Akbar and Bairám were marching on to the plains of Pánípat on the morning of the 5th of November, 1556, when they sighted the army of Hemu moving towards them. The thought must, I should think, have been present in the mind of the young prince that just thirty years before his grandfather, Bábar, had, on the same plain, struck down the house of Lodí, and won the empire of Hindustán. He was confronted now by the army of the usurper, connected by marriage with that House of Sur which had expelled his own father. The battle, he knew, would be the decisive battle of the century. But, prescient as he was, he could not foresee that it would prove the starting-point for the establishment in India of a dynasty which would last for more than two hundred years, and would then require another invasion from the north, and another battle of Pánípat to strike it down; the advent of another race of foreigners from an island in the Atlantic to efface it.
Hemu had divided his army into three divisions. In front marched the five hundred elephants, each bestridden by an officer of rank, and led by Hemu, on his own favourite animal, in person. He dashed first against the advancing left wing of the Mughals and threw it into disorder, but as his lieutenants failed to support the attack with infantry, he drew off, and threw himself on the centre, commanded by Bairám in person. That astute general had directed his archers, in anticipation of such an attack, to direct their arrows at the faces of the riders. One of these arrows pierced the eye of Hemu, who fell back in his howdah, for the moment insensible. The fall of their leader spread consternation among the followers. The attack slackened, then ceased. The soldiers of Bairám soon converted the cessation into a rout. The elephant on which Hemu rode, without a driver—for the driver had been killed3—made off instinctively towards the jungle. A nobleman, a follower and distant relative of Bairám, Sháh Kulí Mahrám-i-Bahárlu, followed the elephant, not knowing who it was who rode it. Coming up with it and catching hold of the rope on its neck, he discovered that it was the wounded Hemu who had become his captive.4 He led him to Bairám. Bairám took him to the youthful prince, who throughout the day had shown courage and conduct, but who had left the ordering of the battle to his Atálik. The scene that followed is thus told by contemporary writers. Bairám said to his master, as he presented to him the wounded general: 'This is your first war: prove your sword on this infidel, for it will be a meritorious deed.' Akbar replied: 'He is now no better than a dead man; how can I strike him? If he had sense and strength I would try my sword (that is I would fight him).' On Akbar's refusal, Bairám himself cut down the prisoner.
3 This is the generally received story, though Abulfazl states that the driver, to save his own life, betrayed his master. Elliot, vol. v. p. 253, note.
4 Compare Elliot, vol. v. p. 253, and Blochmann's Ain-í-Akbarí, p. 359.
Bairám sent his cavalry to pursue the enemy to Delhi, giving them no respite, and the next day, marching the fifty-three miles without a halt, the Mughal army entered the city. Thenceforward Akbar was without a formidable rival in India. He occupied the position his grandfather had occupied thirty years before. It remained to be seen whether the boy would use the opportunity which his father and grandfather had alike failed to grasp. To show the exact nature of the task awaiting him, I propose to devote the next chapter to a brief survey of the condition of India at the time of his accession, and in that following to inquire how the boy of fourteen was likely to benefit by the tutelage of Bairám Khán.
CHAPTER IX
GENERAL CONDITION OF INDIA IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
The empire conquered south of the Sutlej by the Afghán predecessors of the Mughal had no claim to be regarded as the empire of Hindustán. It was rather the empire of Delhi, that is, of the provinces called up to the year 1857 the North-western Provinces, including that part of the Bengal Presidency which we know as Western Behar, and some districts in the Central Provinces and Rájpútána. It included, likewise, the Punjab. For a moment, indeed, the princes of the House of Tughlak could claim supremacy over Bengal and almost the whole of Southern India, but the first invasion from the north gave the opportunity which the Hindu princes of the south seized to shake off the uncongenial yoke, and it had not been re-imposed. The important kingdom of Orissa, extending from the mouth of the Ganges to that of the Godavárí, had always maintained its independence. Western India, too, had for some time ceased to acknowledge the sway of the foreign invader, and its several states had become kingdoms.