The Memoirs of Bābur 912.6.1

912.6.1

Shāh Begīm and Khānīm were seated in one tent. I dismounted at the usual distance, approached with my former deference and courtesy, and had an interview with them. They were extremely agitated, upset, and ashamed; could neither excuse themselves reasonably[1236] nor make the enquiries of affection. I had not expected this (disloyalty) of them; it was not as though that party, evil as was the position it had taken up, consisted of persons who would not give ear to the words of Shāh Begīm and Khānīm; Mīrzā Khān was the begīm's grandson, in her presence night and day; if she had not fallen in with the affair, she could have kept him with her. Twice over when fickle Fortune and discordant Fate had parted [Sidenote: Fol. 200b.] me from throne and country, retainer and following, I, and my mother with me, had taken refuge with them and had had no kindness soever from them. At that time my younger brother (_i.e._ cousin) Mīrzā Khān and his mother Sulṯān-nigār Khānīm held valuable cultivated districts; yet my mother and I,—to leave all question of a district aside,—were not made possessors of a single village or a few yoke of plough-oxen.[1237] Was my mother not Yūnas Khān's daughter? was I not his grandson?