O well-a-day! O well-a-day! O well-a-day!
My sun is sunk behind a cloud.

All may be said in a word: Mīrzā Hindāl gave his life freely for his sovereign.

Mīr Bābā Dost lifted him up and carried him to his quarters. He told no one, and fetched servants and placed them at the entrance and gave orders: ‘Tell everyone who asks, that the mīrzā is badly wounded and that the Emperor forbids anyone to enter.’

Then he went and said to his Majesty: ‘Mīrzā Hindāl is wounded.’ The Emperor called for a horse; ‘I will go and see him.’ Mīr 'Abdu-l-ḥaī said: ‘He is badly hurt. It is not desirable that you should go.’ He understood, and however much he tried,* he could not help it, he broke down.

Jūī-shāhī* was Khiẓr Khwāja Khān's jāgīr. The Emperor sent for him and said: ‘Take Mīrzā Hindāl to Jūī-shāhī and care for his burial.’ The khān took the camel's bridle,* and when he was going away with weeping and lament and voice uplifted in grief, (81a) his Majesty heard of the mourning and sent him word: ‘We must have patience! This sorrow touches my heart more closely than yours, but I do not give way because I think of our bloodthirsty, tyrannical foe. With him at hand, there is no help but patience.’ Then the khān with a hundred regrets, miserable and stricken, conveyed the body to Jūī-shāhī, and there laid and left it.

If that slayer of a brother, that stranger's friend, the monster, Mīrzā Kāmrān had not come that night, this calamity would not have descended from the heavens.

His Majesty sent letters to his sisters in Kābul, and the city at once became like one house of mourning. Doors and walls wept and bewailed the death of the happy, martyred mīrzā.

Gul-chihra Begam had gone to Qarā Khān's house. When she came back, it was like the day of resurrection.* Through weeping and sorrow she fell quite ill and went out of her mind.

It was by Mīrzā Kāmrān's evil fate that Mīrza Hindāl became a martyr. From that time forth we never heard that his affairs prospered. On the contrary, they waned day by day and came to naught and perished. (81b) He set his face to evil in such fashion that fortune never befriended him again nor gave him happiness. It was as though Mīrzā Hindāl had been the life, or rather the light-giving eye of Mīrzā Kāmrān, for after that same defeat he fled straight away to Salīm Shāh, the son of Shīr Khān. Salīm Shāh gave him a thousand rupīs.* Then the mīrzā told in what position he was, and asked help. Salīm Shāh said nothing openly in reply, but in private he remarked: ‘How can a man be helped who killed his own brother, Mīrzā Hindāl? It is best to destroy him and bring him to naught.’ Mīrzā Kāmrān heard of this opinion and one night, without even consulting his people, he resolved on flight and got away, and his own men had not even a word of it. They stayed behind and when news of the flight reached Salīm Shāh, he imprisoned many of them.

Mīrzā Kāmrān had gone as far as Bhīra and Khūsh-āb when Adam Ghakkar, by plot and stratagems, captured him and brought him to the Emperor. (82a)

To be brief, all the assembled khāns and sulāns, and high and low, and plebeian and noble, and soldiers and the rest who all bore the mark of Mīrzā Kāmrān's hand, with one voice represented to his Majesty: ‘Brotherly custom has nothing to do with ruling and reigning. If you wish to act as a brother, abandon the throne. If you wish to be king, put aside brotherly sentiment. What kind of wound was it that befell your blessed head in the Qibchāq defile through this same Mīrzā Kāmrān? He it was whose traitorous and crafty conspiracy with the Afghāns killed Mīrzā Hindāl. Many a Chaghatāī has perished through him; women and children have been made captive and lost honour. It is impossible that our wives and children should suffer in the future the thrall and torture of captivity. (82b) With the fear of hell before our eyes* (we say that) our lives, our goods, our wives, our children are all a sacrifice for a single hair of your Majesty's head. This is no brother! This is your Majesty's foe!’

To make an end of words, one and all urgently set forth: ‘It is well to lower the head of the breacher of a kingdom.’

His Majesty answered: ‘Though my head inclines to your words, my heart does not.’ All cried out: ‘What has been set before your Majesty is the really advisable course.’ At last the Emperor said: ‘If you all counsel this and agree to it, gather together and attest it in writing.’ All the amīrs both of the right and left assembled. They wrote down and gave in that same line (miṣra'): ‘It is well to lower the head of the breacher of the kingdom.’ Even his Majesty was compelled to agree.

When he drew near to Rohtās, the Emperor gave an order to Sayyid Muḥammad: ‘Blind Mīrzā Kāmrān in both eyes.’ The sayyid went at once and did so.

After the blinding, his Majesty the Emperor* …