Page:History of India Vol 3.djvu/187

AN ABLE VIZIR RULES THE EMPIRE 149 erous guides inveigled the army into the salt marshes of Kachh, and they lost themselves in the desert. Again for six months the Sultan and his army disappeared from human ken; not a word of them reached Delhi, and the vizir had to forge cheering despatches to relieve the public anxiety. The Sultan, however, doggedly held to his purpose, refitted his army in Gujarat, sent thrice to Delhi for reinforcements, and in a second in- vasion, after some trouble in crossing the Indus, suc- ceeded in occupying Sind, and starved his foe into sur- render. The native ruler was brought to Delhi in all honour, and his son was enthroned in his stead. This was the only victorious exploit of the reign of Firoz, except the reduction of Nagarkot, and it was won at great cost. The Sultan had again been away from his capital for two years and a half. In any other reign there would undoubtedly have been a revolution and a rival king during these long absences. But Firoz possessed a treasure in his vizir, a converted Hindu of good family from Telingana, named Makbul Khan, who had held the highest offices under the dangerous favour of Mohammad Taghlak. Over Firoz the wise though illiterate Hindu gained such influence that the Sultan used to say that Khan-i-Jahan, " lord of the world," as he was termed in virtue of his office, was the real king of Delhi. So fond was the Sultan of his invaluable vizir that he allowed an income of over a thousand a year to every son that was born to him, and yet more by way of marriage portion to each daughter; and as Makbul was an uxorious person,