_Bring wine and I will read
The riddle of this life of mine;
The old stars' wizardry, the shine
Of new moons wandering overhead:
All this, I'll read with wine_.
--Hafiz.
For an instant Birbal was speechless, then he recovered himself.
"Who art thou, man of many faces?"
The question came peremptorily, the answer suavely.
"Thine host; for the rest, as thou art, a mere wayfarer on the limited
path of life. Combining the two, this slave ventures to offer
refreshment. Cupbearer! Wine of Shiraz, and scent the goblet's edge
with rose.
Mechanically Birbal drained the beaker, and the good liquor tingling
to his finger tips, he faced his familiar world again, incredulous as
ever.
"So," he said, as following the Sufi's sign he seated himself among
the cushions at the other side of the supper cloth. "It is, as I
thought, the Wayfarer. How many disguises hast thou O Bairupiya?[12]
Musician? Envoy? Sufi?" then a thought struck him and he gave his
little contemptuous jeering laugh, "mayhap King Payandar also--but
that he is dead."
---------------------
[Footnote 12: A tribe who have the gift of (to use theatrical
parlance) "making up" to perfection.]
---------------------
"Aye, dead!" assented the Sufi gravely, "and the dead being but the
cast-off garments of the living, count not in disguise."
"But wherefore----" began Birbal.
His host smiled. "Let me quote the King of Poets to my lord--
"Ah, soul of a man live free
Of the Wherefore, the How,
For the passing moments flee.
Drink deep of the wine cup now,
Drink deep, for He who is Wise
He hath the Seeing Eyes,
He knows the Secret that lies
In the Hows and the Whys.
"Cupbearer, yet another wine of Shiraz and scent the goblet's edge
with the roses that grow beneath the vine."
The echo of the chanted song died away; then suddenly he reached out
his thin brown hand--the index finger wore a ring set with a
marvellous emerald, the surface of which was close covered with fine
flowing hieroglyphics--and laid it on Birbal's in familiar grip.
The latter started, turned pale. "Thou art the devil,--juggler, with
thy tricks!" he muttered faintly. "How didst learn the sign-manual of
my race, secret, inviolate?"
The Sufi laughed. "There is no devilry to the Hindu in being the
outcome of many incarnations. Mayhap in my past I have been Bhat-Bandi
and my lord----" he paused. "What matters it? 'Tis but the trick of
memory. Birbal forgets, this slave remembers. Aye, friend! 'tis but a
trick indeed! I juggle with men's eyes, and they with their own
senses."
He clapped his hands, gave a swift order in some unknown tongue, and
as if by magic the servants disappeared, extinguishing the lights as
they vanished, leaving those two alone in the rosy radiance of a lamp
that swung above the supper table. Its downward light left their two
faces in shadow.
"Listen, my lord!" said the Sufi rapidly. "I will waste no time in
words. I am here at Akbar's court, a spy. Wherefore, or who my master
is, seek not to know. Mayhap time will show. I spy on Prince Dalil of
Sinde--dost know him? Khodadad Tarkhan, boon companion of the
Heir-to-Empire. Start not! I watch him, I wait for him, not for
myself only, but for Sinde--for that unhappy country which counts on
Akbar's aid, aid which will not come if the assassin's dagger--if
conspiracy--succeeds. Dost see? Dost understand? Lo! I am Sinde
incarnate--waiting, watching."
He paused again and in the brief silence Birbal could hear a long
sobbing breath. The lamp had grown dimmer, and to his half startled
eyes its radiance seemed to leave the white-robed figure to chill
shadow. He too caught in his breath as a thought came to him.
"But that Payandar is dead," he began whisperingly, "I should
deem----"
"Aye, he is dead!" echoed the other, almost menacingly. "But though he
died in the Desert--as thou hast heard from Bayazid--Love,
Unconditioned, Ineffable----"
A sudden distaste to the man who spoke, to the whole tenor of his
talk, boastful, as it were, of some hold on the Unseen not known of
commoner clay, seized on Birbal.
"Keep that for the King, holy man!" he said decisively. "Birbal talks
not till dawn of Wine-cups and Roses and the Beloved."
"Perhaps 'twere better if he did," replied the Sufi boldly. "Nathless
I did not bring thee hither to talk of love, but to tell thee by my
arts that the King's Luck is stolen."
The impulse to start, to rise, was strong for an instant; then memory
came to calm the man of the world.
"Impossible" he said quietly. "I saw it to-day. It is in safe
keeping--the worse luck perhaps."
A jibing laugh echoed through the arches.
"So even Birbal hath superstition! But listen! Stay, I will tell thee
common truth. I go nightly to swing up the palace wall to Akbar's
balcony. Wherefore? Because, my lord, I pass not far from a certain
window where Mirza Ibrahim and Khodadad Khan hatch conspiracies; and
there is an iron stanchion by the side of it with which even a
swinging dhooli may find rest--and listen! Dost understand? So I hear
all, even their hours of meeting; and I am spy, a man of many
faces--as thou knowst. I was there but now--and the diamond is stolen.
I meant when I bid thee come hither, simply to warn thee, since to thy
charge----"
Birbal rose then, his eyes full of impatient disregard for the
trickster, the juggler--the man who pretended to supernatural
knowledge, and found it--or said he found it--by common spying!
"Why dost thou tell me?" he asked quickly. "Thou sayest thou art
friend to Akbar. Thou art no friend of mine."
There was a pause; a faint hesitancy came to the shadowed face before
him, as of one who, playing many different parts, finds them mixed up
in general confusion. Suddenly he seemed to grip himself, the real man
behind so many disguises of the unreal.
"Yet are we both friends of Akbar's aim, that is Unity. Thy hand,
Birbal! let us swear troth for that!"
That slender, brown, outstretched hand with the green glint of the
emerald on its index finger seemed to have a compelling power.
Birbal's sought it and the result was startling. The man whose whole
life was one long claim for individuality, realised in a second that
so far as his impact on that clasping hand was concerned, he had lost
all sense of personal touch. Flesh seemed made one with Flesh, with
all things.
"_Tat twam asi_" ("Thou art that!")
The fundamental creed of the East overwhelmed him as he stood. Then
suddenly he was alone again.
Alone in the darkness, save for the faint glimmer of the toothed
arches that gave on the shadowy gloom of overhanging trees and sliding
river.
"Wayfarer!" he called. "Wayfarer!" "Juggler! Where art thou? Sufi!
Spy!"
But there was no answer. He stood for a moment dazed; then he felt his
way for the stair, and called again. A steady snore came in return.
The drowsy servant he had questioned on entering was evidently now
fast asleep.
No wonder! he told himself as he made his way outward to his waiting
rath. The whole place was full of dreams; the very roses in the garden
had lost their scent through slumber. As he passed down the garden
path, he caught himself yawning, though his mind was broad awake.
Therein lay the puzzle--the body slept, the soul----
He turned at the outer archway to give a last look at the palace. To
his intense surprise it was ablaze with lights from basement to roof,
and standing in a balcony of the second story which gave on the
sliding river, he could see quite distinctly, a figure looking out
over the gleam of the water. The face, melancholy beyond words, was
deathly pale, and seen in profile only, looked like a cut cameo. Its
drooping eyelid half hid the lustreless eye, the long black hair,
escaping from the high green turban outlined the narrow contour of
forehead and cheek, then fell in ringlets on the sloping shoulders,
green clothed, and hung, as was the turban, with festoons on festoons
of emeralds.
The light struck them; they shone coldly green, incomparably clear.
The emeralds of Sinde surely! No other regalia held----
As the thought flashed to Birbal's mind, the lights flashed out and he
was left to the scentless darkness of the garden, to a half muttered
curse at the untrustworthiness of his own senses when in the grip of--
of what?
As the trotting bullocks made their way back to Fatehpur Sikri, the
puzzle of what had held him recurred again and again, even amid his
turmoil of thought regarding the diamond. The tale he had heard could
scarcely be true--he had seen the gem safe, but a few hours back; yet
the fact that such a conspiracy was on foot was quite credible, and
might necessitate still greater care, and at once.
The gray dawn was breaking into day, when, having roused William
Leedes without ceremony and carried him to the Hall of Labour, they
entered the sentinelled laboratory to find the diamond gleaming as
ever on the lathe.
It was a relief. Birbal sate down on the jeweller's stool and breathed
again. Despite his incredulity he felt that his whole being, mind and
body, had been impressed by the mountebank's manner. He had actually
allowed it to overcome his reason.
William Leedes, still but half awake, in utter ignorance of why he had
been brought thither, stood for a while stupidly, awaiting a remark.
Finally he ventured to ask what was required of him.
"What?" echoed Birbal lightly, recognising with his usual craft, that
the less said about his fear the better. "Only that the King is eager
to know somewhat of the second facet."
The jeweller's face fell. "Therein lies the puzzle," he said "and I
have not yet solved it. The thickness of the stone is great--almost
too great, and to cleave it would be to remove, mayhap, too much. Yet
without it to find true axis--the sun as we call it in the trade--is a
problem that defies at present my geometry."
"Hast tried Aljebr?" asked Birbal, roused instantly to interest. "Show
me thy work, sir jeweller, mayhap I can help."
Passed master as he was in the Eastern science of Algebra, they were
soon at work with signs and figures.
"That comes more nigh it," said William Leedes, hopefully taking up a
small style and going to the lathe.
"Were I to make this point the axis and----" the lathe spun round,
then stopped suddenly as he bent to look closer.
"It--it scratches," he murmured, too astonished for bewilderment.
Birbal was by his side in a second, had wrenched the gem from its
holding and had it at the light.
A scratch indeed!
In an instant his subtle mind followed the trail unerringly. The trick
of a false diamond which he and Abulfazl had urged upon Akbar had been
played here. But how? Who was the culprit? His knowledge of humanity,
of the world and its ways, instantly exculpated the Englishman from
implication in the theft. But had he been careless? That was a point
for inquiry; but now, this instant moment, what was to be done? what
had best be done?
"Sit silent on yonder stool and work out thy problem, fool!" he said
in a whisper to William Leedes, who stood gaping, ready to burst out
into speech when it came back to him, "and leave me to work out mine.
This is no diamond. 'Tis a false gem made, I swear by Pooru; but to
whose order? And for what purpose?"
He paced the little workshop, every fibre of his keen wit vibrating to
the tense pressure of his thought. Then he laid his hand suddenly on
the amazed jeweller's shoulder.
"When didst thou leave it--only for a moment? Speak truth."
But William Leedes brain had already begun to work slowly.
"Diswunt!" he said mechanically, "he showed me."
The next minute they stood looking round the painter's empty studio.
Through the corbeilled balcony they could see the miracle of dawn
being enacted, but in the wide, cool, airy room was nothing.
"What did he show thee?" asked Birbal menacingly. For answer William
Leedes threw back the door. It fell into its place with a clang of
chain upon staple, leaving disclosed no hunting scene; that had been
fiercely rubbed off, leaving gray clouds upon the whitewashed wood;
but on this indefinite background, limned in with large lines and
splashes of a curious scarlet was the figure of a woman. A woman
standing, her feet moving in a rhythmic dance, her scarf floating in
serpentine curves.
"Siyah Yamin!" cried Birbal under his breath, and stooped to read a
legend, dashed in roughly--with the brush, apparently, that still
stood half immersed in a bowl, where lingered dregs of the same
curious ghastly crimson scarlet pigment with which the portrait was
limned.
It was only a verse from Hafiz.
Each man has his gift; to one a cup of wine, to another the heart's
blood; so ask not life from the picture on the wall.
The man of wit, of intelligence beyond most, stood looking at the
picture in silence. Then he bent to pick up a scrap of crushed paper
which lay before it.
As he smoothed it out his face was a study in distaste which grew to
quick sympathy as he read. It contained but a few words from Sa'adi:
Wide is the space 'twixt him who clasps his love
And he who watches for her door to move.
And below this in flowing curves:
"Watch no longer, cripple! Gulamar hath consolation if 'tis needed."
Birbal crushed it in his hand again and walking straight to the
corbeilled balcony looked out. In the dawn light a confused, dark
bundle as of clothes lay on the angled steps of the Arch of Victory.
The distaste vanished from Birbal's face. He stood looking down,
infinite pity in his eyes, as he quoted softly:
Yea! He who made me from the clay
And set my soul within it and alway.
Pities and pardons, and enfolds me ever
In His beneficence. Shall I not lay
My heart back in His Hand?
"He--he hath killed himself," cried William Leedes, who had followed
to look also.
"Nay, she hath killed him--he painted her in his heart's blood,"
replied Birbal grimly, stooping for a closer look at the nigh empty
bowl, the incarnadined brush.
"Yet I fail to see," began the jeweller, when his companion swept him
into silence with a rush of contemptuous irritation.
"Fail to see? How shouldst thou see, strange-bred as thou art from the
uttermost guile of India--this old, old India that was guileful long
ages before thy island came into being? What canst thou or thy
kind know of the bottomless deceits, the dregs of many years, the
sediment of many men which must underlay the smooth levels of India?
But I, Brahmin, Indian bred, I see all; and I see here the wagging
beards of Mahommedan doctors, virtuous, tradition-bound; I see the
lawless desires of libertines like Ibrahim, the deep designs of
Khodadad--misnamed mayhap! But under all I see the ancient harlotry of
womankind. Aye! even what they call Love--misnamed again! Yea, I see
the scented balcony in Satanstown where this----"
He pulled himself up and laid his hand compellingly on the jeweller's
arm. "But of that hereafter. For the present keep council if thou
lovest life. To you and to me only is that gem no diamond. Cut an
hundred facets on it an thou wilt; but if its falseness be found out,
ere _I_ will it, thou diest. Dost hear?"
Then his tone softened a little. "Stay! this scrawling must not stand
to tell its tale. Water and this brush, sir jeweller, will send it
flying--do this for me--and for _thyself_."
He paused, to give another look at the lad's last work. "Lo! there is
genius in it, for 'tis the jade herself. Poor fool! pity he had not
read the master to better purpose."
So he passed out with studied carelessness humming as he went another
bit of the wisdom of Hafiz:
Wisdom is wearisome--very!
Bring the noose of wine for its neck,
Let us drink, my friend, and be merry,
There's nothing to fear or to reck.
The sun is wine and the Moon's the cup;
Pour the Sun to the Moon and we'll drink it up.
And be merry--be merry--very!