In this encounter Humāyūn was badly wounded. Gul-
Jauhar has quaint stories of the destitution in which Humāyūn now was, with his camp equipage lost and deprived of all necessaries. He was helped along through the night, cold and weakened, and in the morning was placed in safety by the arrival of a body of reliable troopers under Ḥāji Muḥammad kūka. He warmed himself in the sun, washed his wound, said his prayer kneeling on a scarlet stool, and borrowed a coat from a servant to replace his own, which was blood-stained. Then came an old woman of the place and offered him a pair of silk trousers, that he might discard his blood-stained ones. He accepted, while saying they were not fit for a man's wear, and remitted her taxes for life. This was drawing well in anticipation of the time when his account in those regions would stand to his credit.
It is said that while he sat with his face still to the qibla one of his followers, Sultān Muḥammad qarāwāl, performed again for him the rite his father had observed, and expressed his willingness to die for him. Humāyūn spoke reassuring words and comforted his faithful sacrifice.
For nearly three months Kābul believed Humāyūn dead. These words cover much feeling, sad and joyful; but there is no one to tell the truth and say whether it was thought by some to offer better hope of peace that Humāyūn should be dead. There was always a large following of powerful officers ready to join Kāmrān, and one cannot suppose their changes in allegiance mere folly and fickleness. But no courtly author has told Kāmrān's side of the whole matter, nor his view of his own position.
With Kābul Akbar came again into his uncle's hands. He was kept safe through all the vicissitudes of his father's career, and was well cared for both by Kāmrān and by 'Askarī. It has been said that on one occasion Kāmrān exposed him on the battlements of Kābul to his father's guns, and this charge finds support from our princess. She however, it may be observed, makes no mention of the act attributed by some writers to Māham anaga, of interposing her own body to shield the child; indeed, she never once mentions this latterly influential woman. But this incident notwithstanding, it must be admitted that the boy was well treated. 'Askarī's wife, who took charge of him after his capture at Quetta, is said to have been most kind to him. He was entrusted by Kāmrān to Khānzāda, itself an act of surety and kindness. Again and again he fell into his uncle's hands when Kāmrān was exasperated by foiled attempts to keep Kābul, and yet he survived. Kāmrān had a son; it would have surprised no one to learn that, as complement to his effort to oust Humāyūn from his higher place, he had killed Akbar to give his own son more chance. In this there is what fixes attention in the same way that it is fixed by Gul-badan's record of Kāmrān's anxiety to obtain from the elder ladies of his house sanction to have the khuba read in his name. It was in his power to have himself proclaimed ruler in Kābul, but he discussed his wish to be so proclaimed with the other members of the royal family before he did it, and the discussion was prolonged, and referred from Dil-dār to the greatest of the ladies, Khānzāda. In both these points there is something which, if better known, might mitigate the sweeping judgment usually passed upon Kāmrān as altogether wrong in all his doings.
Humāyūn spent some time in Ander-āb while his wound was healing and his army gathering, and here Ḥaram comes again upon the scene. Where Sulaimān and Ibrāhīm were, is not quite clear, but it was to Ḥaram a message went asking her for the army of Badakhshān. It was to come as quickly as possible, and fully equipped. It took the energetic woman only a few days to put some thousands of men in the field. It was she, says our princess, who did it all, took thought, and overlooked everything. Then she led the men to ‘the pass,’—amongst so many possible, one cannot fix on which,—and having done her work, went home. It seems probable that Sulaimān and Ibrāhīm were already with Humāyūn, and that Ḥaram despatched a supplementary force. The battle in which it was to engage was that important fight at Ushtur-grām which Humāyūn tried hard to prevent by previous mediation, and which was forced on by Kāmrān's chief officer, Qarācha Khān.
There was much previous discussion as to terms of peace, but Kāmrān and Qarācha would have nothing less than Kābul. A second embassy offered alliance of the ‘unique pearl of the khilāfat,’ Akbar, with the mīrzā's ‘dear daughter’ (who may be 'Āyisha), and that Kābul should be theirs; and suggested that Humāyūn and Kāmrān should join forces and again attack Hindūstān. All came to nothing, because Qarācha cried, and enforced his cry, ‘Our heads or Kābul.’ The battle that followed was a complete success for the royal arms, and to add to its good results, Akbar, of whose safety there had been doubt, was brought to Humāyūn's camp. His father vowed charitable gifts for his restoration, and also that he would never part from him again.
A pleasant chance befell Humāyūn on the stricken field, for when he had claimed, as his share of booty, two driverless camels, he found in their loads his own books which he had lost at the Qibchāq defile. Many would be MSS. of the Persian poets; Bābar knew these well and often quotes the Gulistān; and Humāyūn was too much of a dilettante and verse-lover not to have made himself familiar with their round.
Happily the tale of the doings of Kāmrān is drawing to a close. He made a night attack, by which Hindāl lost his life, on the royal forces on November 20th, 1551; sued for help in vain from Sālim Shāh, the Emperor of Hindūstān; from Adam Ghakkar, and was surrendered by him to Humāyūn; was blinded by the insistence of the amīrs on August 17, 1553, and allowed to go to Makka. He was accompanied, as all the writers tell, by his Arghūn wife Māh-chūchak, and by her equal in compassion, a servant of Humāyūn, Chilma Beg. He made the ḥaj four times and he died on October 5th, 1557. Māh-chūchak survived him seven months. She only of his wives is commemorated as accompanying him to Makka, but I see no reason why others may not also be accepted as equally faithful. Her father opposed her going, and she roundly upheld her view of her duty and has been taken into the texture of history, but her co-wives may have gone unopposed and unpraised. How interesting Kāmrān might have made a book of Memoirs in which he set down his life from his own point of view, his motives, ambitions, opinions of right and wrong, and above all, if he had spoken his inner mind about the religious duties he was enabled to perform before death, through his defeat and mutilation! We do not know all the truth about him; certain crimes, of murder and of treachery after promise given, could never be palliated, but in the matter of possession of Kābul there may be much brought forward which would place him rather in the position of the defender of rights than their assailant. He had no courtly chronicler, and has borne the blame of much that could plausibly be traced back to Humāyūn's own defects and their outcome of opportunity.
To end the story of the faithful brothers;—'Askarī too received leave to go to Makka from Badakshān in 1551; he died between that city and Damascus in 1558. Both he and Kāmrān thus lived long enough to see their house triumph again in India and their weary thwartings of its elder branch set at naught by the firmer hands of Akbar's chiefs. Of 'Askarī one clear characteristic only comes out: he was true to the blood-tie with his mother's son and own senior, Kāmrān.
A little return must now be made, in order to bring up the tale of home events to the date of those military. In 1551 the first marriage of the younger generation was arranged by the betrothal of Bakhshi-bānū to Ibrāhīm, son of Ḥaram. The Badakhshī trio had certainly deserved well of Humāyūn and, while doing the best they could to strengthen their own position, had given him efficient help. It is good to tell all that is known of Ḥaram. She seems to have had several daughters who played a part in public events as seals of alliance. When Humāyūn had passed a short time of repose in Kābul after his victory of Ushtur-grām, he sent to Ḥaram to ask Shāhzāda Khānam, one of these girls, in marriage for himself. His envoys were two persons whom Ḥaram did not consider worthy of their office. They were members of the royal household, and trusted members too, for one was Khwāja Jalālu-d-dīn Maḥmūd, mīr sāmān,* who, on Akbar's accession, was made commander of 2,500; and the other was Bībī Fāima, whom we know as having helped to nurse Humāyūn in his illness of 1546.