master who would be obeyed.

[Footnote 1: Sir Henry Elliot's _History of India, as told by its own
Historians_, vol. vi. p. 290.]

Akbar remained one month at Delhi. He sent thence a force into Mewat
to pursue the broken army of Hemu and to gain the large amount of
treasure it was conveying. In this short campaign his general, Pir
Muhammad Khan of Sherwan, at the time a follower of Bairam but
afterwards persecuted by him,[2] was eminently successful. Akbar then
marched upon and recovered Agra.

[Footnote 2: _Ain-i-Akbari_ (Blochmann's Edition), pp. 324-5.]

But his conquests south of the Sutlej were not safe so long as the
Punjab was not secure. And, as we have seen, he had been forced to
leave at Mankot, driven back but not overcome, a determined enemy of
his House in the person of Sikandar Sur. In March of the following
year (1557) he received information that the advanced guard of the
troops he had left in the Punjab had been defeated by that prince
some forty miles from Lahore. Noblemen who came from the Punjab told
him that the business was very serious, as Sikandar had made sure of
a very strong base at Mankot, whence he might emerge to annoy even
though he were defeated in the field, and that his victory had
encouraged his partisans. Akbar recognised all the force of the
argument, and resolved to put in force a maxim which constituted the
great {85} strength of his reign, that if a thing were to be done at
all, it should be done thoroughly. He accordingly marched straight on
Lahore, and, finding Lahore safe, from that capital into Jalandhar,
where his enemy was maintaining his ground. On the approach of Akbar,
Sikandar retreated towards the Siwaliks, and threw himself into
Mankot. There Akbar besieged him.

The siege lasted six months. Then, pressed by famine and weakened by
desertions, Sikandar sent some of his nobles to ask for terms. Akbar
acceded to his request that his enemy might be allowed to retire to
Bengal, leaving his son as a hostage that he would not again war
against the Emperor. The fort then surrendered, and Akbar returned to
Lahore; spent four months and fourteen days there to arrange the
province, and then marched on Delhi. As he halted at Jalandhar, there
took place the marriage of Bairam Khan with a cousin of the late
emperor, Humayun. This marriage had been arranged by Humayun, and to
the young prince his father's wishes on such subjects were a law.
Akbar reentered Delhi on the 15th of