residence at Burdwan. There he hoped to live in peace and obscurity, with his beloved Mher-ul-Nissa. But Kuttub had been rewarded for his attempt; and, eager still further to please the emperor, he resolved to make the tour of the dependant provinces. In his rout he came to Burdwan; and in a scuffle, occasioned by one of his pikemen intentionally affronting Shere, both he and the latter were slain.
Mher-ul-Nissa seemed not to feel so much sorrow as she ought; ambition stifling her feelings: for in vindication of her apparent insensibility, she pretended to follow the injunctions of her deceased husband; alleging that Shere, foreseeing his own fall by Jehangire, had conjured her to yield to the wishes of that monarch without hesitation. The reasons which she gave for this improbable request were, that he was afraid his own exploits would sink into oblivion, without they were connected with the remarkable event of giving an empress to India.
Here, however, her ambition received a very unexpected check. She was sent, with all imaginable care, to Delhi, and received kindly by the emperor's mother; but Jehangire refused to see her. He gave orders that she should be shut up in one of the worst apartments of the seraglio; and allowed her but fourteen anas (about two shillings) a day, for the subsistence of herself and some female slaves. Whether his mind was tormented by remorse, or then fixed upon another object, authors do not agree. But the emperor's mother, who was deeply interested for Mher-ul-Nissa, could not prevail upon her son to see her; and, when she spoke of the widow of Shere, he turned away in silence.
Mher-ul-Nissa was a woman of haughty spirit, and
