160 PROVINCIAL DYNASTIES However sincere their loyalty to Firoz, their master, they were bound by no such ties to his successors, and their influence tended to encourage that Hindu inde- pendence which had been fostered by the Sultan's mild rule. The intermarriage of the royal family and other dignitaries with Hindus could produce no real amalga- mation between peoples effectually sundered alike by race, religion, and social custom. The Hindus paid tribute when compelled, but their free tribes and aris- tocratic chiefs were always eager to shake off the yoke of the foreigners, and in the years following the death of Firoz one of the most notable features of the dis- turbed period was the large part played in politics by Hindu leaders, whether slaves converted to the court religion, or rajas who had asserted their independence, but were not above plotting insurrection with their renegade fellow countrymen. Thus, on the one hand, we see the great provinces held in fief by successful courtiers and slaves, often renegade Hindus, whose power tended to become hereditary and to develop inde- pendent dynasties; on the other, a universal revival of the old Hindu chiefships and of the independence of the hill tribes. A strong ruler might possibly have stemmed the tide which was engulfing the power of Delhi, but even he must have bent and broken before the storm which burst upon India ten years after the death of Firoz. In those ten years there was no king of even moderate capacity. Fath Khan, the hope of his father, was dead; the next son, Zafar, was also gone. The old Sultan's
