Padshah-namah 11: Flight of Khan-Jahan.

11

[Text, vol. i. p. 338.] On the 4th, 'Abdu-lla Khan reached Nulahi, and Saiyid Muzaffar Khan, having left Dipalpur, reached Mankod on the 5th, on his way to Mandisor, when he learnt that the rebels had turned off to the right. On the 6th, he again marched, and came to Tal-ganw, and on that day 'Abdu-lla Khan came up from the rear and joined him. There they heard that the rebels were ten kos distant the day before, and had moved off that very morning. So they hastened off in pursuit. On the 10th they encamped at Khiljipur, and ascertained that the rebels were moving towards Sironj. The royal forces reached Sironj on the 14th, and found that the rebels had come there two days previously. Khwaja Baba-e Aftab got into the city just before their arrival, and joining Khwaja 'Abdu-l Hadi, who was in the place, beat off the rebels, who only succeeded in carrying off fifty of the royal elephants. Khan-Jahan and Darya Khan now found the roads closed on all sides against them. Every day that came they looked upon as their last, so in their despair they proceeded on the right from Sironj, and entered the country of the Bundela, intending to push on to Kalpi. Jajhar Singh Bundela had incurred the royal censure because his son Bikramajit had allowed Khan-Jahan on his flight from Agra to pass through his territory and so reach the Dakhin. Bikramajit, to atone for his fault, and to remove the disgrace of his father, went in pursuit of the fugitives, and on the 17th came up with the rear-guard under Darya Khan, and attacked it with great vigour. That doomed one, under the intoxication of temerity or of wine, disdained to fly, and in his turn attacked. A musket-ball pierced his brainless skull, and his son was also killed. The Bundelas attacked him under the impression that he was Khan-Jahan, but that crafty one hastened from the field in another direction. Bikramajit cut off the head of Darya Khan, and also of his son, and sent them to Court, thus atoning for his former fault. Nearly four hundred Afghans and two hundred Bundelas were slain in the fight. For this service Bikramajit received the title of Jag-raj, and was advanced to the dignity of 2000 personal and 2000 horse.