken clarity.
So, by slow degrees, and not without many a drinking-party, Sirhind was reached; and here the Emperor's soul was refreshed by the sight of a rivulet of running water! It was almost unbelievable; and no doubt he drank a libation of something stronger in its honour.