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(University of California)
A PRINCE OF DREAMERS
A PRINCE OF DREAMERS
By
FLORA ANNIE STEEL
Author of
"A Sovereign Remedy," "On the Face of the Waters,"
"Voices in the Night," etc.
New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1909
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY FLORA ANNIE STEEL
TO THE MEMORY OF
A PRINCE OF DREAMERS AND A KING OF KINGS
OH LORD! WHOSE SECRETS ARE FOR EVER VEILED
AND WHOSE PERFECTION KNOWS NOT A BEGINNING;
(END AND BEGINNING BOTH ARE LOST IN THEE
NO TRACE OF THEM IN THY ETERNAL REALM)
MY WORDS ARE LAME--MY TONGUE A STONY TRACT--
SLOW WINGS MY SOUL--AND WIDE IS THE EXPANSE--
CONFUSED MY THOUGHTS--THIS THY BEST PRAISE,
IN ECSTASY I SEE THEE FACE TO FACE.
--_Abul Faiz, Poet-Laureate at the Court of Akbar_
THE BIRD OF THE MORNING ONLY KNOWETH THE
WORTH OF THE BOOK OF THE ROSE; FOR NOT
EVERY ONE WHO READETH THE PAGE UNDERSTANDETH
THE MEANING.--_Hafiz_.
PREFACE
"The fiction which resembles truth is better than the truth which is
dissevered from the imagination," said the Persian poet Nizami, in the
year 1250.
It remains true, however, to-day. So I give no excuse for this book.
It is not one which will appeal to the man in the street. Nevertheless
I make the attempt to give the character and the times of the Prince
of Dreamers with a glad heart. It is as well that the twentieth
century of the West should know something of the sixteenth century in
the East.
So many of my _dramatis personae_ once lived in the flesh and spoke
many of the words imputed to them in the following pages, that it will
be shorter to designate those who are purely imaginary puppets.
To begin with Mirza Ibrahim and Khodadad. For obvious reasons it is
always safer in historical novels to draw the out-and-out villains
with imagination. The death of the latter, however, together with the
curious privileges of the Tarkhans are part of the truth which is
stranger than fiction.
For Atma Devi I have also no warranty; Indian history does not concern
itself with womenkind. But dear Auntie Rosebody's Memoirs[1] have
supplied me with my sketch of the Beneficent Ladies, while, of course,
the story of Mihr-un-nissa, who in long after-years did, under the
name of Nurjahan, become Prince Salim's wife, and, as such, did
undoubtedly add to the honour and glory of his reign as Jahangir, is
purely historical; even to the chance meeting in the Paradise Bazaar.
---------------------
[Footnote 1: Memoirs of Gulbadan Begum.]
---------------------
Payandar Khan, the Wayfarer, is so far possible that the heir to the
throne of Sinde, who bore that name, suddenly lost his senses in
consequence of some direful tragedy, disappeared into the desert, and
was no more heard of. The crediting of him with hypnotic powers is
offered as an explanation of many marvels which are constantly
cropping up in Indian story and legend.
It has been suggested to me that for those to whom the word Mogul is
mixed up with tobacconists' shops and packs of cards, a brief outline
of the dynasty called by that name might be advisable.
It was founded, then, by one Babar, poet, knight-errant, perfect
lover, who is, without doubt, the most charming figure in all history.
He sacrificed his life in 1540 for his son Humayon, that most
unfortunate of kingly adventurers from whose opium-soddened hands the
thirteen-year-old boy, Akbar, took an uncertain sceptre. In him the
glory of the Moguls culminated. After him three more kings were worthy
of the title "Great," and then by slow degrees the dynasty dwindled
down to one Bahadur Shah, a feeble old man, who after defying us at
Delhi, died miserably in exile.
Akbar was cotemporary of Queen Elizabeth, and his rightful place is
among the great company of dreamers--Shakespeare, Raphael, Drake,
Galileo, Michelangelo, Cervantes, and half a hundred others--who in
the sixteenth century arose (and God alone knows why or whence) to
place the whole world, spiritual and temporal, under the sway of
imagination for the time.
I have chosen as my period in Akbar's life that time of glorious peace
before the abandonment of the City of Victory, Fatehpur Sikri, which
he had built to commemorate the birth of his son.
The reason for this abandonment is unknown, though scarcity of water
was certainly one of the factors in it.
One thing is clear, the step must have meant much to Akbar; must have
involved the giving up of many cherished dreams. And it is equally
clear that his whole policy changed from the day he left what was the
embodiment of his own personal pride, his own personal outlook on the
future. Evidently he felt himself faced by some necessity for supreme
choice, and having made it, he kept to the course he had chosen
undeviatingly.
I have presumed to find this necessity in the bitter disappointment
caused to him by his sons.
This at any rate is history, and with a man of Akbar's temperament it
is impossible to overestimate the effect of knowing that his natural
heirs were unworthy, incapable indeed, of carrying on his Dream of
Empire.
Whether the diamond which plays its part in these pages is the one now
called the Koh-i-nur, or whether it was the stone afterward known as
the Great Mogul, or whether it was yet a third one, who can say? The
history of Oriental gems is often too mysterious even for fiction. But
there is a legend that Akbar possessed such a lucky stone, and it is
certain that William Leedes remained to cut gems in the Imperial Court
when his companions John Newbery and Ralph Fitch left it.
Finally, if competent critics feel inclined to cavil at the
extraordinary aloofness of Akbar from his surroundings, I can only bid
them remember that he was literally centuries ahead of his time, and
assert that in this very aloofness lies the only claim of any soul to
be remembered above its fellows.
The two friends whom he chose to be friends--out of the millions of
men he governed--fittingly go down with him through those centuries, a
trio; Akbar the dreamer, Birbal the doubter, Abulfazl the doer, who
between them made of the Great Mogul a king of kings.
A PRINCE OF DREAMS
A PRINCE OF DREAMS
CHAPTER I
_What know ye of the wearer, ye who know the dress right well?
'Tis the letter-writer only, can the letter's purport tell_.
--Sa'adi.
"Hush! The King listens!"
The sudden sonorous voice of the court-usher echoed over the crowd and
there was instant silence.
The multitude sank, seated on the ground where it had been standing,
and so disclosed to view the rose-red palaces of Fatehpur Sikri, the
City of Victory, rising from the rose-set gardens where the silvery
fountains sprang from the rose-red earth into the deep blue of the
sky.
Akbar the King showed also, seated on a low, marble, cushion-covered
pedestal beneath a group of palms.
He was a man between the forties and the fifties with no trace of the
passing years in form or feature, save in the transverse lines of
thought upon his forehead. For the rest, his handsome aquiline face
with its dreamy yet fireful eyes and firm mouth, held just the promise
of contradiction which is often the attribute of genius.
So, as he sate listening, a woman sang.
She stood tall, supple, looking in the intensity of her
crimson-scarlet dress, like a pomegranate blossom, almost like a
blood-stain amongst the white robes of her fellow musicians. The face
of one of these, fine, careworn, stood out clear-cut as a cameo
against the glowing colour of her drapery, and the arched bow of his
_rebeck_ swayed rhythmic ally as the high fretful notes followed the
trilling turns of her voice:
Gladness is Gain, because Annoy has fled
Sadness is Pain, because some Joy is dead
Light wins its Halo from the Gloom of night
Night spins its Shadow at the Loom of light.
The Twain are one, the One is twain
Naught lives alone in joy or pain
Except the King! Akbar the King is One!
Birth sends us Death, and flings us back to Earth
Earth lends us Breath, and brings us fresh to Birth
Love gives delight----
"Hush! The King wearies!"
Once again the sonorous voice of the court-usher following a faint
uplift of the King's finger brought instant obedience. The singer was
silent, the crowd remained expectant, while the hot afternoon sun
blazed down on all things save the King, sheltered by the royal
baldequin.
He raised his keen yet dreamy eyes and looked out almost wistfully to
the far blue horizon of India, which from this rocky red ridge whereon
he had built his City of Victory showed distant, unreal, a mere shadow
on the inconceivable depth of the blue beyond.
Jalal-ud-din Mahomed Akbar, Great Mogul, Emperor of India, Defender of
the Faith, Head of Kingdoms Spiritual and Temporal! Aye, he thought,
he was all that so far as the Shadow went. But in the Light? What
of the Light beyond, wherein Someone--Something--sate enthroned,
King-of-Kings, Lord-of-Lords? What was he _there_?
He rose suddenly, and the crowd rising also swept back from his path
tumultuously, as the waters of the Red Sea swept back from the staff
of Moses, to leave him free, unfettered.
There was no lack of power about him anyhow! He stepped forward,
centring his world with the swing of an athlete--a swing which made
the bearers of the royal baldequin jostle almost to a trot in their
efforts to keep the Sacred Personality duly shaded; and then he paused
to look thoughtfully into a pool that was fretted into ceaseless
rippling laughter by the fine misty spray which was all that fell back
from the clear, strong, skyward leap of the water in the central
fountain. Was that typical of all men's efforts, he wondered? A
skyward leap impelled by individual strength; and then dispersion?
When he died--and death came early to his race--what then?
He stood absorbed while the crowd closed in behind the courtiers who
circled round him at a respectful distance. Beyond them the fun of the
fair commenced; bursts of laughter, a hum of high-pitched voices, the
tinkling of wire-stringed fiddles, the occasional blare of a conch,
with every now and again the insistent throbbing of a hand drum, and a
trilling song--
"_May the gods pity us, dreamers who dream of their godhead_"
And over all the hot yellow sunshine of an April afternoon in Northern
India.
"The King is in his mood again," remarked one of the courtiers
vexedly. He was Man Singh, the Rajput generalissimo, son of the Rajah
Bhagwan Singh who had been Akbar's first Hindoo adherent, who was
still his close friend and soon to be his relative by marriage. The
speaker was in the prime of life, and the damascened armour seen
beneath a flimsy white muslin overcoat seemed to match his proud
arrogance of bearing. The courtier to whom he spoke was of a very
different mould; small, slender, dark, with the face of a mime full of
the possibilities of tears and laughter, but full also of a supreme
intelligence which held all other things in absolute thrall. He gave a
quick glance of comprehension toward his master, then shrugged his
shoulders lightly.
"He sighs for new worlds to conquer, _Mirza-rajah_," he replied, with
a faint emphasis on the curious conglomerate title which was one of
the King's quaint imaginative efforts after cohesion in his court of
mixed Hindus and Mahommedans. "You Rajput soldiers are too swift even
for Akbar's dreams! With Bengal pacified, Guzerat gagged, Berhampur
squashed and the Deccan disturbances decadent, His Majesty
is--mayhap!--busy in contriving a new machine to turn swords into
wedding presents."
He gave an almost sinister little bow at this allusion to the coming
political marriage of the Heir-Apparent, Prince Salim to Man Singh's
cousin; a match which set the adverse factions in the court by the
ears.
Man Singh laid his hand on his sword-hilt and frowned.
"If Birbal could speak without jesting 'twere well," he said,
significantly. "Those bigoted fools"--he nodded toward a group of
long-bearded Mahommedan preachers--"may howl about heretics if they
choose, but we Rajputs know not how to take this mixed marriage
either; for in God's truth the Prince is not as the King, but an
ill-doing lout of a lad--so Akbar has no time for moods. He needs
skill."
Birbal gave another of his comprehending glances toward his master,
another of his habitual slight shrugs of the shoulder.
"Perchance he wearies of skill! The doubt will come to all of us at
times, Sir soldier, whether aught avails to check the feeblest worm
Fate sends to cross the path! But ask Abulfazl there, he stands closer
in council to Akbar than I."
There was a slight suspicion of jealousy in his tone as he turned
toward a burly, broad-faced, clean-shaven man whose expression of
sound common sense almost overlaid the high intellectuality of his
face.
"What ails the King?" he answered, and as he spoke his light brown
eyes, scarce darker than his olive skin, were on Akbar with all the
affection of a mother who glories because her son has outgrown her own
stature. "Can you not see that he fears death?"
"Death!" echoed Man Singh, hotly. "Since when? There was no fear of
death in Akbar when he, my father, and I--each guarding the other's
head--rode down that cactus lane at Sarsa when the spear points were
thick as the thorns!--nor when at Ahmedabad he sounded the _reveille_
to awaken his sleeping foes--though they outnumbered him by four to
one--because it was not regal to take them unawares--nor when----"
Abulfazl laughed, a fat chuckling laugh which suited his broad open
face: "Lo! I shall have come to thee, stalwart and true, when I run
short of incidents for my poor history of this glorious reign. Yet
none knows the Most Excellent's reckless bravery better than I. But
'tis to his dream he fears death, Man Singh,--his dream of personal
empire that is bound up with this thirst-stricken town, founded for
the heir of his body! And this fear of the force of fate comes upon
him at the Nau-roz[2] always, since both father and grandfather died
ere they were fifty; and Prince Salim----"
---------------------
[Footnote 2: New Year.]
---------------------
"Curse the young cub," broke in the Rajput angrily, "what of him now?"
"Only the old tale," replied Shaikh Abulfazl gravely, "drunk----"
"Oh! Let the young folk be----" interrupted Birbal bitterly, as he
passed on. "'Tis God gives us our sons; not we who make them. Mayhap
some of us might have found better heirs through the town crier!"
Abulfazl looked after him pityingly. "It wrings him too, with Lalla,
his son, ever in the Prince's pocket. Such things are tragedies, and I
thank heaven that my father----"
"If Abulfazl has time for gratitude to his Creator"--broke in a voice
polished to the keenest acerbity--"can he not find a better subject
for it than mere man, even though the man _be_ his father?"
Abulfazl turned in perfect good-humour on his bitterest enemy, the
rival historian Budaoni, who, as opponent-in-chief of all reforms,
still wore a beard, while his green shawl and turban showed him an
orthodox Mahommedan.
"Not so, _Mulla-sahib_," retorted the Shaikh carelessly. "I will leave
the remark as a _Shiah_[3] sin for you to chronicle in your _Sumi_[4]
fashion."
---------------------
[Footnote 3: Two opposing sects of Mahommedans.]
[Footnote 4: Two opposing sects of Mahommedans.]
---------------------
So saying, he also passed on to stand beside the King, and, as Birbal
had already done, strive to rouse him from his dreams.
"My liege!" he said, "the deputation from the English Queen----"
For an instant Akbar looked at him, resentfully; then the despotic
finger raised itself, and Abulfazl fell back to join Birbal in
failure.
From behind in the circle of the courtiers came an airy laugh.
"Will you not try, Oh! most learned! to rouse him with religion, since
politics and art have been given _conge_, or shall I, as pleasure,
fling myself into the breach?" said an overdressed noble with a
handsome evil-looking face as he bowed ornately to the group of
long-bearded Mahommedan doctors who held themselves together in
contemptuous condemnation of all things.
"Where God sends meditation, Mirza Ibrahim, He may haply send
penitence also," replied their leader, the Makhdum-ul'-mulk. "For
that, we men of God wait with what patience that we can."
"I would we could rouse him," murmured Birbal, standing apart, "the
generalissimo said true. He has need of all his skill--and yours,
Shaikh-jee."
"Mine has he ever," replied Abulfazl, simply; and it was true. No
lover was more absorbed by his mistress than he by Akbar and Akbar's
fortunes. He was obsessed by them.
So as they stood, those two faithful friends and counsellors of the
one man whom they held dearest upon earth--yet in a way unfaithful,
distrustful of each other because of unconfessed jealousy--there came
to them close at hand throbbing through the hot yellow sunshine that
seemed to throb back in rhythm, the sound of an hourglass drum, and a
high trilling voice--
"_May the gods pity us, dreamers who dream of their godhead_."
"It is Atma," muttered Birbal to himself. "What seeks the madwoman
now?" And he strode back to where on the outskirts of the circle of
courtiers some disturbance was evidently going on.
"Let her pass in an' she will," he called to the ushers, angrily.
"When will men learn that fair words fight women better than foul
ones. I will dismiss her."
"Bards of a feather flock together," sneered Budaoni, alluding to
Birbal's own minstrel birth. Abulfazl who was close behind his enemy
turned on him courteously.
"Mayhap he and my brother Faiz, Hindu and Unorthodox poets-laureate,
being disappointed of a worthy colleague from your sect _Mulla-jee_,
are seeking one--amongst women!"
There was a laugh, and Budaoni turned aside scowling, with a murmured
"May God roast him!" It was his favourite wish for the unorthodox.
Meanwhile a red dress showed through the bevy of protesting ushers and
the next moment a group of three persons was standing before Birbal.
One the woman who had sung, the other the _rebeck_ player whose fine
careworn face had shown cameo-like against her glowing colour, the
third an old man almost hidden by his big drum.
The woman was past her first youth, but she was still extraordinarily
handsome, and her dark eyes, full of some hidden thought, looked
defiantly into Birbal's.
"I am the King's bard--the King's champion," she said in a low rapid
voice, "I have come to sing to him."
Birbal bowed with a half-disdainful sweep of both hands.
"Those who know Atma Devi as the daughter--the _daughter_ only--of her
dead father, may disclaim her right of succession. Birbal does nothing
so--so unnecessary! Akbar has no need of your pedigrees to-day, madam!
The King listens to no one--not even to your servant! Let the lady
pass out again, ushers!"
For an instant Atma hesitated. Then her eyes sought the _rebeck_
player's and Birbal's followed hers instinctively. There was nothing
unusual in the musician's thin face save its excessive pallor; in that
he looked as if he had been dead for days. For the rest he was clean
shaven to his very scalp, and wore no headdress; nor much of dress
below that either. Birbal's swift downward glance paused in a moment
at something attached to a skein of greasy black silk which the man
wore, talisman fashion, about his throat.
What was it? A stone of some sort roughly smoothed to a square, and of
a dull green uneven texture like growing grass. No! it was like
leaves--like the rose leaves in a garden, and those faintly red specks
were the roses. Yes! it was a rose garden. How the perfume of it
assailed the senses, making one forget--forget--forget--
"_Oh! rose of roses is thy scent of God?
Speak rose, disclose the secret!" "Foolish clod,
Who knows discloses not what's sent of God_."
The quaint old triplet seemed afloat in the air and Atma's voice to
come from beyond something that was eternally unchanged, inevitable.
"Has the seedling no need of the root; does the flower not nurture the
fruit?" she chanted, her eyes still upon the _rebeck_ player.
Birbal looked at her, caught in the great World-Wisdom which poets see
sometimes in the simplest words.
"She says truth," he murmured to himself. "She says truth!" Then with a
light laugh he turned to Abulfazl. "Shall we let her pass? At least
she can do no harm."
"Nor any good," broke in Man Singh hotly; "and it will but strengthen
her madness! What! a woman to claim a Charan's[5] place--to give her
body to the sword?--her honour to the dust for the King's? Psha! Bid
her go back to her spinning wheel!"
---------------------
[Footnote 5: The Charan bard and champion is a hereditary office held
very sacred by the Rajputs.]
---------------------
Abulfazl smiled largely. "Lo! even Rajput manhood lives in the woman
for nine long months--none can escape from the dark life before birth.
Yea! let her pass in, Birbal--she can do no harm."
"Nor good," persisted Man Singh stoutly.
Birbal's shoulders moved once more. "I would not swear," he answered
airily, "since Akbar is not of the common herd. Go then, good mad
soul, and sing thy pedigrees, and you,"----he paused pointing at the
quaint green stone. "What call you that, musician?"
The _rebeck_ player paused also, keeping his eyes downward
submissively.
"They call it smagdarite, Excellence. It comes from Sinde."
"Sinned or no sin," echoed Birbal gaily, "the devil is in it. But 'tis
a good name. Pass on Smagdarite! Stay"--here the old man half-hidden
by his drum essayed to follow--"whom have we here? Old Deena the
drum-banger! In what vile stew of Satanstown didst spend the night,
villain?"
Thus apostrophised, Deena's comically wicked, leering, old face hid
itself completely in a salaam behind the drum, and came up again
puckered with pure mischief.
"That is a question for the virtuous Lord Chamberlain, Mirza Ibrahim,"
he replied, demurely.
The sally was greeted with a boisterous laugh, and Mirza
Ibrahim--whose fine clothes dispersed a perfect atmosphere of
musk--scowled fiercely. For Satanstown, as ultimate exile of all the
bad characters of the city was in his charge, and report had it that
he pursued his duty of inspection with more than usual assiduity.
"Sit thou here then, by Smagdarite," continued Birbal, recovering from
his laugh, "and drum from a distance, lest thou be utterly damned for
deserting honourable company. Hark! she begins!"
Atma had by this time sunk to the ground beside the King. Her flimsy
scarlet skirts curved about her like overblown poppy petals. Her dark
eyes, full of fire, were fixed on the unconscious figure so close
beside her, and, under the slow circling of her lissome forefinger the
little drum held in her left hand was beginning to give out an
indescribably mysterious sound like the first faint sobbing of air
before an organ pipe breaks into a note.
From the distance, almost unheard, came the muffled throbbing of old
Deena's drum, and the thin thread of the _rebeck_, light yet insistent
like a summer gnat; both kept to the same stern delicacy of rhythm.
The singer's voice, high and clear, rose on it almost aggressively--
Hark! and hist!
To the list
Of the kings who have died
In their pride,
To the wide,
wide,
world.
MIRUN-KHAN!
Lo! He dreamt he was King!
But he died
In his pride
To the wide,
wide,
world.
SO HIS SON SULIMAN
Dreamt the dreamings of kings
Till he died
In his pride
To the wide,
wide,
world.
SO THE DREAM WAS JEHAN'S!
And he dreamt he was king
Till he died
In his pride
To the wide,
wide,
world.
The rhythmic background broke with the singing voice into troubled
triplets, and the King's slack hands gripped in on themselves. Was he
listening?
Now the tale of the Kings who have died
In their pride
Is many, and many beside.
But the dream is the same,
So it came----
The pliant forefinger's whirling gave out a continuous boom like
distant thunder amongst hills. Deena's drum throbbed a _reveille_, the
_rebeck_ thrilled like a cicala--
TO KUMAN
And he dreamt he was King
In the wide,
wide,
world----
"Enough!" The word came swiftly as Akbar turned with a frown. "The
end, woman? The end?"
There was a pause; then from the very dust of his feet rose her reply:
"There is none to the dreaming of kings!"
"There is none--to the dreaming--of kings," he echoed slowly, and his
eyes scanned her face curiously as he raised her from the ground. "Who
art thou, woman?" he asked suddenly; then as suddenly dropped the
hands he held, and said coldly: "Give her gold for her song." But once
more a fresh feeling came to make him add: "Nay! not gold--let her
choose her own reward--what wouldst thou, sister?"
His face, grown soft as a woman's, looked sympathetically into hers;
she stood before him abashed by the quick tie that seemed to have
sprung up between them, unable to realise the chance that was hers.
"Quick step!" cried Man Singh brutally. "See you not the Most-Gracious
waits? What shall it be? Gold, fal-lals, dresses--the things for which
women sell their souls?"
She turned on him like a queen.
"The women who nurture such heroes as Rajah Man Singh mayhap so sell
them; but I----" here her recognition of opportunity swept
trivialities before it, she drew herself up to her full height and
faced both King and court, her voice ringing like a clarion.
"I claim my father's office!" she cried. "Listen, O King-of-Kings! He
gave you faithful service when you came to take the crown of India.
What to him was Hindu or Mahommedan? He was the King's herald! Akbar
was the King! His eldest son--my brother--died to save the honour of
the Rajput chief he served before you came! And little Heera--son of
his old age, begot _for you_, died ere his baby tongue had ceased to
trip in challenging the world--_for you!_ Lo! I have kissed the words
to steadiness upon his childish lips when father grew impatient! Why
was I not the son? Hid in this dustlike body lies the spirit of my
race. Is it my fault that in the dark months of my mother's womb, Fate
made me woman, as she made you man? Give me my father's office, O my
King, and if my tongue forgets one word of all my father's lore, or if
I fail in guarding the King's honour, treat me as woman then--but not
till then."
The dying fall of her words left the court amazed, almost affronted.
Here was a claim indeed! A claim foreign to the whole conservative
fabric of Eastern society--which heaven knows had already suffered
shock enough at the King's reforming hands!
But Akbar took no heed of the looks around him; he was deep in that
problem of Sex which was one of the many to claim his quick interest
at all times.
"The spirit of thy race is in thee, sure enough, O sister," he said
slowly. "Manhood is in the woman, as womanhood is in the man--do I not
know the latter to my cost? So take thy gift. Thou art the King's
Charan from this day. But hearken! If thou failest in thy task, I
treat thee not as woman--but as man."
He turned away, dismissing her with an autocratic wave from sight,
even from thought. "Ushers!" he went on, raising his voice in command,
"Sound the advance! I go. And my Lord Chamberlain, bid the travelling
Englishmen attend me in the Diwani-Khas. Abul! your arm; I would speak
with you about this queen--this woman who has stretched her hand out
over the seas to meet mine." He gave a quick joyous laugh and
stretched out his own--the true Eastern hand, small, fine, but with a
grip as of wrought iron in its slender, flexible fingers. "By God and
his prophets I seem to feel it here--a woman's hand close clasped to
mine."
A fanfaronade of trumpets, shawms, and drums drowned his words, as
with a waving of plumes, a blinding glitter of gold and jewels, the
royal cortege of Akbar the Magnificent swept on its way.
"One moment!" cried Birbal to Man Singh who awaited him impatiently,
"I must find Smagdarite first."
But both the _rebeck_ player and Atma Devi had gone. Only old Deena
remained drumming softly; a fitting accompaniment to the murmurs which
rose around him, as the immediate _entourage_ of the King disappeared.
"Yet one more insult to Islam," muttered the Makhdum-ul'-mulk spitting
fiercely ere he spoke.
"And to honest men!" asserted a jealous old Turk who was suspicioned
of having drowned more than one young wife on the sly, "for what is
woman but ultimate deceit and guile?"
"What?" echoed one whose calling could best be described as
court-pandar; "Why a means for man's making money withal; though the
King's virtue steals many a penny out of my pocket. I tell you he is
no King--and no man. Would either spend his moneys on duty instead of
pleasure?"
Ghiass Beg, the Lord High Treasurer, laughed uneasily. "The money goes
nevertheless. Todar Mull as Finance Minister is for ever cutting down
state revenues, and the King's private charities----"
"To say nothing of the civil list for five thousand women within the
palace walls at whom he never looks," put in Mirza Ibrahim
sarcastically.
"Five thousand and one, my friend," laughed a man with a sinister
face, "since there will be a pension now for Atma Devi, King's Charan,
unless Mirza Ibrahim prefers to provide for her himself. I caught a
lewd eye appraising her many charms."
The Lord Chamberlain frowned. "I was but following the lead of
Khodadad Khan, who hath the quickest sight of any in India for a
pretty woman."
"King's pensioners belong to the King," replied Khodadad of the
sinister face, "and I meddle not with Majesty."
"So Majesty meddles not with me," remarked Ghiass Beg, "and leaves me
my quail[6] curry and my saffron _pillau_, it is welcome to starve an'
it likes on one meal of pease-porridge a day!"
---------------------
[Footnote 6: Favourite supper dishes on account of their supposed
qualities.]
---------------------
And as he rolled off, good-natured, hospitable, he felt in the heart
which lay beneath his fat stomach a pang of regret that the King, in
so many ways a prince of good fellows, the best shot, the best rider,
the best polo player, the best all-round man and sportsman in his
kingdom, should be so marvellously out of touch with his court.
But the princes, his sons, were, thank heaven, different!