_Love sent music to sing Love's praise
So Harmony came to this world's sad ways.
Master of melody, Caesar of sound,
Each chord he struck fettered reasoning,
Till man and beast by it quite were bound
Into friendship fast and companioning.
Yea! at the note of his crooked lyre
One wakened up, one was lulled to sleep,
And the whole wide world grew quick with desire
To dance and to die, to laugh and to weep.
At the burst of his blended melody
The heart of the wise knew the mystery_.
--Nizami.
"Lo I am true!" cried Atma menacingly, "Art thou so also, O! Siyal?"
She had been with the courtesan for full half an hour, time was
running short, and yet she felt that she had gained nothing, and knew
scarcely more than she had done when she had climbed the steep
oil-greased narrow stairs to the balcony room. She had been eager then
to face fact--if need be--keen to test the loyalty of her fellow
conspirators; but now she stood baffled before Siyah Yamin's easy but
inflexible contempt. That someone had betrayed them the latter said
was indubitable; and as Atma was the only outsider, she must be the
culprit. Not necessarily a conscious offender. But, by all she held
most sacred, did not Atma know of some indiscretion, could she not,
briefly, guess--and then the noisy, yet silvery laugh had rung out at
the Charan's tell-tale face. Her tongue, however, had been loyal. She
had refused to say a word. Not that she felt in any way bound to
shield Mihr-un-nissa from the possible revenge of those whose game she
had given away, but because it was out of the question to tell of the
secret visit of a screened lady.
So Siyah Yamin had declined information except by fair barter;
declined it with jibes and smiles; but now sudden pallor came to her
face, she shifted her eyes uneasily from Atma's half accusing ones.
"True?" she echoed, and, and her voice had a petulant ring in it.
"Aye! as true as it befits womanhood to be! Lo! Ato I grow tired of my
sex at times and would I were a man!" She pressed her hands close to
her heart, then suddenly burst out again into her hard silvery laugh
"And thou? sweet widow--dost not pine for thy lover Sher Khan? Is he
not here despite these--petticoats?" She flounced out her clinging
muslins.
"Peace, fool! So thou wilt not tell" said Atma frowning, "then I must
ask elsewhere."
"Aye! Ask!" jibed the courtesan. "There be many with tongues beside
poor little me who will, look you, have confidence for confidence.
Belike the Beneficent Ladies, or mayhap Rajah Birbal for the Envoy
from Sinde whom some deem a mere simulacrum of a man, or even the
Feringhi jeweller--to say nothing of the King himself."
Her eyes were keenly on the Charan's face as she spoke, but there was
no flicker of expression to give her any clue. In truth Atma was
absolutely in the dark. She did not even know if the turban were lost
or found. Her mind ran riot over supposition in either case. If the
former, it could not remain lost for ever in those underground
chambers. It might even now have drifted to the tank where a hundred
hands might find it. She must go and watch. And yet, what use? The
rather send divers to search below; if indeed any man would so
adventure his life! And for this she must proclaim a cause, proclaim
that she knew of the theft. And after all there might be no reason for
this. Birbal, with his quick wit, must have saved the turban. He must;
yet not even he could outwit Fate.
She smote her hands together again impotently as she ran, this time
toward the roof which she had left too long. That feeling of neglected
duty strangely enough, overmastered all others. She must go back to
her immediate charge. Once there she would have time to think what she
must do to find out the truth. For she must find it even if she had to
go to the King himself tell him all and then repay herself for
treachery by the death dagger.
But what she found awaiting her on the roof drove these thoughts from
her mind for a time; only for a time--that Time which meant nothing to
one brought up as she had been, in a philosophy which counts the past,
the present, the future as one. For in India there is no hurry about
anything; the wisdom of Isaiah is in every mouth, "He that believeth
shall not make haste."
Yet as she joined in the woman's wailing over Zarifa--for the news of
death spreads quickly, and the neighbours troop in as to a festival--a
dull wonder lay at the back of her brain, a vague resentment at her
own ignorance.
In truth the resentment was scarcely justifiable, since many others
concerned in the incident were feeling the same dull surprise.
The conspirators first of all, who found themselves once more deprived
of their _point d'appui_. And Khodadad the arch-plotter was strangely
silent, strangely lacking in suggestion. As the day wore on, indeed he
withdrew petulantly from all conclave, and taking Mirza Ibrahim with
him, plunged into pleasure at Satanstown. For something in that scent
of roses on the roof, something in the look of that face sleeping so
peacefully upon the pillow, had roused memory; and memory in her long
slumber had somehow, from some subliminal consciousness in that
unknown ego of which Khodadad Tarkhan was the outward and visible
sign, associated herself with regret. He told himself, lightly, that
it was the shock of seeing deformity where he had expected beauty,
which had unnerved him; but it was not that. It was the ineffaceable
memory of Beauty itself.
Then in the Palace where Umm Kulsum and Aunt Rosebody had sate in the
little balcony outside the latter's private room all the morning,
unable to feel joy over the merciful escape of the Most High and their
scapegrace darling because of the probable loss of the turban with its
talisman; yet unable to feel sufficient grief over the latter because
of bubbling gladness over the Brotherhood between those two dear ones
(a Brotherhood that nothing must disturb, not even self-seeking
confession of sin) on to all this had followed a dull wonder as to
what was to be done next. For after noonday prayers were over had come
a despatch by hand from my Lord Birbal, Chief Constable of the Kingdom
returning in due course of etiquette to the givers, the turban they
had supposed lost. And what is more, when their anxious fingers had
privilege to pry, there was the talisman also, safe and sound.
The shock of relief kept them both silent awhile; then Aunt Rosebody
cracked all her knuckles vehemently.
"So goes care!" she cried, adding piously, "truly we might have
trusted God! His club makes no noise, and what's in the pot comes on
the plate."
Then her face clouded. "But what is to be done next Ummu?" she asked
feebly. Umm Kulsum shook her head.
"We might give it back to the woman."
"What?" interrupted the little old lady peevishly. "To a civet-cat
from the bazaar of whom we know nothing?"
"There was the red woman also, auntie," suggested the Mother of
Plumpness, "she seemed honest--at least when she came to----"
"Tell Mihru's fortune--a pack of lies!" sniffed her companion. "Canst
think of nothing better, child?"
"Mayhap it might be wiser," suggested Umm Kulsum again, "to
consult----"
"Consult whom?" shrilled Gulbadan Khanum, and this time the
interruption was wrathful. "What would be the use of asking Hamida?
All know her answer. 'Tell truth and shame Shaitan.' And as for Rakiya
Begum with her spectacles and her etiquettes and her distiches, I
would sooner die! Now it would be different if 'Dearest Lady' were
alive----" She paused and her lively dark eyes grew limpid with sudden
tears.
"We can go where she went for wisdom," whispered little Umm Kulsum
consolingly, "we can pray."
Aunt Rosebody gave a grunt of satisfaction and dried her eyes. "Aye!
there is some sense in that! We can pray and wait. 'Twill at least
give us time to think out some plan for ourselves, and sleep brings
wisdom; but Ummu, Ummu, I would give every hair I possess--and though
they are gray they are not uncomely--that I had never mixed myself up
with the King's Luck. 'Tis worse than the Day of Resurrection, for
then a body will but have two roads to choose--up and down--and here!
Lo! wonder grows like a white ants' castle."
In this feeling Aunt Rosebody was not alone. Birbal himself was in a
similar state of blank surprise, for to him had come the most
startling denouement of all.
After the momentous events of the night he had felt himself entitled
to a few hours' rest. He had had little of it by day or by dark, ever
since he had discovered the theft of the diamond; for he had given
himself up wholly to the recovery of the stolen jewel; but now that he
had this safely stowed away in his waistband-purse he could spare
leisure for comfort. So he slept the sleep of the just, without a
dream to disturb him. Yet his brain must have been working, for, when
he woke, it was to a sense that in the excitement of the moment of
success he had made a mistake. Had he had time to consider he would
never have given himself away to his enemies as he had done by showing
them that he knew of the talisman. It was a tactical error; which
might be partially rectified so far as some people were concerned.
Therefore without further delay, he sent a message to William Leedes,
at the Hall of Labour, to come up to him at once, bringing the false
diamond with him. When this arrived it did not take long to exchange
the true for the false, and then with due decorum to send the turban
back to the Beneficent Ladies, who, he knew from what Mihr-un-nissa
had said, had given it to the Prince. He calculated cunningly that
this return would at least keep them quiet, and women were invariably
at the bottom of every conspiracy.
He felt very secure, very confident, very complacent, and spent an
hour or two in entertaining William Leedes with Eastern sumptuousness
ere ordering the palanquins to take the jeweller and the diamond back
to safe keeping in the Hall of Labour, whence he assured himself no
thief in the world would have another chance of purloining it. In
truth he had some reason for complacency; since the general outlook
was clearing. These repeated failures must dishearten the enemies of
empire, and the mere fact of the bond of Brotherhood between the King
and his son--which had come incidentally by the way in the course of
counterplot--added to the chance of Akbar being content with practical
politics and remaining at Fatephur Sikri.
The only unsatisfactory item in past or present was the memory of the
man who juggled with other men's eyes and ears. Who and what was he? A
friend to Akbar at any rate, and for the time being, that was enough.
The wide roof of the Hall of Labour lay ablaze with afternoon sunshine
as they entered it, and as they passed along the arcades, the workmen
looked up and salaamed. The door of Diswunt's studio was locked and
barred, and a sentry paced across that of the jeweller. Known though
they were, it required the password ere William Leedes could produce
his key, unlock the door, enter, then close and lock it again behind
them.
Birbal gave a sigh of relief as he drew out his waistband-purse. "At
last!" he said holding out the diamond. "Replace it on the lathe, sir
jeweller, and once I see it there--lo! I will vow pilgrimage if needs
be. Yea! I will cry 'Hari Ganga' like any drunk man in a puddle!"
He turned aside, out of sheer lightheartedness, humming a _ghazal_
from Hafiz.
Make fast a wine cup to my shroud
That at the latter day
My soul a good drink be allowed
To nerve it for the fray.
Meanwhile the jeweller's deft hands were busy. A few turns, a click or
two, and William Leedes bent over the treasure joyfully.
"There it is, my master; with naught but a few days' delay in the
cutting thereof! I must be all the quicker now, else the King will
wonder. Yet have I lost as little time as may be, since the next facet
is assured--it will run so."
The delicate steel point he held just touched the surface. Then it
fell away from it, as the hand holding the instrument seemed to shrink
back. The foot, too, left the treadle, and the spinning pivots
slackened speed and sank to rest.
"What is't?" asked Birbal, turning hastily.
The jeweller's face was white, his very jaw had fallen.
"It--it scratches" he muttered faintly "there is some mistake."
There was no mistake about the scratch however. It showed distinct,
and wrote the truth without a shadow of doubt. This was no diamond; it
was a fraud, like the other!
For an instant Birbal's head whirled. Then helplessly he fingered his
purse again. Could he by chance have made a mistake and sent back the
wrong one? Impossible; and yet?
He sank on the jeweller's seat and covered his face with his hands.
For once his wit was not quick enough to grasp the situation, and--
clogging thought!--that dim suspicion recurred despite denial--Had he
by chance made a mistake?
So Atma as she sate apart on the roof watching the Mahommedan woman
prepare Zarifa's body for the burial which was to take place at sunset
had no monopoly in confusion and wonder. She could take no part in
what was going on. She dare not, from fear of defilement, even touch
the dead child with a kiss, but she sate jealously watching that every
ceremonial was duly carried out.
"Lo! she is lovely as any houri _now!_" chattered the Dom women who
had come in to perform the last offices, as they bound the corpse with
gold tinsel to the string bedstead on which it was to be carried to
the grave. "'Tis a sin, for sure, to have more body in death than in
life; but what will you? Mayhap Munkir and Niker[13] seeing her
look so, may not ask questions, but give her a decent body for
Paradise--sure she needed one poor thing!"
---------------------
[Footnote 13: The two Recording Angels.]
---------------------
So they stood looking down on their handiwork. And in truth the
crippled child looked very beautiful. The _rebeck_ player, saying it
was the custom of his tribe, had hired from somewhere a low, oblong,
lidless coffin, more like a deep picture frame than anything else; and
in this, as it lay on the bed, these tirewomen of the dead, had so
disposed draperies, and pillows, and whatnot, that all the curves of
the budding womanhood showed beneath the face that remained more
beautiful even in death than it had been in life. It was covered only
with a fine network, for the veil was draped carefully on either side
the slender neck. One corner of it, and a loop of jasmin chaplet fell
over the dingy worn gilt of the coffin frame.
"Lo! many will envy Death his bride and send regrets after her as she
passes by," said the oldest of the Domni, nodding her head wisely. And
it was so.
For as the two bearers--it needed but two for that bier--shuffled at
sunset-tide with their light burden through the crowded bazaar, more
than one careless eye grew to sudden interest. And one spectator, an
idle reckless looking man who sate on a sherbet-seller's threshold
joking with a light woman in an upper balcony, ceased his sarcasms to
murmur a stanza from Hafiz; for he was rhymster too.
No more from poet's lips
Shall love songs pass
She who once garnered them
Is dead--alas!
There were few mourners. Only the professional wailers, and the
_rebeck_ player, who with bent head, followed the bier making mournful
music as he went. Atma, of another creed, still held aloof, walking
veiled and stately some way behind. And all around them slipping aside
to let the dead pass, for the most part careless almost unheeding,
were the living; buying, selling, gossiping, chaffering.
Atma drew breath more freely when they were through the city gates,
and the bearers stepped out more quickly over hard stretches of sand
and waste hillocks set with thorn and caper bushes toward the little
cemetery which the musician had chosen. A few gnarled _jhand_ trees
decked with coloured snippets of cloth tied there by many mourners, a
few nameless roly-poly concrete graves, a sprinkling of tiny turrets
showing where someone was laid--someone whose resting place was
unknown to all save the women who came thither every week to
mourn--marked the spot. A dreary lonesome spot, in truth. But the
westering sun showed warm and red over the desert horizon, and the
chipping notes of the seven-brother birds sounded cheerful as the
family flitted from one tree to another.
The grave was already dug and the diggers stood by waiting for their
day's pay. It was a wide deep grave, looking as if it had been cut out
of yellow rock, so dry, so even were the sides. And the low arch of
the long niche on one side in which the corpse was to be laid as in a
coffin, was as regular as if built in with unburnt brick. To Atma's
surprise, the floor of this niche was set thick, as by a coverlet,
with roses. She glanced hastily at the _rebeck_ player, but he was
already immersed in the prayers with which an attendant priest had
greeted the little procession. She listened gravely, repeating to
herself meanwhile the formulas--so few, so simple--of her own creed.
And yet when, after saying aloud the prayer for benediction, the
_rebeck_-player stood forward, raised the sad gracious figure from the
coffin, and stepping into the grave laid it gently in the niche, she
shivered as she saw him stoop to gather up a handful of earth.
"We created you of dust and we return you to dust, and we shall raise
you out of the dust upon the day of resurrection."
The words seemed to her almost horrible. To be left lying alone in the
desert, waiting, waiting, waiting!
For what? For yourself--the old mean self of which she was so tired.
Ah! better surely to find rest at once in the Great Self which
pervaded all things!
"Wilt thou not throw earth also?" said a voice beside her, "then throw
flowers. These are the roses of love."
The _rebeck_ player pulled aside the kerchief covering a flat basket
which one of the Dom women had carried, and lo! there were roses red
at their hearts, pale where the sun had kissed them. Their scent
filled the air.
"Yea! lord," she said meekly, "I will throw them."
The priest, the bearers, the Dom women had disappeared, their task
done. Only the grave-diggers chattered to one another as they filled
in the grave.
"Lo! she would have been ripe for kisses soon and now the worms have
got her," said one discontentedly.
"Ballah! friend!" quoth the other. "Lovers die, but love dies
not--there be ever other food for lust in the world!"
"Throw them into thy life also, sister," said the musician, suddenly.
"There is no fear or blame in love."
So as he stood watching the shovelsful of earth hide the roses which
covered little Zarifa, he played softly on his _rebeck_, and sang a
whispering song to its wailing music.
Love is a full red wine bowl
Passion the bubbles on its rim,
Drink deep down to the dregs, soul,
Heed not the froth on the brim.
Passion has wings like an eagle
Love needs none; she is at rest--
Flood tide full--as the seagull
Drifts, the cold wave at her breast.
Love is the Lightless Ether
Passion the star-shine it lets through
Building sense-worlds beneath her
Love seeks not form, seeks not hue.
Passion has myriad senses
Love has not voice, eyes, nor ears,
Space, Time, Life, Moods, and Tenses
Chain not her Soul to the years.
Love is a sail, mid-ocean
Losing itself in the Whole,
Passion the wavelets commotion
Blurring the shores of the Soul.
He ceased suddenly, and his whole face changed. The grave was filled
up, the diggers were already passing stolidly back to the city. On the
desert horizon the red sun had lost its warmth and was sinking coldly
behind the gray verge.
"Lo! I have done with Love," came the musician's mocking voice. "So
take this, sister, and may it bring thee more luck than it hath
brought Payandar. For him only hate remains."
When she looked up from her hasty glance at what he had thrust into
her hand, the _rebeck_ player was moving away rapidly after the
grave-diggers and she was left alone, looking at the new-made grave,
looking at the quaint green stone she had just been given.