_The world-revealing cup of the King Jamsheed
Counselled the King in his pleasures and in his need_.
--Firdusi.
The Prince Salim, despite all efforts of his friends, accepted his
father's reprimand in dutiful fashion. Truly Akbar--may he be
accursed!--hath a very devil of persuasion in him for those he
loves."--The scribe's hand paused in its swift swooping over the
Persian curves, and he looked up for an instant with all the evil of
his handsome face concentrated into an expression of bitterest
antagonism. Then he turned his head, listening ere he went on with his
news-letter.
"So far little has been gained. Yet the poison works. The prince,
grown older, than his brothers--who are themselves coming on for
rebellion--resents this leading, as of a young colt, and will ere long
assert himself. Already he is fit for intrigue; by and by it may be
for murder. And Akbar once gone--by what means God knows!--Salim will
be our tool. Thus the dead to-day brings forth another to-day, and so
we (more especially this Mote-speck-in-the-Light, Dalil, of the Kingly
House, Tarkhan, who waits in unmerited exile for his Lord's service
expectant of his Lord's recall) hope, knowing that all God's strength
dwells not in one man's body. Meanwhile the King's action in this
matter hath stirred up the whole city. Ere noon Jamal-ud-din left,
accompanied by a goodly gathering of his clan all incensed at the
sentence of exile passed on their captain. He hath gone to his
relatives of Barha and will doubtless rouse them to resistance. But
the jade Siyah Yamin hath done more for our cause than any, since I
have but now returned from seeing her leave-taking; for the baggage
hath elected to follow her lawful spouse. Truly 'tis said 'A torn ear
clamours for more earring!' Half the town were at the heels of her
palanquin wherein she sate veiled like any cupola of chastity, but
full of an evil tongue. Truly it was a sight to set pumpkins a-sinking
and mill-stones a-floating, since none knew what to make of it, with
the light men gathering up the flowers she flung, and the light women
praising her in jest for her fidelity. But it hath done our cause good
service, and the King may repent him of his virtue ere long. Thus
remaineth matters at this present. Whilst I, Dalil, knowing that
straight fingers hold naught, crook mine in the service of the Head of
my House, Mirza Jani Beg, _looking for reward_. This goes by the hand
of Sufardar, envoy, whom I await this day past, but----"
In the act of writing the words "who comes not" the scribe paused
again. This time there was no doubt of a sound presaging interruption,
and the writer, thrusting the papers under a fold of his embroidered
shawl took up a lute which lay beside him, and leaning back amongst
the scented cushions began to strum a love song and sing in a high
tenor voice:
Oh! Love! I am caught in the snare
Of the scented net of her hair
Oh! Love! I am stricken dead
With hunger for her, and with drouth
Her foot is upon my head
Would my kisses were on her mouth.
"A merchant selling essence of rose by my Lord's orders," said an
obsequious dwarf extravagantly dressed; one of the smartest
deformities in fact to be found in the service of the young nobility
of the court. His cunning face, full of almost malignant
comprehension, had been overlaid with servile admiration as he had
waited for the song to end.
"Let him enter," came the yawning reply, "and, Yahed, close the doors
on us. The lamp flickers in the evening wind!"
The song went on lazily--
Oh! Love! I am held by the power
Of her bare brown bosom-flower
Oh! Love! I am lost in the mesh!
In the very thought of a sip
At the nectar of soft warm flesh
And the touch of her lip.
Then the door closed, and he turned swiftly on the figure which had
entered.
"So, at last! I have been awaiting thee these four-and-twenty hours.
And wherefore was there no due notice of arrival? Lo! my liver
dissolved when the arch-heretic, Abul, spoke at the King's audience of
an envoy from Sinde. For aught I knew Jani Beg might have failed to
secure the crown. It was a relief to see thy face--but how came all
this Sufardar?"
He spoke as one having authority, but the supposed merchant answered
sulkily as he unwound his close-draped shawl, so disclosing, in truth,
the slender spareness and the high pallid features of the envoy from
Sinde.
"If thou canst tell me how it came about, Oh! Dalil Tarkhan of the
House of Kings," he said, "thou knowest more than I, the companion of
thy youth; since I know naught. A blank as of death lies behind me
from the time we encamped at noon yesterday, five miles beyond the
city."
The whilom scribe looked cynically at the dull opium-drugged eyes.
"A blank!" he echoed. "How much of the Dream-compeller goes to make
that for thee now a days, Oh! Sufar?"
Those dulled eyes lit up with sudden fire. "No more, I swear to God,
than the noon-day pellet of twelve years agone. Thou knowest the old
Tuglak tombs about Biggaya's Serai? The tents were late and it was
hot, so I slept in one of them----"
"Curse thee! Sleep where thou willst," interrupted his companion
impatiently, "but give me the packet. I must answer it, if answer be
required." He held out his hand, scented, manicured, be-ringed like
any modern lady's.
The envoy's face showed uneasiness. "If thou wouldst listen, thou
wouldst learn," he said vexedly. "I slept and dreamed. Then I woke;
but it was to to-day, not to yesterday."
"But thou wast at the Audience--for I saw thee! Aye! and I wondered
what Birbal, the heretic pig, had to say to thee as he kept the King
waiting."
The envoy shook his head slowly. "It is a blank; and hearken, _Mirza
sahib_, the packet hath gone!"
"Gone!" echoed the other again, his face paling at the thought of
Akbar's ever-swift punishment for treason. "Thou hast lost the letter;
and this tale of forgetfulness----"
The envoy from Sinde leant forward and laid one warning finger,
slender, almost emaciated, on his companion's well-kept hand. "'Tis no
tale, but a mystery. The packet was ever in my girdle cloth, and left
not my side day nor night. None knew of it. And I remember nothing of
my sleep, except my dream." He shivered and looked round
apprehensively. "It was a dream of nigh thirteen years ago--of--of a
rose-garden, _Mirza Dalil!_ Oh! thou mayst laugh, but I curse the day
that ever I took a part in that damned work of thine. It comes between
me and my prayers."
Mirza Dalil laughed airily. "It comes not between me and mine; but
then I am Tarkhan. There must be nine deadly sins ere even earthly
punishment be thought of, and I am but at my seventh; or stay, is it
eighth? Truly I know not and it matters not. But this tale of
thine--What says thy retinue?"
The envoy's face fell.
"They say I woke as ever, and gave the orders for the audience but I
remember naught, save----"
"Turn thy forgetfulness toward rose-gardens, opium-eater!" interrupted
the man he called Dalil sternly. "Have I not ever told thee thou wert
but as a beast to give up the heavenly dreams of hemp for the clogging
sleep of the poppy. Thou wert drunk, that is all--or hast been since.
So remembrance is left with the drug. As for the packet--thou hast
lost--or sold it. Lucky for me, no names come from Sinde, and none
here know me save as Khodadad--Khodadad, the gift of God, the
companion of princes, the chamberlain of pleasures to the
Heir-Apparent! Khodadad adventurer, made Tarkhan on the battlefield by
the King's brother, the rebel of Kabul, because, being above myself
with hemp, I saved his life! _Made_ Tarkhan, thou prophet of God! and
I a Tarkhan by birth. Still," he continued, checking himself in his
reckless mirth, "thou art in luck. But mark me, if by this loss
suspicion comes--aye! even a suspicion that Khodadad is of the Kingly
House (younger brother, aye! even though he be a bastard, of the fool
Payandar who went mad over the rose-garden) thy life is not worth
much. Go therefore. Here is thy packet." He drew out the paper he had
written, set the seal he wore on his first finger to it, folded it
neatly, then continued with an evil smile, "Mind I say naught in it
against thee. Thou mightest _lose_ the letter if I did. But I will see
thou comest not with messages again."
"Lo! that will I not," muttered the envoy, wrapping his shawl round
him as before. "This very sight of thee recalls the rose-garden--I
seem to hear her piteous cries----"
Khodadad lay back amongst his cushions and laughed.
"Thou art far gone in opium, Sufardar!" he said chuckling. "Ere long
thou wilt see the devil clutching thee, for sure! God's prophet, man,
hadst heard as many maidens' screechings as I!" He was silent but
smiling, evidently in pursuit of memory, and when the envoy had gone
he lay back among those scented cushions and allowed himself a certain
latitude of remembrance. At five-and-thirty there were few experiences
of which he had no cognizance; but it needed many experiences to leave
a mark on a Tarkhan! As he lounged lazily the soft night air fanning
his perfumed hair, his smooth yellow skin oily with unguents, every
atom of his body and soul surcharged with sensuality, there yet came
to him an uprush of almost wild pride in his race, in the honours, the
privileges which distinguished it even from the common herd of
princedom. A Barlas Tarkhan! Barlas the brave! Master of seven
distinctions in procession or audience. Free of every part of a king's
palace by night and day! Aye and more! Having the right to drink with
the King! So that when the Royal cup was handed from the right, the
Tarkhan's cup was handed from the left. And still more. With the right
to set his seal to all royal orders, above the King's seal!
Unpunishable too--until the uttermost. And then? If Mirza Dalil's face
grew gray as he thought of that uttermost assize, it was not
altogether in fear, since there are some things pertaining to race
which bring with them an almost passionate acquiescence even in
terror; and this thought of the final verdict of his peers, to be
carried out by those peers with many ceremonials, had in it an element
of pride.
Besides, here, in a far country away from those peers, there was small
danger of the Silent Session being held.
So he looked out over the vast shadows of the town, wondering vaguely
how he should fill up the night with iniquities. He would have an
excellent companion--which was half the battle--since he had been
asked to sup with Mirza Ibrahim, the Lord Chamberlain. There would be
business first, no doubt, due to the Heir-Apparent's childish
knuckling under, since some new intrigue must be set on foot to weaken
Akbar's authority; but once that was over Ibrahim might be counted on
to make the hours hum. So he clapped his hands for the tiremen and
fresh dressing, and shaving, and scenting; then, after due dallying
with cosmetics and dyes, set off--the very pink of fashion--in his
gilded litter in which he lay lazily fanned with a peacock's feather
fan by a tiny boy who sate at his feet dressed in a girl's tinsel-set
garments, his hair braided on his forehead in the virginal plaits.
As he was borne through the silent streets with running torches beside
the ambling porters, a host of pipe-bearers, toothpick holders,
keepers of aphrodisaical pills, and general panderers trotting behind
him, he was Eastern vice personified; soft, perfumed, relentless.
So he disappeared into the Palace and the star-lit world was quit of
him for a time; for the night was spangled beyond belief. Spangled
with myriads of stars, not white as in northern climes, but holding in
their shine faint hints of rose, and green, and blue, and amber.
Against the clear obscure, the terraced town showed like some vast
fort, turreted, battlemented, from which one by one the twinkling
lights disappeared as the hours of the night wore on; until at last
only a few lay sparsely about its feet circling the outcast colony of
Satanstown where, by Akbar's orders, vice dwelt and turned darkness
into day. Above, all was shadow, save for one light high up on the
palace whose outline struck firm against the velvet of the sky. It
shone from Akbar's balcony; Akbar who after his usual habit watched
while his subjects slept. To-night, however, something more than mere
meditation absorbed him, as he sate, girt about the middle of his
loose, white, woollen garment like some Franciscan monk. His face
dark, aquiline, not so much ascetic as strenuous, was bent on William
Leedes, the English jeweller, as he weighed in his balance the great
uncut diamond from the King's turban.
The gold and gemmed setting from which it had been removed lay on the
floor, and the irregularly ovoid stone itself gave out flickering
brightnesses as it oscillated gently under the light of the seven
branched golden cresset-stand in the alcove. Beneath this stand,
backed partly by the tendril-inlaid curves of agate and chalcedony,
lapis-lazuli and cornelian upon the marble wall, and partly by the
pearl embroidered yellow satin cushions amongst which the King
reclined, was a beautifully embossed silver clepsydre, or water clock,
in which the floating bowl was fashioned in enamel like a sacred
lotus; and beside this stood the marvellous censer, a triumph of
goldsmith's and jeweller's art from which day and night arose the
scented smoke which Akbar loved. Beyond, through the arches of the
balcony, lay the night, velvety dark.
"Five hundred and sixty carats," murmured William Leedes to himself,
"the largest known diamond in this world!--and of a most elegant
water; but----" He looked up, his face full of denial. "It would
mayhap lose half its weight in the cutting, great King," he said
sharply, "and--God knows in His grace but we might cut out the King's
Luck thereby."
He looked as if for support to the two men who stood behind him. They
were Rajah Birbal and Shaik Abulfazl. The latter, seeing his master
frown, interrupted the jeweller in hasty excuse.
"I but told him, Most Exalted, that the populace hold the stone a
talisman; and sure at all times the luck of the Most Excellent has
been stupendous. Still, we of the enlightened give praise where praise
is due and not to stocks and stones."
Birbal shrugged his shoulders. "Say, rather, Shaikjee," he remarked
urbanely, "that the wise see an Eternal cause even in stocks and
stones."
The eyes of those two counsellors of the King were on each other in
rivalry; but the King himself bent forward to touch the diamond with
one pliant finger, and a faint fear showed in his face. Then he leant
back once more.
"Luck is of God," he said, "and this stone----" he paused beset by
recollections of the years he had worn it--ever since as a boy of
three he had made his way safely through the great Snow-land.
"The stone, sire," put in William Leedes, firmly, "is as God made it.
'Tis well to remember that----"
He was looking at the King and the King's eyes were on his; for the
time the whole of the rest of the world was empty for them both.
"Aye! But what of that He wishes it to be? What of that, sir
jeweller?" came the swift answer, "therein lies kingcraft, to see what
His will needs--and give it."
William Leedes bowed silently and there was a pause; then bluntly,
suddenly, he said, "Yet, Great King, would I rather have naught to do
with the cutting thereof."
In an instant Akbar's eyes flashed fire.
"Thou hast not, slave! 'Tis I who order it. Birbal! to thy charge the
arrangements. The room next Diswunt the painter's, in the Court of
Labour, is vacant. See it prepared. Double the guards if necessary--to
thee I leave--the King's Luck."
A faint smile came to his face, but Birbal and Abulfazl looked at each
other, and finally the latter spoke.
"This dust-like one," he said tentatively and yet with firmness,
"presumes not to offer wisdom to its fount; but to the minds of the
Most Exalted's devoted slaves it seems as if to the populace, there
might be danger in Royalty appearing without the talisman to which all
have looked as security for the King's success in all ways. Therefore
if Majesty _will_ ordain the cutting of the Eastern gem in Western
fashion, let it at least condescend to wear in its place--until the
gem return--a veritable Mountain of Light doubtless a substitute.
Pooroo, the false jewel maker, who can deceive all but a diamond
itself, hath the cast of the King's Luck, made when the Most Exalted
changed the setting thereof. Let him fashion a double to deceive----"
"Deceive?" came Akbar's voice with a note of affectionate reproach in
it, "deceive whom? Fate or the people? Lo! Abulfazl! to what end?
Since if the tale _be not true_ that luck lies in the stone, what need
to regard it? And if it _be true_, how shall the false gem hoodwink
God?"
He raised himself as he spoke, holding the diamond in his palm as an
orb.
"Luck!" he said dreamily, "thou art mine to-night; and to-morrow is
Fate's! Go!"
He gave the Eastern wave of dismissal and sank back amongst his
cushions; sank back with more than usual lassitude, for the day had
left him weary. It was no small thing to one of his temperament to
quarrel with his son, his heir. It was a still greater thing to
forgive him causelessly.
Therein lay the sting. The causelessness of the forgiveness, the lack
of any security against a recurrence of the offence. So, as he thought
of this, with a rush came back the memory of many a similar scene, and
his fingers clasped in upon themselves as the disappointment ate into
his very soul. Surely he had a right to expect more of Fate?--he who
had waited so long, so patiently for an heir--since in those long
years of waiting the very thought of mere sonship had been forgotten
in the heirship. Yes, even now, Love seemed too trivial to count
against Empire! Yet it was Love which had prompted forgiveness. Love
of what?--what? Of himself surely--the love which claimed to live in
his son--to live on....
"Shall I bid the Reader of Wisdom to the Wise resume his task," came
Birbal's voice. Noting the King's weariness he had lingered behind the
others.
The King started, then looked round cheerfully. "Not to-night, friend;
I have food for thought, and if I lack more--it waits below," he said,
and leaning forward, rested his arm on the marble balustrade of the
balcony, so pointed downward into the void darkness of the night.
Through it like a little line of light fading into nothingness, ran
the signal string attached to the quaint contrivance by which the King
could secure, when the mood seized him, the presence of an opponent
for some midnight argument. One touch at the cord and through the
darkness the disputant waiting below, would by an ingenious system of
counterpoise rise in a domed dhooli to the level of the balcony. Akbar
laid his finger on the tense string, then once more looked back
suddenly into Birbal's face.
"Ah! friend!" he said bitterly. "Could we but sound the Great Darkness
as I can sound this little night, certain that my need will bring some
sage, or fool, or knave, to keep Jalal-ud-din Mahomed Akbar, Defender
of the Faith, from wearying for sleep! But from the great Depths there
comes no answer. The mystery is unfathomable--man's reason wanders
bewildered in the streets of the City of God."
His voice sank in silence; then yet once again, he roused himself.
"Farewell, friend, for the night--the night that will bring
to-morrow--Ye Gods! How will it be when the Night of Death closes
in--on one of us?"
Birbal sank to his knees and touched his master's feet with his
forehead. He had no other answer; so silently he passed through the
great wadded curtains of gold tissue which separated the alcove from
the rest of the room, leaving the King alone, lost in thought.
The problem of a future life had pressed on him all his days, and yet,
he told himself as he sate thinking, the fact had not interfered with
his enjoyment of the present one. Verily he had drunk of the cup of
life to the dregs. His vitality had spared neither himself nor his
world.
The memory of man is curiously creative. Out of the welter of
remembrance it chooses this and that in obedience to no law, but
arbitrarily, whimsically. It passes by unseen the peaks of past
passion, and makes mountains of the merest mole-hill of caprice.
So, as Akbar looked back over his life, he found many a triviality
standing out as clear, as untouched by Time, as many a tragedy, many a
palpable turning point in his career.
The first snow he ever saw? The sight came back to him as if he had
seen it yesterday, though five-and-forty years had passed since that
perilous journey from Kandahar to Kabul in charge of his foster-nurse
Anagah. Dear Anagah! How he had loved her! More, in a way, than he had
loved his absent, stately mother; but he had vague recollections of
that quaint meeting with the latter after three long years of
separation, when his father, as a joke, had brought him--a little
lad-ling of six--into a great circle of unveiled women and bidden him
to choose a mother for himself.
He had chosen right, but the very recollection of his choice had gone.
All he remembered was quick clasping arms and a kiss--surely the
sweetest kiss of his life.
The sweetest? No!
That (even after five-and-twenty years the horror, the despair of it
seemed to overwhelm him again) had been the last passion-fraught
kiss he had given to--to a murderer--to Adham! Adham his foster
brother--his playmate Adham, whom he loved, whom he trusted.
Oh! God! the tragedy of it! Why did such things come into this little
trivial life?
Yet it was inevitable. If Adham were to come to him now as he had done
that day; reckless, defiant, presuming on his position, boasting of
the foul murder of an old man whom he conceived to be his enemy, the
same swift justice must follow.
The beads of sweat started to Akbar's brow as he remembered the sudden
grip of his own strong young arms, the relentless forcing backward to
the parapet's edge, and then--before the final fling--that kiss!
And thereinafter silence. No! not silence--tears! Anagah--dear
Anagah's tears. She had died of a broken heart because of her son's
death--died without one word of forgiveness for the doer of justice.
Yet he did not regret the deed, though he had always, even as a boy,
been tender of life.
"I will fight a whole enemy, I will not slay a wounded one."
The very words of his refusal when his tutor had bidden him whet his
maiden sword on the rebel Hemu came back to him, and led him on to
remembrance of the day when this feeling for the sanctity of life had
risen in him not toward man only but toward all creatures. That was a
later memory, and the scene reproduced itself before his mind's eye
complete in every detail.
The long laborious encircling of game drawing to its close--the
opposing ends of the great arc of thousands upon thousands of men who
for two days had been sweeping across the country driving all wild
things before them, were narrowing, closing in--and he, the man called
King, was watching, luxuriously posted, his court about him, for his
first shot.
And then? Then close beside him a _chinkara_ fawn, looking at him with
great soft dim eyes, startled, but not afraid!
"His Majesty was seized suddenly with an extraordinary access of rage
such as none had ever seen the like in him before, and the _battue_
was given up; nor has he since, so pursued game, but prefers to go out
alone and spend hours in arduous chase."
That is how his quick, almost despairing remorse, regret, pity, anger
with himself had appeared to the outside multitude. To him it had been
a crisis in his life; one of the few things which had left an
indelible mark on his mind.
Aye! few things. For love had not touched him as, for instance, it had
touched his grandfather.
"To-night at midnight after three long years, I met Maham again."
Babar had set that down in his memoirs, after--according to Aunt
Rosebody's tale--he had run out on foot from the palace on hearing of
the near approach of the long expected caravan from Kabul and met his
dearest dear six miles out along the road. Even his father's more
passionate love for the fourteen year old Hamida, seen when Humayon
was five and thirty, had not been his. If it had been, perhaps his
sons might have been different!
And so in an instant, overwhelmingly, Akbar was back in the old dreary
disappointment; the old defiance of fate following fast on its heels.
The boy would do well enough! Even if some things passed, even if
ideals had to go, what then? The dynasty would remain. He and his and
the City of Victory he had built with such high hopes should endure
for ever, even if churlish Nature denied them a cup of cold water.
For ever! For ever! With the words came back the old puzzle. Oh! If he
could only see, only know!
He sate staring fixedly, abstractedly, at the clear translucence of
the diamond which he still held in the palm of his left hand, while
his right rested on the marble balustrade close to the summoning
string which dived into the depths below.
So after a while he seemed to sleep, for his muscles relaxed and the
right hand slipped, to hang over into the darkness, whence a faint
sound as of metal on metal rose waveringly, followed almost
immediately by the monotonous burr of a rope passing over pulleys.
It did not rouse the King, though it sent Birbal, who was lingering
beyond the wadded curtain, to peer through it stealthily, curious to
see what antagonist in argument the King had summoned.
Beyond the arched openings of the balcony, the domed roof of the
swinging dhooli rose into sight, and a moment afterward its occupant
laid a thin hand on the balustrade steadying himself to arrest.
Despite the high-peaked, white, woollen cap, the white, woollen robe
of a Sufi ecstatic which the figure wore, Birbal's recognition of the
face was instant, complete.
"Smagdarite!" he exclaimed.
The newcomer held his finger to his lip, but his eyes were on the
King. "Hush!" he whispered, "See, he dreams. The diamond hath found
him, and he knows himself."
Something in the man's tone sent a thrill through his hearer, and his
eyes followed the lead given them swiftly.
Akbar did not move. He leant amongst the cushions, gazing at the
diamond, but seeing it not; for the veil had fallen from the Unknown
and lay hiding the Known.
"What doest thou mean--mountebank!" whispered Birbal in return, his
own voice sounding strange to his ears as he stepped closer, bending
over the King. "He doth but doze. Wake, my liege, wake!"
The other's fine fingers were on his wrist, gripping it hard.
"At thy peril! though, mayhap, thou couldst not wake him if thou
wouldst. Lo! Birbal! Philosopher! learned beyond most! seest thou not
that the man sleeps indeed! Hast thou not heard, hast thou not read of
the death in life whereby the soul, set free, wanders at will, not in
Time, but in Eternity? So wanders Akbar now! He is not here--he is in
the future."
Birbal paled despite his disbelief.
"Who art thou, man of many faces," he gasped, "and how earnest thou
here?"
"He summoned me," replied the Sufi solemnly. "Wherefore God knows. As
for me, I am the Wayfarer of Life. What I have learned I have learned.
And this"--he pointed to the dreaming figure--"I know, that if my lord
desires to hear the future he has but to ask this sleeping soul. The
Self which lurks ever behind these trivial selves of ours will tell
him."
For an instant Birbal hesitated. Beset by curiosity as he was,
something in him cried aloud not to know; for, agnostic at heart,
doubter to the very core, he knew already. Knew that all his master's
dreams were but dreams; that like all other things in heaven and earth
they must pass. Then came the thought that the forewarned are
forearmed, and he knelt at that master's feet.
"Great King," he whispered, "tell us what is seen?"
There was no answer, and on the silence the Sufi's voice rose quiet,
but compelling.
"Oh! Self-behind-the-Self, speak! What of the future? Is Jalal-ud-din
Mahomed Akbar there, as King?"
There was no pause; the reply rang immediate, resonant.
"He is not there and yet his work remains, to run, a glittering warp
among the woof. See! how the westering sun turns all to gold--gilt
that is pinchbeck of all baser metals.
"The land is thick with little crooked lines, but Akbar's roads were
measured straight to give an evening rest to tired travellers. He is
not there, but I--who lived in him--I linger still in Justice, Mercy,
Truth. Sons of his soul are these, sons of his love, not of his mortal
body--Oh! Salim! Salim----!"
The pause was eloquent of sudden personal distress, the clear dreaming
eyes clouded and there was silence. Then hurriedly, disconnectedly,
the voice took up its tale.
"What was the thought which racked me to the soul? Something I have
forgotten utterly."
So once more came silence while those two watchers waited.
"Hush!" whispered the Wayfarer, signing back the fresh questioning
which trembled on Birbal's lips, "he speaks again!"
The King's head had drooped as if to deeper sleep, for his voice lost
its resonance and seemed to come from very far away.
"And they too--in the years they shall forget. Their dream of empire
shall die as mine; and so we Twain, soul-welded into soul, shall pass,
shall live forgetting, unforgotten ('the dreaming of a King can never
die'). And all their faults shall fall from them. Ah God! The cry of
little children, the wail of murdered women in my palace walls--do ye
not hear them, aliens! Lo! I swear, such were not raised while Akbar
reigned as King. Yet even this shall pass to peace, to rest--to
greater ease--more gold--more luxury.
"Oh! subjects of Akbar! arouse ye! Wake! Life is not comfort! there is
that beyond which India always sought, for which she seeks. This is no
land of golden sunsetting--it is the land of coming dawn, of light in
which to search for Truth unceasingly.
"What do they say arousing me from sleep? 'They wait me in the House
of Argument?'
"Ah! well! I go, though it avails us not! India is Akbar's to the end
of Time--like him it knows not and it fain would know, the secret of
its birth and of its death. What are the words thou soughtest for in
the years--Akbar? His son? I see them not! I only see the Self that
knows, that sees, that hears, the everlasting Truth behind Life's lie.
"The rest I have forgotten."
The voice sank in silence, the head to deeper sleep, and the left hand
slacking its grip dropped nerveless on the knee, so that the shining
orb it had held rolled from it like a giant dewdrop until it found a
resting place at Akbar's feet.
Birbal with a little cry caught at the King's Luck.
"Take it back! Oh, Master, take it back!" he whispered, laying it once
more softly in the King's empty palm. "Hold fast to thyself. Lo! the
whole world equals not Jalal-ud-din Mahomed Akbar."
Then in a perfect passion of resentment he turned to the Wayfarer. But
in those few seconds the latter's hold upon the balustrade had been
withdrawn, the counterpoise had reasserted itself, and Birbal peering
out over the balcony could see the dome of the dhooli disappearing in
its downward course of darkness.
To slip through the wadded curtain and make his way to the swinging
station at the foot of the wall was but the work of a minute or so.
Yet he was too late. The newly arrived Sufi from Ispahan, the yawning
attendants declared, had had his interview and gone--none knew
whither.
The east was all flushed with rose-leaf clouds when Akbar awoke and
smiled to find Birbal wrapped in his shawl watching him with curious,
doubtful eyes.
Would the King remember? That was the question.
"Lo! friend," he said affectionately. "So may I wake in Paradise after
a dreamless sleep and find thee there."