DAWN
Upon the Arkabân hill the artillery men were already at work. In those
days guns were not what they are now, quick loading, quick firing.
It needed a good hour to ram the coarse powder down, adjust the round
ball and prepare the priming; to say nothing of the task of aiming. So,
long ere dawn, the glimmering lights were seen about the battery, which,
perched on a hill, gave on the half-breached bastion. Between the two
stretched an open space of undulating ground. Sumbal, "the master
fireworker," as he is called in the old history books, was up betimes
seeing to his men, and with him came a grave, silent man, who, though he
had no interest in the quarrels of Humâyon and his brothers, was as
eager as any to get within the walls of Kâbul and find what he sought--a
Râjput lad of whom word had been brought to a little half-desert Râjput
state lying far away in the Jesulmer plain.
For the grave, silent man, who showed so much knowledge of warfare, who
was keen to see everything new in weapons and the handling of them, was
a messenger sent by a widowed mother to see if indeed it could be her
long-lost son, of whom a certain old trooper had spoken on his return
from Kâbul.
"See you!" said Sumbal, who was a bit of a boaster, "give me time to aim
and I'll warrant me 'Thunder of God'" (that was the name let in with
gold on the breech of the gun) "will hit the mark within a yard every
time. Thou shalt see it ere-long. There is a sort of pigeon place on the
face of the bastion where I will aim, and thou shalt see the splinters
of it spin!" He shaded his eyes with his hand and looked piercingly into
the shadows. "'Tis too dark to see it yet, but so soon as it shows I
will let fly, and then----"
And then?
Roy, who had never stopped for a breath yet in his headlong race, was at
that very moment rounding on the bastion, and looking up, saw what he
had feared to see--a little figure bound hand and foot to a framework of
wood that hung close to what Sumbal had called the pigeon place, seeming
to form part of it. The child was not crying. Perhaps he was past that.
Perhaps he had never cried, but had taken this last and urgent danger as
he had taken others, with grave dignity.
All we know is that he hung there on the wall, and that before his very
eyes the light was growing in the east, and over in the hill battery a
dozen men were sweating away to bring the "Thunder of God" into
position. Roy gave a gasp. Should he call to the little Heir-to-Empire
and let him know that a friend was near, that help might come? No!
perhaps he did not realise his danger. It was better to let be.
So gathering all his forces for a last effort, he dashed into the open
for the final five minutes' run. And there could be no dodging here.
Every loophole of the bastion was, he knew, crammed with the matchlocks
of many marksmen. And there was now, worse luck, little darkness to
cover him!
"Three minutes more, friend!" said Sumbal boastfully, "and thou shalt
see what thou wilt see. Slave! the port fire, quick. I will give the
signal. Lo! What is up?"
A rattle of musketry rose on the still air of dawn, and an artillery man
leaned over the low embrasure to see better into the intervening valley.
"Some one escaping," he said with a yawn, for he had been up half the
night. "Lo! he runs like a hare! But they will have him, for sure."
"Quick," called Sumbal, "we will silence their noise. The portfire, I
say. I will fire old Thunderer myself."
The man carrying the flaming flashlight handed it to his superior, but
in so doing by some mischance it dropped, and in the dropping went out!
"Fool!" cried Sumbal passionately. "Are we to stand insulted here
without reply while thou fetchest another? Put him in irons, sergeant,
and bring light at once!"
But the grave, silent Râjput was watching the runner. "He is but a
boy," he said slowly, "yet see how he runs. And they have hit him, for
he staggers. Yet he comes on. He must bring news, friend, for sure!"
[Illustration: "_I stay my hand while I count ten--no more._"]
"News!" echoed Sumbal contemptuously; "we have half a hundred such
runaways coming in every day. It is no news that King Humâyon is better
liked than Kumran. Lo! hast thou it at last?" He snatched the portfire
from the sergeant and went toward the gun.
"Stay one moment, friend!" said the grave and silent man with sudden
command in his voice. "A moment's hastiness may bring disaster.
Discretion is better than valour. Yonder boy brings news--he waves his
arms--he shouts! Stay at least till we can hear what he says."
Sumbal laughed. "Bah! But, see you, I stay my hand while I count ten--no
more."
"One! two! three! four!"
The artillery men, amused at the race, leaned over. "He runs well!--He
will win!--He will lose!--He climbs like a hill cat!"----
"_Five! six! seven! eight! nine!_"
And now, unintelligible from sheer breathlessness, Roy's voice is heard.
The grave, silent Râjput leaps out to meet him.
"_Ten!_"
Sumbal's hand swings the portfire to the breech.
Roy sees it, throws up his arms wildly, and with a cry--
"The bastion! The bastion! The Heir-to-Empire!" falls headlong into the
Râjput's arms.
"What did he say?" asked the master fireworker, pausing half surprised,
half angry.
But the Râjput was too busy tearing aside Roy's flimsy, bloodstained
waistcoat to answer.
"Something about the bastion and the Heir-to-Empire, master!" said the
sergeant doubtfully. "Mayhap 'twould be as well to wait till we can see
more clearly. Kumran," he added in a lower voice, "would stick at
naught----"
Sumbal hesitated, then put down the portfire and walked over to the
fallen lad, beside whom the stranger was kneeling.
"He is not dead! He is not dead!" said the grave, silent Râjput, looking
up, his face working, the tears streaming down his bronzed cheek. "My
master is not dead!"
"Who?" asked Sumbal, uncomprehending.
"I knew it must be he!" went on the man exultantly, even in his grief.
"None could do that sort of thing save a Sun hero! My Master! my King!
See, here the race mark on his breast! The sign of uttermost truth! My
Master! My King!"
But Roy did not hear himself called thus. He did not even know for days
afterwards if he had succeeded or if he had failed; for a wound just
above the heart, close to the sign-mark of his race, very nearly carried
him off into the Shadowy Land where all things are remembered, yet all
are forgotten.
But he _had_ succeeded. He had saved the Heir-to-Empire's life that
dawn, and a day or two afterwards Kumran, daily more hated for his
cruelty, had escaped, and the soldiers, rejoiced to get rid of him,
flung open the gates of the Bala Hissar, thus ending Prince Akbar's
adventures.
But when Roy came to himself Mirak was sitting beside him and Down was
purring on Bija's lap; Bija, who had just returned from India with Queen
Humeeda in time to console the Heir-to-Empire for all he must have
suffered during the few days he was left alone with cruel Uncle Kumran.
How much he had suffered no one knew, and the little fellow refused to
say anything about it. It was a way he had when the luck went against
him. So, just as he had remarked when he had fallen down the ravine,
when the white cat and the black dog first came to him, that he had
"tumbu-down," so now he simply said that it wasn't "very comfy," but
that Tumbu had come to see him more than once. And this was possible,
for you may be sure that once he allowed the Afghan sentry to rise,
Tumbu, being a wise dog, never went near him again. Therefore he _had_
to find his old master.
And Foster-father, Foster-mother and Head-nurse were all there, the
latter greatly subdued for the time, and in her gratitude to Roy
inclined to give him some of the titles she was wont to bestow on little
Prince Akbar.
For there was no doubt whatever that the lad was the rightful Râjah of
Suryâmer, whom wicked rebels had exposed in the desert to die, who had
been found and kept alive by wandering goatherds and had finally been
discovered when unconscious from sunstroke by the royal fugitives.
And out of this arose the only sadness of the happy May days when the
little party once more journeyed out to Babar's tomb towards evening to
sit under the _arghawân_ trees and watch the sunset.
Of course Dearest-Lady was not there, but all the others were assembled,
and Down, the cat, purred as loud as ever, while Tumbu, the dog,
frolicked round even more like a golliwog than before. But it was not
the absence of the Khânzâda Khânum which made faces thoughtful at times.
She, they knew, was at rest, and they laid flowers for her beside those
they gathered in memory of Firdoos Gita Makâni--on whom be peace!
No! it was the knowledge that Roy could not remain with them. So soon as
he was strong again he must go back to his mother, go back to a people
who, tired of rebellion, were longing for their old rulers.
"You see, brother, I am a King," said Roy sorrowfully, "and Kings cannot
always do what they like."
"Do you think they ever do, _really_?" asked the little Heir-to-Empire
gravely, "for I don't."
And here we come to the end--for a time at least--of Prince Akbar's
adventures.
Now, if you want to know how much of this so-called veracious story is
really true, I cannot quite say.
Did some one like Roy _really_ tell the master fireworker that the
Heir-to-Empire was hung over the battlements of the bastion? If some one
did not, how did the master-fireworker find it out? And he did; indeed,
in the history books he takes great credit to himself for _having_ found
it out. But then he was a boaster.
Then did Dearest-Lady really bind Kumran by an oath not to harm the
Heir-to-Empire until she returned?
If she did not, then why did she, an old, frail woman of seventy, go out
into the wilderness just as winter was coming on, and why did not cruel
Kumran kill the Heir-to-Empire when he had him in his power?
These are all questions; but what is certain is that Baby Akbar did go
through all these adventures before he was five years old.
So good-bye, brave little lads! Good-bye, stout old Foster-father and
kindly Foster-mother! Good-bye, worthy Head-nurse with your strings of
titles, and good-bye, dainty little Bija! Good-bye also to grinning
Meroo, to purring Down, and frolicking Tumbu!
And for those other three whose memory remained--Old Faithful, Dearest
Lady, and the Great Emperor, Firdoos Gita Makâni, who all helped the
little prince to safety, what of them?
"Heaven," as the marble slab among the tulips and violets of the
Garden-of-the-New-Year says,
"'Is their eternal abode.'"
WOODS & SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, LONDON, N.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Adventures of Akbar, by Flora Annie Steel