READING HALL DOORS OF WISDOM

"THIRD MILLENNIUM LIBRARY"

BABAR

CHAPTER VI

FLIGHT 1502-1503 A.D.

The motive of Tambal’s brother in inviting Babar to join him was obvious enough. Babar was the only capable commander on the side of the two Khans; if he could be detached, the Mongol invasion of Farghana would probably fall to pieces; and once in Tambal’s power, the young king would doubtless be cured for ever of all ambition. Yet something might be made of the proposal. His two uncles suggested that he should take advantage of his new ally’s cordiality, and entrap him; but treachery was the thing of all others he despised: “Such trickery and underhandedness were altogether against my grain and nature; besides, there must be a treaty, and I could never bring myself to break my word”. Nevertheless, he would try to win over Bayazid to his side, and thus make a split in Tambal’s party.

All went well at first. He arrived at Akhsi, and took up his quarters in the stone fort where his father’s old palace stood. Bayazid seemed really loyal, though he kept the command of the castle. Presently news came that Shaibáni was on the march, and that the two Khans had immediately beaten a retreat. Babar was thus deserted, and the next thing was the approach of Tambal at the head of two or three thousand men-at-arms. The trap was on the point of snapping; the brothers’ plans had worked out beautifully. With his usual carelessness, or want of suspicion, Babar had not thought of seizing the castle, the key of the position, nor had he even set a guard at the bridge by which Tambal must cross. His own followers were dispersed all over the country, and he had but a hundred left. To hold the town without securing the castle was hopeless; yet Babar attempted it with the help of his brother Jahángir, who had at last fled from his gaoler. Flight was the only chance of safety, and the story of how Babar made his escape, and how he fared on his wild journey, fills some exciting pages of the Memoirs.

“We had no sooner come opposite the gate than we saw Shaikh Bayazid, with a quilted gambeson over his vest; he had just then entered the gateway with three or four horsemen, and was riding into the town ... I immediately drew to the head the arrow that was in my notch, and let him have it full. It only grazed his neck, but it was a fine shot. The moment he had traversed the gate he turned short to the right and fled in a panic down a narrow lane. I pursued Kuli Kukildash struck down one foot-soldier with his mace, and had passed another, when the fellow aimed an arrow at Ibrahim Beg, who baulked him by shouting “Hai! Hai!” and went on; but the man, being no further off than the porch from the hall, let fly an arrow which hit me under the arm. I had on a Kalmak mail, and two of its plates were pierced and shivered by the shot. Then he fled and I sent an arrow after him, which caught a foot-soldier who happened just then to be dying along the rampart, and pinned his cap to the wall, where it stuck transfixed, dangling from the parapet. He took his turban, twisted it round his arm, and ran off. A man on horseback passed close to me, rushing up the narrow lane. I gave him the point of my sword on the temple; he swerved over as if to fall, but caught the wall, and thus supported recovered his seat and escaped.

“Having scattered all the horse and foot that were at the gate, we took possession of it. There was now no reasonable chance of success, for they had two or three thousand well-armed men in the citadel, while I had only a hundred, or at most two hundred, in the outer stone fort; and besides, about as long before this as milk takes to boil, Jahángir Mirza had been beaten and driven out, and half my men with him. Yet such was my inexperience that, posting myself in the gateway, I sent a messenger to Jahángir to bid him join me in another effort. But in truth the business was over ... We continued waiting at the gate for the return of my messenger. He came and told us that Jahángir was already gone some time. It was no season for tarrying, and we too set off: indeed my staying so long was very unwise. Only twenty or thirty men now remained with me. The moment we moved off a strong troop of the enemy came smartly after us; we just cleared the drawbridge as they reached its town end. Banda Ali Beg called out to “You are always boasting and bragging: stop and let us  cross a few sword-cuts”. Ibrahim, who was close to me, answered “Come on, then; what lets you?”. Senseless madcaps, to bandy pretensions at such a moment. It was no time for a trial of skill, or any sort of delay. We made off at our top speed, the enemy at our heels. They brought down man after man as they gained on us.

“Within a couple of miles of Akhsi there is a place called the Garden-Dome. We had just passed it when Ibrahim Beg called loudly to me for help. I looked round and saw him engaged with a home-bred slave of Shaikh Bayazid. I turned at once to go back, when Jan Kuli and Biyan Kuli, who rode beside me, seized my rein and hurried me on, saying, “What time is this for turning back?”. Before we reached Sang (three miles from Akhsi) they had unhorsed most of my followers; but after Sang we saw no more pursuers. We followed the river of Sang, being then only eight men. A sort of defile leads up stream among broken glens, far from the beaten track. By this unfrequented path we went, till leaving the river on the right we struck into another narrow track. It was about afternoon prayers when we came out from the glens upon the level country. There we saw a black spot far off on the plain. I put my men under cover, and crept up a hillock on foot to spy what it might be; when suddenly a number of horsemen galloped up behind us: we could not tell how many there were, but took to our horses and fled. The horsemen who followed us (I afterwards learnt) were not above twenty or twenty-five in all, and we were eight. Had we but known their number at first we should have given them warm work, but we thought they were in force; and so we continued our flight. The truth is that the pursued are no match for the pursuers, even though numbers be in their favor, for

         A single shout is enough to finish the vanquished.

Jan Kuli said, “We cannot go on like this; they will take us all. Do you and the foster-brother (Kukildash) take the two best horses of the party and galloping together keep the spare horses on your bridle; perhaps you may escape”. The advice was good, but I could not leave my followers dismounted in presence of the enemy. At last my party began to separate and drop behind. My own horse began to flag. Jan Kuli dismounted and gave me his. I leapt down and mounted his horse, and he mounted mine. At this instant Shahim Nasir and Abd-al-Kaddus, who had fallen behind, were unhorsed by the enemy. Jan Kuli also dropped behind, but it was no time to try to shield or help him. We pushed our horses to their utmost stretch, but they gradually flagged and slacked. Dost Beg’s horse was done up and dropped behind, and mine began to give signs of being worn out. Kambar Ali dismounted and gave me his horse. He mounted mine, and presently fell behind. Khwája Husaini, who was lame, turned aside to the heights. I was left alone with Mirza Kuli Kukildash.

“Our horses were past galloping; we went on at a canter, but Kuli’s horse went slower and slower. I said, “If I lose you, whither can I go? Dead or alive we will keep together”. I held on my way, turning from time to time to watch him. At last he said, “My horse is utterly blown, and you cannot escape encumbered with me. Push on and shift for yourself; perchance you may still escape”. I was in a horrible situation. Kuli then fell behind, too, and I was alone. Two of the enemy were in sight ... they gained on me; my horse flagged. There was a hill about a couple of miles off, and I came up to a heap of stones. My horse was done up, I considered, and the hill yet a considerable way ahead. What was to be done? I had still about twenty arrows m my quiver. Should I dismount at this heap of stones, and hold my ground as long as my arrows lasted? But then it struck me I might yet be able to win the hill, and if I did I could stick a few arrows in my belt and manage to climb it. I had great faith in my own nimbleness. So I kept on my course. My horse could make no speed, and my pursuers got within bowshot of me; but I was sparing of my arrows and did not shoot. They too were chary, and came no nearer than a bowshot, but kept tracking me.

“I drew near the hill about sunset, when they suddenly called out to me, “Where are you going, that you fly in this manner? Jahángir Mirza has been taken and brought in, and Nasir Mirzá has been seized”. I was greatly alarmed at these words, for if all [three] of us fell into their hands, we had everything to dread! I made no answer, but kept on for the hill. When we had gone a little further they called to me again, speaking more graciously, and dismounting from their horses to address me. I paid no attention, but kept on my way, and entering a gorge, began to ascend it, and went on until about bedtime prayers, when I reached a rock as big as a house. I went behind it, and found an ascent of steep ledges where the horse could not keep his footing. They also dismounted, and began to address me still more courteously and respectfully, expostulating, and saying, “What end can it serve to go on thus in a dark night, where there is no road? Where can you possibly go?” They both solemnly swore that “Sultan Ahmad Beg [Tambal] wishes to put you on the throne”

“I answered, “I can put no trust in anything of the sort, nor could I possibly join him. If you really wish to do me an important service, you have now an opportunity which may not recur for years. Point me out a road by which I may rejoin the Khans, and I will show you kindness and favor beyond your utmost desire. If you will not, then return the way you came, and leave me to accomplish my fate—even that will be no slight service”. “Would to God, they exclaimed, “that we had never come; but as we are here, how can we desert you in this desolate situation? Since you will not accompany us to Tambal, we shall follow and serve you, go where you will”. I said, “Swear then to me by the Holy Book that you are sincere in your offer”. And they swore that tremendous oath. I now began to have some confidence in them, and said, “An open road was once pointed out to me near this same valley: do you proceed by it. Though they had sworn, yet I could not thoroughly trust them, so I made them go on in front, and I followed them”.

So they journeyed on, the fugitive king and his two doubtful guides. They were misleading him, of course, and meant to deliver him up to Tambal. They got him some bread, however, for starving was no part of their plan, and, “each with a loaf under his arm”, the three sat munching on a hillock, keeping watch on all sides and on each other. They saw people passing below, whom they knew, but Babar dared not trust himself to them, though he trusted his two strange companions even less. It was now afternoon of the second day, and they went down to graze their famished horses in the marshy valley. Here they encountered the headman of the neighboring village of Karmán, and Babar knew him, and spoke him fair, and tried to secure his fidelity and help. At night they again descended from their rock, and the men gave Babar an old cloak of lambskin, with the wool inside and coarse cloth without, for it was winter and bitterly cold. They brought him also a mess of boiled millet flour, which he found wonderfully comforting. They were waiting (they said), to see the headman again; but “those misbegotten treacherous clowns had meanwhile sent a messenger to Tambal to betray Babar’s retreat”.

“Entering a stone house and kindling a fire, I closed my eyes for a moment in sleep. These crafty fellows pretended a vast anxiety to serve me: “We must not stir from this neighborhood”, said they, “till we have news of Kadir Berdi [the headman]. The room where we are, however, is in the midst of houses. There is a place on the outskirts where we could be quite unsuspected, could we but reach it”. So we mounted our horses about midnight and went to a garden on the outskirts of the suburbs. Baba Sairámi watched on the terrace roof of the house, keeping a sharp look-out in every direction.

“It was near noon [on the third day of the flight] when he came down from the terrace and said to me, “ Here comes Yusuf the constable”. I was seized with prodigious alarm, and said, “Find out if he comes in consequence of knowing that I am here”. Baba went out, and after some talk returned and said, “Yusuf the constable says that at the gate of Akhsi he met a foot-soldier who told him that the king was in Karman at such a place; that, without telling the news to any one, he had put the man into close custody ... and hastened to you at full speed, and that the Begs know nothing of the matter”. I asked him, “What think you of this?” He replied, “They are all your servants; there is nothing left for it but to join them. They will undoubtedly make you king again”. “But after such wars and quarrels, said I, how can I trust myself in their power?” I was still speaking, when Yusuf suddenly presented himself, and falling on his knees before me exclaimed, “Why should I conceal anything from you? Sultan Ahmad Beg knows nothing of the matter; but Shaikh Bayazid Beg has got information where you are, and has sent me hither”

“On hearing these words I was thrown into a dreadful state of alarm. There is nothing that moves a man more painfully than the near prospect of death. “Tell me the truth” I cried, “if indeed things are about to go with me contrary to my wishes, that I may at least perform the last rites”. Yusuf swore again and again, but I did not heed his oaths. I felt my strength gone. I rose and went to a corner of the garden. I meditated with myself, and said, Should a man live a hundred, nay, a thousand, years, yet at last he must inevitably make up his mind to die.

Whether thou live a hundred years or a single day, you must

Infallibly quit this palace which delights the heart.

“I resigned myself, therefore, to die. There was a stream in the garden, and there I made my ablutions and recited a prayer of two bowings. Then surrendering myself to meditation I was about to ask God for his compassion, when sleep closed my eyes. I saw (in my dream) Khwája Yakub, son of Khwája Yahya and grandson of his eminence the Khwája Obaid-Allah [a famous saint of Samarkand], with a numerous escort mounted on dappled grey horses, come before me and say, “Do not be anxious. The Khwája has sent me to tell you that he will support you, and seat you on the throne of sovereignty; whenever a difficulty occurs to you, remember to beg his help, and he will at once respond to your appeal, and victory and triumph shall straightway lean to your side”. I awoke, with easy heart, at the very moment when Yusuf the constable and his companions were plotting some trick to seize and throttle me. Hearing them discussing it, I said to them, “All you say is very well, but I shall be curious to see which of you dares approach me”.

“As I spoke, the tramp of a number of horses was heard outside the garden wall. Yusuf the constable exclaimed, “If we had taken you and brought you to Tambal, our affairs would have prospered much thereby. As it is, he has sent a large troop to seize you; and the noise you hear is the tramp of horses on your track” At this assertion my face fell, and I knew not what to devise.

“At that very moment the horsemen, who had not at first found the gate of the garden, made a breach in its crumbling wall, through which they entered. I saw they were Kutluk Muhammad Barlás and Babai Pargari, two of my most devoted followers, with ten to fifteen or twenty other persons. When they had come near to my person, they threw themselves off their horses, and bending the knee at a respectful distance, fell at my feet and overwhelmed me with marks of their affection.

“Amazed at this apparition, I felt that God had just restored me to life. I called to them at once, “Seize Yusuf the constable and the wretched traitors who are with him, and bring them to me bound hand and foot”. Then turning to my rescuers I said, “Whence come you? Who told you what was happening”. Kutluk Muhammad Barlás answered, “After I found myself separated from you in the sudden flight from Akhsi, I reached Andiján at the very moment when the Khans themselves were making their entry. There I saw in a dream Khwája Obaid-Allah, who said, “Padishah Babar is at this instant in a village called Karman; fly thither and bring him back with you, for the throne is his of right”. Rejoicing at this dream, I related it to the big Khan and the little Khan ... Three days have we been marching, and thanks be to God for bringing about this meeting ...”

“We mounted without losing an instant, and made for Andiján. I had eaten nothing for two days. Towards noon we had the luck to find a sheep; we dismounted and settled ourselves comfortably to roast it. After satisfying my ravenous hunger, we set off again, und quickening our pace reached Andiján, doing a distance of five days in two nights and a day. There I embraced the two Khans, my uncles, and related all that had passed since our separation”

It all reads like a tale of the Thousand and One Nights, and ends exactly in the orthodox manner; but the graphic narrative is plainly true from start to finish. What happened after this wonderful ride we cannot tell. The Memoirs break off suddenly, and are not resumed until June, 1504, nearly a year and a half later. It may be imagined that Babar’s position as a dependant upon his uncles in his own city of Andiján was even less tolerable than his former penury at Táshkend. But his personal losses may well have been forgotten in presence of the disasters which befell his uncle Mahmud, to whom he almost stood in the place of a son. The two Khans were utterly unable to withstand the assaults of Shaibáni. About the middle of 1503 the Uzbeg chief advanced with 30,000 men from Samarkand, sacked Táshkend and Uratipa, and finding the Khans with an army of 15,000 men near Akhsi, where they were treating for the submission of Bayazid, threw himself upon them almost before they had time to form in order of battle, and utterly routed them.

Both Khans were taken prisoners, but Shaibáni, who owed his original success to Mahmud, said with an air of magnanimity, “With your help and assistance I have won my power: I took you captive, but I do not kill you; I let you go”. The younger Khan was completely broken by his defeat, and in the following year died in the steppes which he ought never to have left. Mahmud Khan’s fate was more melancholy. He could not be happy in the desert, and after five years was induced to return to Farghana : he was met at Khojend by Shaibáni’s officers, who killed him and his five sons on the spot. Such was the gratitude of the Uzbeg.

After the fatal battle of Akhsi in 1503, Babar fled to the hills on the south of Farghana near Asfara, and remained in hiding. He twice refers to this fresh exile in his Memoirs: “When Muhammad Shaibáni Khan defeated Sultan Mahmud Khan and Aláchá [Ahmad] Khan, and took Táshkend and Sháhrukhíya, I spent nearly a year in Sukh and Hushiyar among the mils, in great distress; and it was thence that I set out for Kabul”.

CHAPTER VII

KABUL