with their swords.  Even now the deluded Adham Chan counted still upon the Emperor’s forbearance and upon the influence of his mother.  Akbar was aroused by the noise and leaving his apartments learned what had happened.  Adham Chan rushed to the Emperor, seized his arm and begged him to listen to his explanations.  But the Emperor was beside himself with rage, struck the murderer with his fist so that he fell to the floor and commanded the terrified servants to bind him with fetters and throw him head over heels from the terrace of the palace to the courtyard below.  The horrible deed was done but the wretch was not dead.  Then the Emperor commanded the shattered body of the dying man to be dragged up the stairs again by the hair and to be flung once more to the ground.[7]

  [Footnote 7:  J.T.  Wheeler, IV, I, 139, 140; Noer, I, 143, 144.]

I have related this horrible incident in order to give Akbar’s picture with the utmost possible faithfulness and without idealization.  Akbar was a rough, strong-nerved man, who was seldom angry but whose wrath when once aroused was fearful.  It is a blemish on his character that in some cases he permitted himself to be carried away to such cruel death sentences, but we must not forget that he was then dealing with the punishment of particularly desperate criminals, and that such severe judgments had always been considered in the Orient to be righteous and sensible.  Not only in the Orient unfortunately,—­even in Europe 200 years after Akbar’s time tortures and the rack were applied at the behest of courts of law.

Mahum Anaga came too late to save her son.  Akbar sought with tender care to console her for his dreadful end but the heart-broken woman survived the fearful blow of fate only about forty days.  The Emperor caused her body to be buried with that of her son in one common grave at Delhi, and he himself accompanied the funeral procession.  At his command a stately monument was erected above this grave which still stands to-day.  His generosity and clemency were also shown in the fact that he extended complete pardon to the accomplices in the murder of the grand vizier and even permitted them to retain their offices and dignities because he was convinced that they had been drawn into the crime by the violent Adham Chan.  In other ways too Akbar showed himself to be ready to grant pardon to an almost incomprehensible extent.  Again and again when an insubordinate viceroy in the provinces would surrender after an unsuccessful uprising Akbar would let him off without any penalty, thus giving him the opportunity of revolting again after a short time.

It was an eventful time in which Akbar arrived at manhood in the midst of all sorts of personal dangers.

[Illustration:  Mausoleum of Akbar’s father, Humayun.]