_No strength of Hand, no strength of Foot have I,
To reach the restful Heaven of Thy Throne;
Yet can my soul's eyes gaze upon the Sky
And finding dream there, dream the Truth mine own
Even while wearied by its ceaseless Strife
I watch the Shuttle in the Loom of Life_.
--Nizami.
That self-same dawn Akbar the King sate alone, as he so often did,
upon a large flat stone which lay in a lonely spot beside the Anup
tank. He was dressed in the saffron sheet of an ascetic, and a fold of
it, drawn across the lower part of the face, completely disguised him;
though the few persons abroad at this early hour were not of the class
from whom he could fear detection or even interruption--except perhaps
a petition for a blessing. For this was the widows' hour; that strange
hour in India, while the world still sleeps, when sorrowful womanhood
works out the salvation of mankind. When dim, ghostlike in their white
shrouding, figures creep out of the shadowy homes, burdened with the
sins of men, and, after washing them away in the chill waters of dawn,
creep back to the hearthstones, ere the sun rises upon the devoted
drudgery of another widows' day.
The sight of these figures, the whole scene, unreal, mystical, had
always had a fascination for Akbar, a curious almost angry interest.
He felt himself helpless before it, King though he was. True! he had
abolished _suttee_ by a sweep of his pen. The swift cruel sacrifice of
life he had checked; but this long-drawn agony was beyond him.
And what did it mean when all was said and done? His active mind, ever
wrestling with problems of the psychic world, fought for a conclusion
on this, the question which has puzzled so many inquirers.
"Whence and wherefore comes the sense of sin which in the woman lies
ever at the root of sex, making her falsely modest or boldly brazen?"
How silent they were, these mateless, almost sexless bodies whose
souls were seeking--through past aeons, and for endless centuries to
come--salvation not for themselves but for their men folk! The very
water slipped noiselessly over the shaven unveiled heads that slipped
into it as noiselessly.
Sound only came when, on the red sandstone steps of the tank once
more, they again drew their wet shrouds round youth and age alike.
Drip! Drip! Drip!
The water fell in blood-red tear drops beside the blood-red print of
their bare feet upon the stones. A dolorous way indeed! a dolorous
life.
A couple of gray-crested cranes, mates evidently, showed nestling side
by side as they stood knee-deep in the gray levels of the tank; levels
which brimmed up from the dim shadowy steps of the dim shadowy
reflections in the water of the dim shadowy realities of stunted
bushes and gnarled caper trees that rose against the dim gray of
coming dawn.
Why was not humanity like the birds, accepting the Great Mystery of
generation as differing not one whit from other functions of Life?
There lay the puzzle. What sin was it that the woman had committed in
the dawn of days!
Yea! the dawn came fast! Below the distant verge of sight the
bright-hued riders of the Day were galloping hard, each bringing his
pennant to the battle of Light and Darkness.
Blue upon gray, violet tinting the blue, so passing to red, flaming to
orange. Then with one throb of primrose----
Light!
He felt the thrill of it--that endless quiver of the ether waves
passing on and on regardless of him, around him, through him, in
him--felt it in a sudden answering shiver of nerve, and vein, and
muscle, as he stood up, absorbed utterly in adoration.
"Thy blessing O my father!" came a voice beside him.
"May thy sacrifice be propitious O my daughter!" he replied
mechanically.
"And may the King-of-Kings live forever! His slave kisses the dust of
his footsteps."
He turned hastily, kingship coming back to him at once, to recognise
Atma Devi. Crouching at his feet, the wet folds of her widow's shroud
clung to every curve of her supple body. After a night spent in
fruitless inquiry she had come to the tank at the earliest point of
dawn to wander fruitlessly in search round its shores; so after a
hasty performance of her sacrifices, she was on her way cityward again
when she had seen the solitary figure, and, guessing instinctively
that it was the King--for his habits were known to all his people--had
come to test her suspicion and so, perchance, gain direct speech of
someone from whom, surely, she might hear the truth. But his first
words checked her.
"I wist not, woman, thou wert widow," he said sternly. "As a rule thy
dress----"
Thinking he blamed her--and blame from him meant all things--she was
quick in explanation. "The Most-Auspicious is right," she almost
interrupted, "but he to whom I was wedded as a babe proved vile; so my
father--praise be to the Gods!--withheld me from him utterly. Yet
these few years past, that the man's evil body is dead, I come hither
to ransom his soul."
The answer fitting so aptly with Akbar's previous thoughts roused his
instant curiosity.
"Wherefore?" he asked, his keen face lighting up with interest as he
seated himself once more. "Sit yonder, sister, at my feet and tell me,
wherefore?"
"Because he was my husband," came the almost aggressively quick reply.
"And a wife is bound to her husband in Life and in Death."
Akbar smiled--the foibles of his world always amused him. "Not in
Death, nowadays, my good woman," he cried lightly. "Akbar hath
forbidden Death. Would that he could forbid this also."
He touched a fold of her wet shroud with his finger. A shiver shot
heartwards from the contact. Was it merely the chill to his flesh
warmed by his heart's blood, or was it--something he had told himself
he had forgotten? He drew back in resentment. She also; but from his
touch on what to her, as to most Hindu women, was the dearest
privilege of her sex--the right to burn!
"The Most Excellent is a mighty King," she commented sarcastically,
"but even he cannot stay the immortal man in woman from following man
in death. We are not all cowards like she who sent yonder _ram-rucki_
to the Most High."
She pointed with scorn to a slender, silken cord, behung with coloured
tassels which the King wore on his wrist, bracelet fashion.
Akbar frowned.
"So. Thou knowest the story?"
"This slave knows all that concerns the Honour of the King," she
replied proudly.
The frown grew.
"The King can keep his honour without thy help, woman! Aye! and his
promises too; so this coward shall be saved." Then, as was so often
the case with him, eager questioning swept away everything else. "Yet
wherefore coward? Tell me that, thou, her sister in sex? Wherefore
should a young girl not shrink from burning with an old profligate
whose very age hath prevented natural fulfilment of husbandhood? By
the sun, my very stomach turns at the thought of it; yet womanhood
accepts it dutifully. Lo! couldst thou but tell me--but thou canst
not--whence comes this sense of sin which makes women prostitute, and
tempts men to be far worse than the beasts, I would give thee----." He
paused, looking into her soft dark eyes whence the fierceness had died
away giving place to wise surprise at ignorance.
"The Most Excellent must know," she replied. "Our mothers teach it to
us. It is the love which seeks for pleasure, which forgets motherhood.
Lo! in the beginning we were the nothingness which tempted form, even
as Siyala the courtesan sang; so we cannot live save through that
which we create. We are 'thieves of form, and sanctuaries of souls,'
even as the Princess Sanyogata told Prithviraj. Aye! though she had
lured him with the love that is illusion! But she was brave also. She
left her womanhood to die, and followed the immortal in the man."
"Then this mortal love is woman's only?" he asked critically, eager as
ever in argument.
"Aye!" she answered simply. "In the beginning it was so; but we
have taught it to man; thus it returns to us again in every soul to
which we give a body. Yea! it is so! Look how far we are, Most
Excellent"--she pointed with slim finger to the distant cranes--"from
yonder birds to whom pairing time is breeding time, who know not sex
save for the life they have to give to the world."
She paused, and there was silence; for once again, the example she had
chosen fitted in with past thoughts. Far away on the primrose verge a
sword-shaped shaft of red-encircled cloud hid the rising sun.
"And there is no other Love?" he asked moodily, forgetful as ever of
his _entourage_ in the absorption of inquiry. Her face grew paler, her
hand went up almost unconsciously to her throat round which the green
stone of the _rebeck_ player hung; but no essence of rose assailed her
senses; or if it did she denied the fact strenuously.
"I know not, my King," she said quietly. "There be some who talk of
it; but my father--he was very learned, Most High--held that Love,
needing both subject and object" (she spoke quite simply of such
abstruse idea as many a nigh naked coolie in India will do, if so be
he is Brahmin), "lay outside the Great Unity and so was illusion. Yet
to me----" she hesitated and looked at him almost appealingly out of
her large, dark, unfathomable eyes. "Lo! I am woman, so I cannot
think--wherefore should not Love be all things?"
"Wouldst thou have it so, sister?" he asked, meaningly. She flushed
faintly under her dark skin.
"Nay! Most High," she replied proudly. "For me honour is enough, since
I guard the King's."
The words held something of self-revelation in them. He rose and wound
his saffron veil closer. "So be it, sister! Guard the King's honour,
aye! and his Luck too if thou canst!" he added with a smile as he
moved away.
The word roused her to a sense that her chance was departing; she
caught at his feet and bowed herself over them in the attitude which
in India brings arrest to all in authority; for it is ultimate appeal.
"What is it, sister?" he queried almost mechanically.
"What--what, Most Excellent, of the King's Luck?" she asked
tremulously. At the moment other, clearer words failed her.
"What?" he echoed perplexedly, wondering what the woman would
be at. "Naught that I know of save that it shone when I saw it
yester-evening, and that it will shine still more when the Feringhi
jeweller hath spent his Western art upon it," he added with a smile.
"Yester-even," she could scarce speak for surprise, "then--then it is
not stolen? The King's Luck is safe?"
"Stolen! Ye Gods, no!" His look of wonder changed to kindly
compassion. "Go home, my sister," he said as he might have said to a
child. "And dream not so much of the King and his Luck. He is not
worth it! So farewell! Yet stay! I owe thee something once more
for--thy treatise on Love! I gave thee thy father's titular office
did, I not? Well! to-morrow take up his duties! Come to the Great
Durbar in thy Charan's dress, and, for once, a woman shall challenge
the whole world for Akbar. Lo! it will make some of the _durbaries_
see Shaitan," he interpolated for himself light-heartedly. "But come
and fear not--I will warn the Chamberlain to give thee place. So once
more farewell, widow----"
Thus far he had spoken with a smile; now his face grew grave. "Lo!
despite Akbar, methinks thou wilt die for some man yet; thou art of
that quality. Heaven send he be worth the sacrifice!"
"I will die for the King's honour if need be," she muttered, true by
instinct to her life-idea, even in the midst of her mingled joy and
amazement. She sate for some time after Akbar left her, trying to
piece together the tangled clues she held; but such intricate
balancing of facts was beyond her. She lived only by what she felt, so
she was without guide in following up the actions of others.
That the diamond had been stolen she knew; and now it was evident that
Birbal had kept the knowledge of the theft from the King--doubtless to
save him from distress. This latter thought leapt to her heart and
found instant harbour there, so that she began to reproach herself
with having gone so near to making such forethought of no avail; a
forethought that had done its work too, since as the Most High had
seen the diamond but the evening before it must have been recovered.
The incident was therefore over--small thanks to her!
And yet the King had bidden her challenge the whole world on his
behalf! She crept home and looked at her father's corselet and sword
wonderingly. How had it come about that the Great Hope of her life was
about to be realised, and she could scarce feel any joy in it?
Meanwhile Akbar was doffing his ascetic's robe, and donning the
heron-plumed turban of empire. It was a change to which he was
accustomed; but this morning, he felt that something of his interview
with Atma Devi lingered with him.
He paused for a moment as he passed to the Private Hall of Audience
with Birbal to look out across the palace courtyard and so through the
Arch of Victory to India stretching wide and far beyond it.
"If I leave this place," he said quietly, "as leave it surely I shall
some day, thus condemning myself to sonlessness, I shall go down to
the ages as one who failed--who built dream-palaces unfit for
humanity; therefore fit home for the bats, the foxes, the hyenas."
"This will I warrant, sire!" replied Birbal, hotly, in instant defence
of his master. "Let who will come to Akbar's Arch of Triumph in the
future, it shall remain to them unforgettable, unforgotten, until
Death kills memory!"
"The memory of a great defeat," continued the King shaking his head.
"And to my mind a greater one if I remain!" He turned and laid his
hand on Birbal's shoulder. "Yea! old friend. I have failed--why strain
thyself to hide it? Wherefore--God knows! for I have striven." He
paused, then went on, "There was a woman at the tank this morning who
said that Love was all things. Is it so? Have I not loved enough? Is
that the solving of the riddle--is it the Master-Key?"
Birbal's face was a fine study in sarcastic disagreement. "Mayhap, my
King! The poets have it so; though in God's truth this wondrous key
has unlocked naught for me--save nothingness!"
"A perfect mating," went on the dreamer, absorbed in his own thoughts.
"The Twain once more as One, sex and its vain search forgotten.
Strange if it should be so! Strange if the finding of Self in the
Giving of Self should bring back memory yet forgetfulness of that far
beginning when the Ocean of Light everlasting, quiescent, stirred into
ripples of Shadow, and the One became Two."
"The Audience waits, sire," said Birbal drily.
Akbar laughed, and went on. Yet he turned to Birbal swiftly half an
hour afterward when, in the course of business, words were let fall
which brought back the memory of this conversation.
It had been rather a disturbing audience and Akbar, ere he commenced
it, had felt wearied beyond his usual measure.
So, as he sate below the throne, the position he invariably occupied
as symbolising that he was but the representative of a higher power,
he had listened with a certain sense of irritation, while a letter,
which Father Ricci, the Jesuit, had left behind him, was read aloud by
a slim white-robed man with a marked bend of the head and a kindly,
patient face.
It ran as follows:
"To the Most Merciful and Most Illustrious King and Emperor
Jalal-ud-in Mahommed Akbar greeting, from his Father in God and Vicar
of Christ, servant of the King of Kings: Whereas for long years past I
have to the great injury of the cause of Christ, yet with the most
pious hopes of eventual harvest, permitted that good servant of the
Lord, priest Rudolfo Acquaviva to reside at the Most-Excellent's court
in the hopes that by his godly example and teaching light might come
to the eyes, and knowledge to the ears of the Emperor. Yet having,
during my recent visit, seen with mine own eyes how small a part the
great truths of the Church play in the life of the Most-Excellent, and
having in view also the most great favour extended to heretick
Protestants----"
Birbal's mime-like face puckered, he bent over the King.
"Said I not the reception of the English merchants would bring about
greater zeal for Majesty's conversion?"
But Akbar checked him with a frown; so the long phrases of
disappointment, partly pious, partly pique, went on and on. When they
closed he turned swiftly to the reader.
"Be thou the arbiter, friend Rudolfo. Dost wish to go? Is Akbar not
kind enough?"
Padre Rudolfo Acquaviva looked affectionately at the man whom he
refused, almost to the point of insubordination, to count accursed.
"The King is not kind enough to himself," he said, his gentle face a
benediction, as he noted the strain, the anxiety, which in all moments
of rest sate on Akbar's countenance. "Wherefore should not weariness
lay down its burden at the gracious command, 'Come unto me and I will
give you rest'?"
For a second there was a pause. Then Akbar rose, and squared his broad
shoulders. "I could not if I would, friend," he replied proudly. "A
King's burden must be carried." So with a loud voice he cried:
"Has any or aught further need of the King's wisdom?"
There was no pause this time.
The Makhdum-ul'-mulk, in his robes of chief doctor of the law, stepped
forward hastily and began to read.
"Lo! Makhdum-_sahib_," interrupted Akbar lightly vet impatiently,
"Majesty hath listened to this before. The petition is dismissed. It
hath seemed good to the Crown so to cement union with our Rajput
Allies, the marriage ceremonies are commenced, therefore this demand
that the Heir-Apparent shall have his first wife one of his own faith
is idle--and ill-timed."
"It hath the signature of fifteen thousand learned Ulemas of Islam,"
continued the Makhdum militantly.
"If it had fifty thousand----" interrupted Akbar again; this time
sternly.
Ghiass Beg, the Lord High-Treasurer flung himself, suddenly at the
King's feet, and his example was followed by half a dozen of Akbar's
most tried and trusted Mohammedan counsellors.
"If the Most-Auspicious will grant us private audience for a space, we
will disclose that which may alter Majesty's opinion," said their
leader.
Akbar frowned; Birbal and Abulfazl scenting some further conspiracy,
stepped forward with instant excuse.
"It is not on the list, sire," said the latter. But the Emperor's
sense of Kingship had been aroused, first by his reply to Padre
Rudolfo, next by the Makhdum's militant protest. So with a quaint
admixture of pride and humility he set aside the Prime Minister's plea
haughtily.
"Justice, Shaikh-jee, is not listed like an auctioneer's tale of
goods. Ushers! clear the assemblage! My friends, farewell! I would be
alone with these gentlemen for a while."
After the ceremonial salaamings, the rustle and glitter of retreating
silks and satins had died away, he faced those few as he stood below
the throne.
"Well," he said, "speak."
A little old man, poet as well as prince, prostrated himself, and so
began with many flowers of speech, many ambiguities, and many
quotations from Hafiz, on the story of Prince Salim's sight of
Mihr-un-nissa. "Thus O Most Illustrious King, O! Most Indulgent
Father, Fate hath intervened and sent Love!" he concluded, adding in
pompous monotonous chant the well-known lines:
He whose soul by Love is quickened, never can to death be hurled;
Written is his name immortal in the records of the world.
Then it was that Akbar turned and looked at Birbal. The latter was
instant in reply to the unspoken questions.
"The love of a lad of eighteen, Most High, can scarce be counted love.
And might we learn the honourable family of the lady? That hath been
omitted."
Ghiass Beg prostrated himself, "My daughter, sire! The shame of this
plea overwhelms me, but in justice to Majesty, I cast away honour. My
daughter, sire, a most excellent, admirable, and beautiful young
lady."
"But surely," put in Abulfazl swiftly, suavely, "already betrothed to
Sher Afkan, captain in the King's horse?"
Akbar frowned. "Is this so?" he asked and listened, the frown
deepening, to the altercation that followed. Finally, he raised his
hand.
"Enough," he cried, "that ends it. What is talked of is bespoken; and
not even a King's son hath right to interfere."
The Makhdum-ul'-mulk was the next to prostrate himself and speak.
"True O Ruler of the Universe! but the Head of the Church hath ever
had the right to annul such promises, and Majesty having assumed that
title, might exercise the functions thereof." The suggestion was deft,
but it failed.
"For my son's benefit," retorted Akbar "not so, Makhdum-_sahib_. The
office is held more incorruptible now."
"The August Pillar of Empire mistakes," put in a younger man, alert,
intelligent. "It is for the good of Empire. Lo! we be here as humble
friends, advisers, counsellors. With all duty be it spoken, the young
Prince--may he live for ever!--hath given cause for anxiety. This
chaste cupola of chastity of whom undesirable mention has been made,
whose name my unworthy lips refuse to utter, hath a reputation for
great wisdom as well as beauty. If then the Heir-Apparent were wedded
to her, if love----"
Akbar raised his hand again sharply, and Birbal divining hesitation,
whispered in his ear.
"Remember the Rajput Allies sire; a hint of this----"
The King checked him haughtily, "Peace! That goes on as ever. I was
but thinking--thinking of the boy and--and the girl." Then he raised
his voice. "Gentlemen! I admit much of what hath been said. The Prince
hath given cause for anxiety--he gives it still. And if Fate had been
beforehand with fact, such might have been good solution for much
anxiety. But she is behindhand. The wedding festivities of the
Heir-Apparent have already begun----"
"The nuptials could be simultaneous, Most High," interpolated the
younger man, who was court lawyer. "It is a royal custom----"
"And the young lady is already betrothed," went on Akbar inexorably.
"That in itself is sufficient. The King's promise is given in the
first, her father's in the second. Akbar will break neither." And then
suddenly resentment, perhaps a faint regret, seemed to come to him and
his voice rose. "Lo! have I ever broken faith? Has not my yea been
yea, my nay, nay?"
"Of a truth it has, Great Sire," answered the court lawyer deftly as
his forehead once more touched the dust. "Yea! even beyond the
ordinary faith of kings, since Akbar hath not shrunk in the past from
rescinding orders he hath made in error. Will he not do so now? Will
he not bow to Fate?"
It was boldness beyond belief, and both Birbal and Abulfazl stood
aghast. Yet it was a master-stroke, for Akbar paled and was silent.
"Fate," he echoed at last, and the tone of his voice brought Birbal's
to his ear in earnest entreaty--but it was too late. "So be it! Fate
shall be the arbiter for this boy and this girl. Let her see to it!"
His eyes lit up, a certain buoyancy seemed to lift him above the dull
world. "I, Akbar, challenge her! Ye say Fate hath intervened. Let her
intervene! If in the hours from dawn to dawn, she can make the King go
back from his word in one thing, to her the victory! If not, to me."
The words rang out through the maze of arches in the Diwan-i-Khas.
Then there was silence, till on the silence the King's laugh rang out.
"Look not so solemn, friends--and foes mayhap!--Akbar, like all things
else is in the hands of Fate."
But as Birbal went out with Abulfazl, he cursed and swore. "Aye!" he
assented "'tis true enough. All things are in the hands of Fate; but
wherefore should the King be in the hands of his enemies? They will
strain every nerve----"
"'Tis but for a short time--from dawn to dawn." put in Abulfazl
consolingly, "and we must strain every nerve also." Then suddenly his
face softened. "Lo! I would not have him otherwise, Birbal. He is like
a racehorse! The least touch of the bit of Fate and--for all his
words--he chafes against it. 'Tis not Acquiescence, it is Defiance
that wings his challenge."
"Aye!" grunted Birbal with a whimsical smile, "and a half-hearted
belief that Love is all things."