_Opportunity flies, O brother.
As the clouds that quickly pass.
Make use of it now, for another
Will never be yours, Alas!_
--Hafiz.
"Birbal! Lo! It is always Birbal. May God's curse light on him for an
infidel!"
Prince Salim's young, sullen face lowered gloomily, he flung aside the
half-tasted sweetmeat he had taken from the golden basket which was
always held within his reach by a deaf and dumb slave.
"Ameen!" murmured Mirza Ibrahim piously.
Khodadad who in the _petit comite_ of the Heir-Apparent's innermost
circle of friends was enjoying the newly imported luxury of smoking,
puffed a cloud into the scented air, smiled, bowed gravely; finally
yawned. In truth the Prince wearied him not a little with his childish
petulance, his hasty resentments, his invariable failure to take
action; for he had just enough of his father in him to desire power,
to feel aggrieved at his own subordinate position, yet not sufficient
to make him set his desire above comfort, even above family affection.
They managed such matters better in Sinde. There, since time
immemorial, fathers had killed superfluous sons, sons had killed a
superfluous father, and brother removed brother without ridiculous
reference to relationship.
Khodadad looked at the Heir-Apparent negligently through a blown ring
of tobacco smoke and appraised him critically. In a way, it was true,
this great lout of a lad formed the most convenient nucleus round
which conspiracy against the King might gather, since he would carry
with him the sympathy of the Orthodox, that is, of at least two-thirds
of the court.
But if he would not move he must be left behind, and conspiracy must
go on without him. It was nothing to Sinde who sate on the throne of
India, so it were not Akbar with his strong hand on the throat of all
rulers who chose to rule in the good old fashion. If Salim could be
squared well and good, Sinde would help him to his own--on condition.
But if not? Khodadad's sinister face grew more sinister.
"That ended it anyhow," continued Mirza Ibrahim who was recounting the
events of the morning; for the Prince was a late riser and seldom
attended audience. "His Majesty appealed to the infidel, who was
backed, of course, by other idolaters such as Man Singh."
Prince Salim shot a savage glance at the speaker. "Have a care, fool,"
he cried, "Man Singh will be of my house when I am married."
Mirza Ibrahim spread out his hands in apology. "This slave's tongue
slipped over the tangled knot of matrimony," he replied suavely. "But
as I say, the King, forwarded by Birbal and others of his kidney began
to inquire, the firebrand of a madwoman--she was a picture for looks
as she stood breathing defiance--by the prophet! I envied the idolater
his hold upon her!--began on childish tears, and ere one could cry
rotten fruit there was Siyah Yamin, true daughter of the devil,
outraging everybody and making each man's skin thrill to her dancing
feet--even, I dare swear, the King your father's, if he be human
enough for such frailty!"
Prince Salim gloomed round from another sweetmeat.
"Some men stand above humanity, Sir Chamberlain," he said sullenly,
"as some who call themselves men sit below monkeys."
Mirza Ibrahim lifted his eyebrows in courtly surprise, bowed, and went
on undisturbed. "In truth the jade was superb; so they carried her
back shoulder-high to Satanstown, where half the young blades still
linger, hoping for a smile. But not I. The madwoman is my quarry!
Strange one can look fifty times at a woman and only fancy her the
fifty-first."
He spoke calmly as one who took his _amours_ rationally.
"And the Syedan? What said they?" asked the Prince.
"What could they say, with that dancing daughter of the devil all
unveiled. In God's truth they breathed the more free, knowing
themselves rid of the necessity for, sooner or later, sewing her into
a sack and committing her and their honour to the silent bottom of the
nearest river."
Khodadad laughed suddenly, immoderately. "It will be a jest to hear
the tale of how the virtuous mothers of Barha received the Darling of
the Town as daughter-in-law! Let us appoint a time for it! What say
you, my Prince?"
Salim frowned his silence; he was in a virtuous mood that morning,
having as yet hardly recovered his rebellion after the check his
father had given to it.
Ibrahim looked at Khodadad with a covert sneer, and took up
provocation.
"The Most Illustrious Prince had better ask of Birbal what the Syedan
said or what Akbar did; since he, only, was present at the secret
interview."
Prince Salim burst out with an oath, "Curse Birbal! I would to God the
jesting hound were dead!"
Khodadad's evil face came up alert, eager from his smoke-wreaths. "Is
that, in truth, the wish of--of the Most Excellent the Heir-Apparent
to the throne of India?" he asked, and there was something in his
steady stare which made Salim shift his eyes evasively.
"What good were death," he grumbled. "'Twould but make him and his
advice grow in grace with my father, as do all folk who die in
sanctity. If thou couldst kill the King's trust in him, that would be
different."
"It, also, might be compassed," suggested Khodadad suavely; but once
more Salim said nothing. Ibrahim concealed a yawn by putting a scented
sweatmeat into the cavern of his mouth, then proceeded with his daily
task of poisoning the Prince's mind against authority.
"Yet, seeing that our gracious King Akbar gives up his Luck--as folk
say he hath--to the infidel, Birbal's wisdom may yet be needed, so,
'twere a pity----"
"His Luck? What mean you?" asked the Prince quickly.
Khodadad shrugged his shoulders lightly. "The diamond, Most Noble, was
not in the kingly turban at the audience, and folk say--with what
truth I know not--that it hath gone to the English jeweller to be cut
Western fashion."
Salim's heavy face became vital in an instant with a curious mixture
of anger and fear. "Gone!" he echoed. "My father has no right!--it is
mine to wear also when I am King. I tell thee 'tis an heirloom of
luck----"
"Mayhap the luck will not be cut out of it, mayhap it is but talk
after all," put in Ibrahim deftly, diminishing the immediate wound, so
that its venom might have time to work. "Remember the saying: 'The
truth none heed; lies are the world's creed.' Time enough for trouble
when your turn comes; meanwhile let us sing!"
He let his hand stray idly to the strings of the latest fashionable
instrument which stood by his side. It was a sort of guitar, shaped
like a peacock, real feathers being let into the frets to form a tail.
Nothing on earth is hidden; in the field
The little buds of ruby or of pearl
Burst into flowers so tinted, and the blaze
Of diamonds in hard marble heart concealed
Waits for Time's touch on all things to unfurl
Their stony shroud, and give them back the rays
In which gems glisten as they were always.
The tinkle of the _satara_, and the high trilling voice filled the
quaint arches of the building in which the Prince lounged idly,
surrounded by all the luxuries of young and sensual life.
It was the Panch-Mahal, or Five Palaces, that puzzle to archaeologists
of to-day, few of whom seem to know that it was built as a playground
for Akbar's long-looked-for, eagerly-loved heir to many hopes. Here
from sun or storm alike, shelter could be found; shelter that could
bring with it no sense of being cribbed, cabined, or confined, since
in these four column-supported and arcaded platforms, each
superimposed on the next in lessening squares, no two things are
absolutely alike. Carven capital, fluted pillar, and scrolled
entablature each tell a different tale, and in the wide aisles, open
to every wind of heaven, a child might learn, almost as it might learn
from nature, the unending mutation, the ceaseless variety of life.
Whether it served its purpose who can say? One thing is certain; Salim
as he lay sullenly, resentfully searching the long processions of bird
and beast, fruit and flower, magical monsters and mythical men that
lay carven before his eyes, seeking therein more cause for rebellion,
found himself assailed on all sides by the memory of an eager-faced
teacher who called him son.
His father!
Yes! A deep, unreasoning, jealous affection lay at the bottom of half
his unreasoning revolt.
So, as he lay divided between resentment and pride, the sound of many
hoofs outside disturbed the sleepy afternoon air, a swift step took
the steep stairs to the second story in its stride, and Akbar showed
at the stair-head, unannounced.
He was in riding dress, with untanned leathern gaiters to the knee,
his white cloth jerkin buckled tight with a broad leathern belt. On
his grizzled hair he wore a close-fitting leathern cap cut like a
chain-helmet. It was devoid of all ornament save a heron's plume at
the side. His lean figure and alert air made him look years younger
than his age, and his entry brought instant change of atmosphere to
the perfumed indolence of the young Prince's court. Akbar's quick eye
took in at a glance the sweetmeat baskets, held appetisingly near by
slaves, beautiful or quaint, the scent fountains, the fighting
avitovats, the dice-boxes and all the other paraphernalia of luxurious
sloth.
"Come, boy!" he said sharply, "thou canst not stay idling here till
bed-time! I come to challenge thee to a game of _chaugan_. Elders
against Youngers, see you, and I and Birbal will----"
He turned affectionately as he spoke to the latter who had followed
him more leisurely. But the very conjunction of names was sufficient
for Salim. His lustreless eyes flashed sudden fire, he was on his feet
in a second.
"So be it, noble father!" he cried. "Since being foe to you makes me
foe also to Rajah Birbal, I am content."
Without a moment's pause Khodadad was on the Prince's heels in
provocation. "Nay! most puissant Heir to Empire," he cried, with a
sort of servile swagger, "filch not my foe from me. Firsts pair with
firsts, seconds with seconds. So I, Khodadad, lieutenant of the
Prince's team, claim Birbal as my compeer to stand or fall together in
all things."
There was no mistaking the utter unfriendliness of the challenge.
Akbar stood frowning, but Birbal, suave, sarcastic, only smiled.
"Not in crime, Tarkhan-jee! I bar crime! 'Tis one thing to murder or
steal without fear of punishment, another even to lie with a bowstring
about one's neck! So, seeing the most excellent of lieutenants through
being Tarkhan hath a supremacy in sin, I pray so far, to be excused;
'twill but bring Khodadad one step nearer to judgment." He turned on
his heel as he spoke; then continued nonchalantly: "Will your Majesty
choose sides?"
"Nay!" replied the King, making an effort to restore good-humour.
"Shaikie shall choose his, and a cast of the die as ever settle
mine--save only for thee."
"May he be accursed!" muttered the young Prince as he flung aside his
deftly-piled and jewel-strung turban, to don a close-eared leathern
cap like his father. His mind was full of vague anger against that
father. Had he indeed parted with the Luck of the House, leaving him,
the heir, forlorn of hope? That must be Birbal's doing; Birbal with
the sneering, bitter tongue, which found out the joints in one's
armour with such deadly skill.
It was already late afternoon. An hour, or even less would see the
rapid Indian dusk settle down over those wide plains below the Sikri
ridge; but as yet the sun's slanting rays shone on the _chaugan_
ground, catching the gilt spikes of the red boundary flags and the red
and gold boundary ropes which were held at intervals by pages dressed
to match in red and gold. Within the oblong thus marked out, the
glittering white and gold and red and silver teams loosing their lean,
low, be-tasselled ponies in preliminary canters, or gathering in knots
to discuss the tactics of the coming game, made the scene show like
some richly jewelled square of embroidery stretched out among the
dusty levels.
Closely akin to polo, _chaugan_ was _par excellence_ the game of Mogul
India; and Akbar excelled at it, holding it to be "no mere play, but a
means of learning promptitude and decision, a test of manhood, a
strengthener of the bonds of friendship."
It differed chiefly from the modern form of the game in having no set
goal, the whole of each end of the oblong being counted as one. So, as
a single flourish from the Royal _nakarah_ sounded, ten riders ranged
themselves at the farther end of the ground, eager, alert, their
mounts (and themselves) hard held, all eyes--even those of the
ponies--fixed on the ball which was held high in the King's right
hand. On either side of the tense, vibrating line stood a pony, one
for either team, its rider holding it by the reins ready on the
instant to fling himself into the saddle and ride out to replace
anyone disabled in the game. Beyond these again, at each corner, was a
group of other ponies, other riders, also ready, when the gong sounded
every twenty minutes, to ride out and replace two players in either
team, thus ensuring a constant supply of fresh blood, fresh zest for
the fight.
"Are you ready, Sahiban?" shouted the King, and with the cry dashed
forward. The tense, vibrating line, giving a wild whoop, was not a
second behind him, and so, tassels waving, sticks carried like lances
came a veritable tornado of a charge that swept up to the centre of
the ground where a red patch of brickdust showed set four-square.
Ralph Fitch, who with his companions was watching the strange new
game, (perhaps the first Englishman who saw polo played), felt his
pulses bound with excitement at this forward dash. "They be sportsmen,
anyhow," he muttered under his breath. "Bravo! bravo!"
For Akbar's nimble little bay Arab pony, who played the game as keenly
as its master, had propped on the red delivery point and stood
quivering with the arrest, while its rider, holding back in his
stirrups for all he was worth sent the ball spinning skyward with an
awkward twist on it, then gripped his club, held till then with his
reins.
"_Hul-lul-la-la-la-la-Harri-ho! Ari!--Nila-kunta!_"
The confused cries rose from the wrestling knot of caps, sticks,
tassels, hoofs, and swinging arms which in an instant gathered, a
whirling nebula of potential force about that nucleus point of a
half-seen, falling ball.
"Ibrahim!" shouted Khodadad, whose vicious chestnut, hard held, flung
itself high in air, almost unseating its rider, "to the left or the
King has it."
So, swift as light, aid and prevention hustled each other, all so
quickly that a snapshot would hardly have registered the contest,
until a click, faint yet loud enough to fill each heart with joy or
anger told that the King's stick catching the ball fairly ere it fell
had sent it away in a clear swooping flight.
"He has it--ride! ride!" rose the cry from both sides and away they
went helter-skelter, pell-mell.
Too late, however, for either side to intervene, for the ball driven
with a will, dropped, rebounded, fell again within a foot of the fatal
line at the end and so easily, softly, trickled over it.
"Well hit, father!" called Prince Salim forgetful of anything but
sheer pride in the King's prowess. His face, nevertheless, lowered
again as in accordance with custom the defeated five rode back along
the sides of the ground toward the starting end, pausing every twenty
paces to pirouette their ponies and to salaam to the victors who, when
the conquered had reached their places, rode triumphantly at a canter
down the middle to take up theirs.
But consolation comes in all games, and the next throw-up decreed that
the King should--not unwillingly--make obeisance to his son after a
hard tussle.
The third goal also went to the juniors, for, whether due to the
replacing in the King's team of Rajah Man Singh by that inferior
player his cousin Bhawun Singh, or to a trifle of lameness in Akbar's
little Arab, certain it is that after much swinging and driving of the
ball backward and forward the cry arose amongst the spectators "He
hath it--Khodadad hath it this time!" And there was the Tarkhan, his
eyes glued on the ground, deliberately trundling the ball along safe
clipped in the crook of his stick, while the Prince and Dhara beside
him rode off all attempts at rescue.
"He hath bird-lime on it," muttered Birbal, as he swooped down
fruitlessly. The ball trickled on deftly and even the King galloped
forward to defend the goal, but it was in vain, for in the final
_melee_ someone--in the dust and glamour--God knows who, gave the
final impetus, and the victors and vanquished wiped their streaming
foreheads ere recommencing another struggle.
It began on both sides with almost fierce determination.
"God's truth! It stirs the blood!" gasped Ralph Fitch. He had seen
many wonders at the court of the Great Mogul, but none so germane to
his temperament as this. It was a game worthy of Englishmen he thought
almost prophetically; since its lineal descendant, polo, has made
India bearable to generations of an English garrison. So while John
Newbery's eyes wandered over the jewels of the spectators around him,
and William Leedes found his attention too much concentrated on the
King's figure for due grip on the game as a whole, it was Ralph Fitch,
who despite distance, dusk, and dust, cried excitedly:
"He hath it again--the Sindi hath it once more!"
True enough. Through the looming medley of dust, men, horses, Khodadad
(by many considered to be the best player of _chaugan_ this side the
Indus), showed ahead, trundling the ball as he might have trundled an
iron hoop in a hooked iron stick. But this time he had the King to
contend with.
"Back Birbal! it will come back!" shouted Akbar suddenly, and
Khodadad's thin lips set firmer, his wrist stiffened itself in
downward pressure as just ahead he saw a faint inequality of the
ground. No! the ball should not rise nor swerve, not even if the
hammer-head of the King's stick lay ... so ... close ...
Ten thousand devils!
It was but a quarter of an inch, but it was enough for dexterity--and,
like a lofter at a bunkered golf ball, Akbar's club was
underneath--the next instant, played backhanded, the ball shot
rearward to Birbal's keeping.
Khodadad riding back amongst the defeated with a wrist which still
felt the forceful grapple of Akbar's, cursed under his breath. He had
been bested, and everything else was forgotten for the moment in pure
personal anger. The thought of revenge rose in him unhampered even by
care for personal safety; for was he not--as Birbal had taunted him
with being--Tarkhan? Unpunishable that is till he had told his full
tale of crime. The Hindu dog might have to learn this to his cost!
The dusk had fallen. Here and there among the throng of spectators
beyond the boundary ropes the twinkling light of a wandering
sweetmeat-seller showed dimly amid the dust, and high on the towering
palaces which backed the ground a few faint gleams from a lamp within
gave outline to some latticed window, or corbeilled balcony.
"The game stands drawn," said Prince Salim, wiping the sweat from his
brow. "It grows too dark for more."
"Dark! 'Tis never too dark for victory," cried Akbar gaily. "Let us
have out the blaze-balls, Shaiki! 'Twill be a point in thy favour,
young eyes being sharper than old; so choose thy team and mine shall
choose itself."
Either way they were likely players who ranged themselves in line
while the blazing ball of _pilas_ wood, soaked in oil was handed to
the King in the earthenware cup of a pipe stem.
He held it aloft flaring. "We play for life or death, gentlemen," he
laughed, as with a bound his favourite countrybred mare Bijli, the
fastest pony in the royal stable, answered to the spur.
"For life or death," murmured Khodadad giving the rein to his mount, a
chestnut Sindi stallion almost oversized for the game, but savagely
keen in the playing of it.
By this time a perpetual film of dust lay square over the ground
showing lighter than the undimmed dusk around it, and the watching
eyes of the spectators strained into it, seeing now a faint star of
light as the blazing ball sped onward, now a cloud of darkness as the
huddled riders followed on its track. Not all of them, however; one
rider held aloof, evidently biding his time for something which every
instant of growing darkness would favour. It was Khodadad, Tarkhan. A
sinister indifference possessed him. If the chance came, as come it
might, he had made up his mind to take it. A purely accidental
collision would at least serve his purpose of personal revenge without
much personal risk, his being by far the heavier horse, while its
rider, of course, would be prepared for the shock.
Yes! if the chance came.
Like a skimming meteor the ball shot to the right of him and the
King's voice came close on it. "Ride! Birbal, ride!"
Which of them was on the ball? No matter, thought Khodadad, either was
fair quarry!
He dug his spurs into the vicious chestnut and cut across to take them
on the flank.
Birbal! Yes, that was Birbal's little gray. All the better since there
could be no doubt as to who would have the worst of it. The Hindu pig
would at least get a fall heavy enough to send better men to Jehannum.
Khodadad's malicious chuckle ceased abruptly. A lean bay head showed
close to his stirrup leather, and he realised in an instant that he
was observed. Yes! he was being ridden off--ridden off by the King,
damn him!
Well! let him try! Two could play at that game!
He jagged fiercely at the chestnut's tight rein and, overborne, the
bay head yielded a point. But the pace of the brute was the devil.
What right had even Kings to ride racers at _chaugan?_ If once it
crept past the stirrup level ... Curse it...!
Another fierce jag overreached its mark, the vicious beast he rode
threw up its head, flung out its feet, so losing half a stride, and
Khodadad, beside himself with sheer temper, struck it madly over the
ears with his polo-stick. That finished it. With a scream of rage and
fear it plunged forward almost knocking over the smaller horse by
force of its superior weight, but the next instant it was on its hind
legs beating the air vainly, while the little bay at full racing
stride swept under the battling hoofs. Only, however, to find itself
in fresh danger. A horseman unseen till then had been creeping up on
the right in support of Khodadad.
Akbar who had been giving Bijli the rein in reckless devilry uttered a
sharp cry as he recognised Salim. Collision was inevitable, and the
wonder as to which would suffer most flashed through the King's mind
as after one vain, almost unconscious, tug, he realised the position,
flung his stick from him, dug spurs to the bay and gripping it all he
knew with his knees, rode straight to the crash. It came, but as it
came Akbar's arm clipped his son, and borne on by the fierce impetus
of Bijli's pace the two shot forward--Akbar underneath--over the bay's
head to lie stunned for a moment by the fall.
The King was the first to speak. "Thou art not hurt, Shaikie?" he
gasped, the breath well-nigh pommelled from him by the Prince's
weighty body.
"Not I!" gasped Salim in his turn, beginning to realise what his
father had done for him--"but--thou--thou art bleeding."
"From the nose only," replied Akbar cheerfully, as a crowding _posse_
helped him to rise, "it was thy foot did it--God sent as much strength
to thine arm. Nay gentlemen! we are unhurt!"
The assurance was needed, for already on all sides the cry had risen:
"The King is down--the King is killed!" and folk were, in the dusk and
gloom, pressing round a figure which still lay prostrate on the
ground.
And those on the outside of the ever-thickening ring could not see
that it was only Khodadad knocked out of time for the moment by that
backward flung stick of the King's, which had caught him fair on the
cheek bone and felled him like an ox.
Akbar walked over and looked at him contemptuously.
"Lo! Tarkhan," he said briefly to the man struggling back to
consciousness in Ibrahim's arms, "ride not so--so _reckless_ again, or
ill may befall thee, Tarkhan though thou be."