CHAPTER V FIBST DECCAN CONQUESTS ALA -AD -DIN KHALJI 1280-1311 A. D. BALBAN was one of those men who leave no suc- cessors. His very dominance checked the growth of even imitators, much more rivals. He had extin- guished the powerful group of slaves who were the true inheritors of Altamish. He had trained no school of great ministers. His hopes were centred in his eldest son, who died before him; he had no confidence in Bughra Khan, and when he found, on offering him the succession, that this frivolous prince preferred return- ing to his amusements in Bengal to waiting by his father's sick-bed for the splendid reversion of empire, Balban in his irritation left the throne to a son of his dead favourite, who never ascended it. A son of Bughra was set up by the chief officers, but never was a choice less fit. Kai-Kubad in his seventeen years had been so carefully brought up by tutors under his stern grand- father's eye that he had never been allowed to catch sight of a pretty girl or to sip a wine-cup. He had been taught all the polite arts and knew nothing of the im- 93
