_Look lover! Now indeed Love endeth right
This is the only road. Oh, learn of me
That Death shall give thee Love's best ecstasy
Oh! If thou be'st true lover wash not hand
From that dear Stain of Love; from worldly brand
Of Wealth and Self-love wash it. At the last
Those win who spite of Fortune's tempests stand
Glad to wreck all for Love--I say to thee
I, Sa'adi, launch not on Love's boundless Sea
But, if thou puttest forth, hoist sail, quit anchor,
To Storm and Wave trust thyself hardily_.
--Sa'adi[15]
---------------------
[Footnote 15: Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold.]
---------------------
"The Woman-Charan waits without under guard."
"Bid her in--alone!"
Akbar had been awaiting this it seemed to him for hours. Now that it
had come he would have delayed, if he could.
The tent was still dark, but as the outer screen was lifted something
paler, grayer than murk-night showed in faint square, grew blurred
with moving shades, then disappeared altogether. The cresset light
scarce reached into the shadowy corners of the tent, where hung faint
clouds of scented smoke; but Akbar's keen eyes pierced the gloom
clearly.
"What? Have they bound thee? I meant not so," He stepped to the tall
dim figure and unloosed the cord with which its hands were tied.
"Come hither, woman."
The kindly office done, he was back on the throne, his face showing
stern in the cresset light. As she came forward she stumbled slightly
in her walk. They must have tied her feet also, when they were
bringing her to the camp and she was numb and stiff. His heart went
out to her in swift pity, then returned to him in swifter justice.
"The ring, woman! The signet that I gave thee," he said peremptorily.
Until that was gone from her finger, even he could not touch her for
harm. She held it out to him without a word, then sinking to her knees
crouched at his feet. The folds of her star-set skirts clung round her
closely, the saffron, pearl-sewn veil hardly hid her beauty of strong
supple curves. She had begged to be allowed to die in the steel
hauberk of the Charan, but they had jeered at her, saying the race was
well quit of such representatives as she. So in her final arraignment
she stood as simple woman.
Perhaps by so doing she gained advantage. Anyhow, Akbar who had meant
to be sternly judicial, felt, now they were alone together, that this
was no question of Culprit and Judge, but of a man and a woman. And
with the feeling came, to his surprise, a sense of keen personal
injury.
"Why hast thou done this thing?" he asked bitterly.
The long tension of the night, the sight of the man she knew she
loved, the very touch of his hands as he undid the knot which had
bound her, and now the regret, the pain of his voice, all conspired
against calmness, though she fought for it desperately. There was but
one refuge--the refuge of race.
"I--I did it for the King," she said mechanically, not realising the
full meaning of her words.
He caught at it in a moment. "For the King? Then _thou_ art true."
She gave no answer. What was the use of explanation when she could not
explain? When the King must never know aught concerning the theft of
the diamond. Silence was better. God gave the reward of that.
"Atma"--she shivered at the name, at the tone, of the King's
voice--"I command thee, as King, answer truly. What was there betwixt
thee and the Mirza?"
She sighed faintly. By forgetting what really mattered in the purely
personal, he had enabled her to obey.
"That which is ever between a man and woman when they both need
somewhat, my liege," she said simply. "So now I must die. It will be
better."
She had told herself this a hundred times that night. She had done her
work. Life might bring difficulties. Death was the only remedy. But
she over-reached herself in self-sacrifice.
"Oh! let me die, my liege," she cried kissing the dust of his feet.
"Majesty will forget." This hope was also in her blurred mind.
"It will not forget," he cried passionately, "unless it knows the
truth. Speak! woman--Blazon out thy shame if shame there be, else I
call Birbal with the diamond he took from thee----"
She was on her feet trembling with anger, outraged utterly.
"What! he hath told the Most-High! Oh! traitor, coward! And he
swore--he bade me never tell----"
Akbar gave a sigh of relief. He understood now. This woman had been in
the conspiracy of silence; and she would have kept that silence until
death.
"Sit thee down again, King's Charan," he said almost with a smile.
"The King was not to know. Aye! but he does know, so silence is of no
avail. He knows all--how the Luck was stolen for the Prince Salim, and
how he, deceiving his father----"
Atma gave a little cry and crept closer, almost as it were
consolingly, to his feet.
"He is but young, my liege, he did not think," she pleaded. "Truly he
loves his father--there is no cause for pain----"
In the slight pause Akbar's eyes showed suspiciously as if they held
sudden tears. "Not so spoke she who told me," he said, his voice
bitter. "Yet she also was woman!"
Atma's slow brain busy over that "she" broke in on the silence.
"Was't Khanzada Gulbadan or Umm Kulsum?" she asked naively.
Akbar frowned quickly. "I wist not _they_ were in the scandal," he
said quite petulantly. "But what matters it if all the world
knew--save only the King! Leave that alone, for God's sake, and tell
me truly what lay between thee and Ibrahim?"
To him so near desire, that was the fateful question.
To her also, for dimly she saw ahead. "Silence is best," she said
obstinately. "It does not injure Truth, _whose hiding place is
immortality, whose shadow, death_."
The well-worn quotation fell from her lips like the juice of poppy,
restful, soothing, opiate; but Akbar was in no mood of acquiescence.
He bent hastily and seized her by the wrist, fiercely, tenderly. All
his blood was stirring in him as it had not stirred for years.
"I tell thee thou shalt answer! I, the King, command thee, Charan. Nay
I, Jalal-ud-din Mahomed Akbar, as man, command thee as woman. Tell me
the truth----"
She shrunk back--looked into his eyes, whence peace and dignity had
fled, leaving naught but man's passion--then gave a little sob,
feeling her effort had failed. He was man, not King.
"Yea! I will tell thee, Jalal-ud-din Mahomed Akbar!"
So she told him dully, piteously, of her treachery concerning Diswunt,
of her immediate repentance, of her much searching. Of the Wayfarer
and his strange gift that she wore even now around her neck and how it
had helped her, until as she spoke a scent of fresh roses seemed to
fill the tent where those two sate hand in hand; for the grip on wrist
had slackened and her fingers now lay in his willingly, confidently.
Then she told him of Mihr-un-nissa and the Beneficent Ladies, of the
false gems and the true one hidden in a harlot's bosom, until interest
growing in Akbar's eyes, she forgot herself in her story, as she told
of the Mirza and his uttermost deceit. Her very hand withdrew itself
unnoticed as she described the fly's foot upon the paper which had
altered the hour, and her voice rang defiant as she gave her challenge
for the Truth. So, instinct with the mere drama of the deed, she
sprang to her feet and made as if she flung the goblet, curving like a
comet, into the night. And Akbar sate and watched her with ever
growing admiration as, action by action, she followed her own words.
It became breathless, palpitating--the seven lamped cresset--the
chiming gong--even the long-drawn kisses----
Akbar's cheek paled--this was more than womanhood--this was his dream
of it----!
"Die dog! Die for thine untruth!"
Her passion had risen to its height; she staggered, for it was Akbar
whom she found within her clasp.
But it was Akbar who held her close, as men hold women whom they love,
who strained her to his breast, murmuring, "Nay! thou shalt live, live
for thine uttermost Truth."
The excitement died from her face in a moment, she drew back from him
in deadly fear.
"My liege--my liege--not so--it cannot be--for pity sake, my liege."
"Cannot?" he echoed with an exultant laugh. "Wherefore can it not be.
Am I not the King?"
"It is because the Most High _is_ the King" she began--"Remember, my
liege--the death warrant."
He had forgotten it; but he passed rapidly to the desk whereon it lay.
"That is easy remedied," said he seizing on it and making as if he
would tear it up.
"Hold!" she cried peremptorily.
"Wherefore?" he asked as peremptorily.
She drew herself up to her full height. "Because I am keeper of the
King's honour, and I forbid it."
"Again, wherefore?" Checked in his immediate intention his temper
rose.
"Does my liege forget," she said and her voice was calmness itself,
"that it is not yet Dawn? That to destroy that paper is failure?--that
the King's enemies will triumph? It is not yet Dawn and _that_"--she
pointed to what he held--"belongs to To-day."
There was an awful silence. Akbar stood blinded by the truth. It was
as she had said; to annul the death-warrant was to confess failure.
So, after a time his voice--or was it not his voice--sounded through
the tent.
"It is not sealed. Thou hadst the ring--therefore it doth not count"
She had taken a step or two nearer to him as if to beg the paper of
him, now she shrank back as from a snake, frozen with fear.
"What!" she whispered and her voice was close on tears. "Shall
Kingship stoop to Craft--Leave that to the King's enemies."
But Akbar was past reproach; passion had mastered him and his hands
instinct mobile with fierce life, met and parted again and again until
the death-warrant torn to shreds lay in his clasp a mere handful of
waste paper. "Lo!" he cried joyfully, "Let Kingship go! Jalal-ud-din
is man--he will reap man's harvest of love."
He flung what he held from him with the action of a sower who sows.
The light scraps of paper hung in the air for a second then fell
steadily, softly, like seed grains. Some of them fell on Atma's white
star-sewn skirts.
She stooped slowly to raise one and hold it up menacingly.
"Not a grain of the sheaves of life is stored by one who has trod
The furrows and fallows of passion, and sown no seed for God."
But Akbar had drifted too far from philosophy for such hoarded wisdom.
He was back beside the speaker his arm around her.
"It is idle, Atma I tell thee naught shall stand between us. Let
Kingship go--thou art my Queen!"
She fought frantically against him and his claim.
"Sire, bethink you, if the challenge be lost?"
"What care I--thou lovest me--dare not to say thou dost not----"
"Yea! Yea! I love thee oh Jalal-ud-din," she cried pleading with him,
for himself, "but thou art the King. Thy faith must not fail."
"My faith in thee will never fail," he replied, "naught else matters."
"Not mine in thee? Not mine, the Charan's in the King? Nay, it shall
not be so Atma the Charan dies!"
Her hand which had snatched out the death-dagger of her race held it
high above her head; but Akbar was too quick for her. His was on hers;
so arrested, it remained, bringing her face closer to his.
"Nay, my Queen!" he said and the softness of his voice sent despair
and delight through her veins. "Thou hast said thou lovest me, as I do
thee. Is that not enough for poor mortal man? What is Kingship
compared to it? Let it go! Kiss me, sweetheart--kiss me but once, and
thou wilt learn----"
She lay passive on his shoulder, her eyes, full of the fire of love
immortal, found and held his.
"What shall I learn, Great King?" she whispered falteringly.
"To take even love from my hand," he said, bending closer.
Her whole body seemed to yield to him, she nestled closer, finding
soft rest in his strong arms.
"Yea!" she whispered, raising her lips for the kiss. "I will take--all
things from the hand of the King."
So, ere he could prevent it, ere, taken by surprise, his iron muscles
could counteract the strong downward sweep of her right hand, his,
clasping hers, followed the flash of the death-dagger of her race.
It found fit sheathing close to her heart.
"Atma," he whispered sinking to his knees with the dead weight he
held. "Atma!"
He did not call her love or queen; he knew too well that she was
slipping away from such empty titles.
A low murmur made him bend his ear closer.
"May the--Gods pity--us Dreamers--who--dream----"
The old refrain. The first words surely he had heard from her lips.
But at least she still lived.
Gathering her in his arms he carried her to the divan; then knelt
supporting her on his breast. If she died she should die as a
queen--in the King's clasp--upon his throne.
So there was silence.
The dawn was coming fast. It showed in streaks of shimmering gray
light between the dark screens.
"Atma!"
There was no sound.
Then suddenly gay, light-hearted as a bird, a bugle rang out; followed
by another, and another.
The dying woman stirred.
"The--the dawn has come!" she whispered to herself. And then,
suddenly, as if galvanised to an instant's life, she sate up and the
tent rang with her cry.
Ohi! The King, The King,
Challenge I bring
Ohi! The King--the----
The last word never came. In her effort to rise she overbalanced and
slipped in a huddled heap at Akbar's feet.
He stood quite still. He knew that she was dead; that nothing but
worthless clay lay there; the deathless spirit--the dreamer that never
dies--had fled--whitherward? His way, surely!
So as he stood, he felt Kingship rise in him, as he had never--no not
even he the prince of dreamers--felt it before.
Ohi! The King the King!
He stooped, gathered the dead thing in his arms, and laid it on the
low throne. He did not even kiss the dead face, though the scent of
roses clung round her. For an instant he felt inclined to take the
gift of the Wayfarer from her as a remembrance. Then he remembered
himself.
Such things might be for Jalal-ud-din the man. He was the King. She
should take Love with her.
Outside the bugle notes were echoing each other merrily through the
camp. All things were astir with the dawn.
And he, the King was needed elsewhere. He called, and a servant
entered.
"Lo! I have killed the woman," he said pointing to the divan briefly.
"Give her fit burning, at once, ere the sun rise. She is _suttee_--she
hath died for a man."
So he strode through the screen to the larger tent, and gave the
signal for the uprising of Majesty.
In a second the huge weighted curtains at the end had swung to their
high looped places, and advancing, he took his seat upon the canopied
dais behind them. On the far level horizon the pearl gray of dawn was
changing to primrose, darkening even as it changed to rosy-red; for
Dawn comes swiftly in the cloudless skies of India. Before him,
thronged with courtiers, circled the vast enclosure of the Inner
Audience, opening out into a wide avenue wherein, drawn up on either
side, stood soldiers in battalions. Their spear points struck at the
sky; for beyond was nothingness. Only a wide, empty plain reaching up
to a wide, empty sky.
ALLAH-HU AKBAR!
The cry rose from a thousand throats.
Akbar was indeed the King.
His enemies had failed.
Yet there was one thing which must be done before the dawn, if all was
to be well, and Birbal looking somewhat crestfallen, stepped forward
at a signal from the throne; behind him came William Leedes the
jeweller.
The latter was saying "Ave-Mary's" under his breath, partly from pure
fear of evil, partly from thanksgiving for delivery from evil.
"Mirza-Rajah Birbal," came the King's voice clear and resonant, to be
heard of all men. "Deliver up the diamond called the King's Luck which
was stolen, but which the King's Charan Atma Devi hath died to
restore" (Birbal started, then hung his head). "Deliver it up to the
Western jeweller, William Leedes, in accordance with the oath by which
she bound you."
Then turning to the Englishman the royal voice became less stern.
"And you--who are without blame--take it once more to thy lathe.
Akbar's will hath not changed. His Luck shall shine. Aye! and
his empire shall shine--as _he chooses_; let subjects, princes,
friend--yea--even sons, say what they may!" Then changing gravity for
cheerfulness he called down the line of soldiery: "Gentlemen! make
ready for your march! Akbar goes forward! He leaves this Town of many
Tears and Lack of Water behind him for ever!"
As he spoke the curved edge of the sun showed like a star for a second
across the waste of desert that stretched as a sea before him, and
from behind, from the Darkness of the Tents, from the Shadows of
Man's Habitations, came the Procession of the Hours. In rosy pink like
Dawn-Clouds, the pair of little children, no longer wide-eyed and
solemn, danced at the head; and behind them, radiant with smiles
followed the choric singers each with an unlit taper, singing the Song
of the Dawn that has been sung in India since the Dawn of Days.
Many-tinted Morn! Th' immortal daughter of heaven
Young, white-robed, come with thy purple steeds
Follow the path of the dawning the world has been given
Follow the path of the dawn the world still needs.
From behind came quaint interludes that sounded like the carolling of
birds, the whisperings of wind among the corn, the lowing of
cattle--all the sounds of waking life upon the earth; and three of the
taper holders advancing placed a taper, one on each side of the dais,
one in the middle; so stood beside it still singing:
Darkly shining Dusk, thy sister has sought her abiding,
Fear not to trouble her dreams! Daughters ye twain of the Sun,
Dusk and Dawn bringing Birth. Oh! Sisters your path is unending!
Dead are the first who have watched. When shall our watching
be done?
Once again three taper bearers bore their burdens to the appointed
places.
Bright luminous Dawn; rose-red, radiant, rejoicing,
Show the traveller his road; the cattle their pastures new,
Rouse the beasts of the earth to their truthful myriad voicing,
Leader of Lightful days, softening the soil with dew.
The semicircle round the dais was almost complete now. It needed but
three more tapers, and once again the voices rose exultant!
Wide expanded Dawn: Open the gates of the Morning
Waken the singing birds. Guide thou the truthful light
To uttermost shade of the Shadow, for see you! the dawning
Is born white-shining out of the gloom of the night!
As one, the twelve camphor candles flashed into white light, that
shone for a second, then grew pale and cold, as the sun, heaving his
mighty shoulder out of the dust haze that hung on the horizon, flooded
the wide earth with his shine.
There was a pause. Akbar was about to rise, so ending the ceremony,
when down the wide centre, betwixt the serried ranks of the soldiers,
showed a man.
He walked slowly, his head was bent, and on his right arm was knotted
a blue handkerchief.
"News of death!" commented the soldiers, quickly recognising the
emblem--"Whose?"
"Whose?" asked the courtiers rapidly, while Akbar stood arrested.
"Whose?" queried Birbal quickly. He had been busy all night; had heard
nothing.
"His half-brother of Kabul," said Abulfazl sadly. "The runner came in
but half an hour agone; and this seemed the best way of breaking it;
the shock will help----"
"Now heaven be thanked!" cried Birbal. "Not that I do not grieve--for
the King; but this may make his decision less final. He _must_ go now
for the sake of Kingship--but His Dream in Red Sandstone may see him
yet once again!"
L'ENVOI
_O Gardener wide open the gate of the garden.
Let in the rose from her long winter sleep;
Bid the tall cypress stand sentinel-warden,
Spreading soft shade where the narcissus keep
Heads drooping down in their slumbering deep.
Bid the shoot harden,
Bid the sap leap!_
_Gardener! array all with manifold flowers.
Figure the garden like damask of old,
Tell of its hues in the turtledove's bowers,
Gild the bare ground with the pansies of gold
Pomegranate lips, stained with wine have you told
"These are the rose hours
Nightingale bold!"
Lo! she returns with bud-cradle of birth
Rose of the wine-house she brings to the earth,
Drink to the Spring time, to Love, and to Mirth_.
--Nizami.
Four years had passed away and the Dream in Red Sandstone still waited
for the Dreamer: waited, as it still waits, deserted but not ruined,
the Great Arch of Victory remaining as Birbal had prophesied, that
which no man having once seen, can ever forget.
But Birbal himself had passed into the unknown; almost into the
forgotten save for his master's undying affection which, even after
two years, still scanned the earthly horizon eagerly looking for news,
at any rate, of his lost friend; since Birbal's actual death is one of
those things of which neither past or present hold any knowledge. He
disappeared in the mountains of Swat whither he had gone in the vain
effort to translate one of Akbar's dreams into terms of reality.
For the Great Mogul, Emperor of India, had dreams of conquest, not by
sword, not even by religion, as his great forerunner the Emperor Asoka
had had in the years before Christ--but by common sense; that is the
voluntary submission of the individual to a collective policy which
makes for peace and prosperity to the mass of the people.
Deprived of latter-day delusions, modern foolishnesses, Akbar's dream
was Socialism. Not the Socialism which proclaims the right of the
individual, which presses that home against all other considerations,
but the Socialism which sweeps all things, individual poverty as well
as individual wealth into the Great Mill of God for the good of the
race; which holds personal comfort unworthy of consideration.
It was not, perhaps, a policy suited to the most turbulent tribes upon
the Indian Frontier. Still Kabul had been annexed almost without a
blow, Kashmir brought into the Imperial net by a peaceful
demonstration, and, but for Sinde, the Imperial armies would scarcely
have struck a blow during these years of Imperial aggrandisement.
Anyhow, the experiment, one after Akbar's own heart, was tried; and
Birbal went with the forces as a counterpoise to the old Commander in
Chief (he was the Wellington of Akbar's reign) and his more antiquated
methods of suasion. They drew lots, those two friends of the King,
Abulfazl and Birbal, which should take the onerous post; and the lot
fell on Birbal. It is said that the King hesitated to let him go; but
behind friendship lay Kingship.
So he went, and disputes soon arising between the policy of pike and
cannonade, as against a mere display of force, Birbal, left in the
lurch, disappeared for ever with fifteen hundred picked men amid the
peaks and passes of the Alai Mountains.
It had been a great blow to Akbar; he had, indeed, refused to believe
in his friend's death, and still looked for him to return--even if
from the Other Side--in obedience to his promise.
But now, this 10th of May, 1590, he was pausing a little below the top
of the Pir Panjal Pass on the way to Kashmir, awaiting the arrival of
William Leedes, the English jeweller, who all these years had been
engaged in cutting the Great Diamond of India.
It was ready now, and Akbar was eager to see it. But the little party
escorting the jeweller and his charge had not arrived that morning, so
Akbar had come out alone to a favourite vantage point below the actual
snows, whence the whole Panjab plain rising an almost incredible
height in the sky, could be seen.
It was like a shield, he thought suddenly, as he noted the palpable
curve of the horizon; higher in the middle, lower at the sides. That
was the curve of the world's surface, of course; still it reminded one
of the curve of a great shield set between these holy snows of Himalya
and the world beyond. Aye! for the blue of that distant plain was
darker nowhere, was lighter nowhere; and everywhere alike it was
damascened with threads--broader, narrower--of gold.
The land of the Five Rivers! A fair land indeed! A broad battle shield
to the rest of India.
"Lo! there is gran'dad!" came a voice from behind him, and he turned
at the sound of little pattering feet to see his grandson, a child of
about two, stumbling swiftly over the broken ground toward him.
"Have a care Fair-face," (Khushru) he called, holding out his arms,
and the child with a laughing crow, hurrying still harder, almost fell
into their shelter.
"Truly! thou art as two peas in one pod," gasped a breathless voice,
as Auntie Rosebody, completely done by hurrying up the hill, flung
herself on the ground beside her nephew. She looked not a day older
with her gray hair stuffed away into a Mogul cap, her petticoats
tucked away into full Mogul trousers. So, had she roamed the hills, as
a girl, with her father Babar, and now, in her old age, she set an
example to all other ladies of the camp. Umm Kulsum, ever her close
companion, followed on her heels, dressed in like manner, and stood
looking down on the little family party.
"Lo! nephew! at times it takes me," said the old lady, nodding her
head sagely, "to leave the scapegrace--who hath, nathless been
behaving more reputably of late--out of the bargain altogether! The
boy is more like Jalal-ud-din Mahomed Akbar than Salim ever was, and
that is a fact! But"--seeing a frown come to Akbar's face--"I am not
here to fashion likeness, but because," here she drew her face into a
decent pucker of sorrow, "having been--God forgive me--Aye! and Umm
Kulsum too--part responsible for its theft--truly, nephew, your old
aunt feels ever about her neck the bowstring that should have been
drawn, and was not, thanks to----"
Akbar interrupted her with patient gloom. "We have talked this out
many times, oh! most reverend aunt. After all there was no mischief
done." He thought ever as he spoke of that Arch of Victory standing
deserted on the Sikri Ridge.
"But there might have been," interrupted Aunt Rosebody, hotly. "Take
not penitence from my soul, nephew. 'Tis good to have sins to repent
when one grows old and there are no more to commit. So, having been in
the tale at the beginning----"
Akbar looked pathetically at Umm Kulsum, who had sunk to her knees in
contrition.
"It is because, Highness," she answered as if to a question, "the
jeweller is arrived, and is even now on his way hither."
Akbar sprang to his feet, light as a boy. Dressed in hunting leathers
with the close Mogul cap crested with a heron's plume, he looked not a
day older, though his short hair above his beardless face had grown
almost white.
"Here!" he cried, and even as he spoke a party of three or four showed
rounding the rocky path.
A few minutes later Akbar stood holding the diamond, half its original
size, but brilliant exceedingly in the hollow of his right hand.
"For my part," sniffed Auntie Rosebody, "I liked it better as it was.
True, it dazzles the eyes, but to look at it much would be to court
blindness. Lo! it gives _me_ the browache. Come Ummu, let us on our
way. I have promised Hamida, rhubarb-stew to her dinner and we must
climb to the snows for that."
But Umm Kulsum lingered for consolation since, in truth, the stone
bewildered her. "True, _chachaji_" (maternal uncle), she said softly,
"I am not clever enough for it. There be so many sides, and each
seemeth different."
Aye that was it! So many sides, thought Akbar, as, after dismissing
the jeweller and his escort for refreshment, he sate on that pinnacle
of rock almost overhanging the Panjab plain, and looked at the Luck
which he had had cut in Western fashion.
His fowling piece--for he had been on his way to one of his long
solitary rambles--lay beside him and on the polished steel of its lock
the brilliant sunshine glinted, sending reflected light to touch and
make visible the almost microscopic fruition of a tiny lichen on the
rock.
But how much more brilliant was the light that sparkled from the
diamond!
A hundred suns in one? No it was a hundred worlds--worlds unseen till
then.
What would it--what might it not--what ought it not to make manifest?
So once more as he sate holding his luck in his hands, holding it
between him and the river-damascened shield of the wide Panjab plain,
the Self that is behind Self found eyes and saw.
What did he see? Did he see the Shield of India stand in the forefront
of battle for the principles he preached, as it did in Mutiny time? Or
did sight pass beyond that, and did he see the East, intoxicated by
the errors of the West, aping the horrors of a civilisation which has
missed its way, which has forgotten that Socialism is Despotism--the
Despotism of Fate whose eye is fixed, not on the equality of the
individual, but the ultimate outcome of Race?
Who knows?
For as the morning sun rose to power, vapoury mist-clouds gathered on
the damp mountain sides below, and crept up and up, hiding all things,
obscuring all things.
The wide shield of the Land of the Five Rivers went first. Bit by bit
the hurrying mists obscured it, the damascening disappeared until high
upon the sky only a clear blue curved rim remained--an arch of victory
that stretched over the visible world.
Then the mist claimed Akbar's outstretched hand; so, rising, rolling
over on itself, almost playing with the short flower-set turf, patched
here and there with melting snow, and nestling into the crannies of
the rock, it shrouded the King from his Kingdom, the Man from his
World--and the Dreamer was alone with his Dream.
He was asleep, his head resting on a tuft of those tiny blue poppies
which grow on the peaks of Holy Himalya--poppies of heavenly rest
whose petals look as if they had been cut from the sky--when Aunt
Rosebody's voice roused him. The sun, having overcome the mists, was
shining brightly.
"Lo!" she exclaimed, "the King hath been delayed no doubt, but high up
where we were seeking rhubarb it was like the Day of Resurrection to
see the mists tear themselves to shreds in rage as the Sun caught
them. So goes Ignorance before Wisdom. And little Fair-face hath found
his granddad a _nargiz_--present it, child, though 'tis late for a New
Year offering. Lo! he is the spit of my father--on whom be peace--no
flower escapes him."
"And I have found violets for the King," smiled Umm Kulsum,
comfortably. She was more than ever a Mother of Plumpness in her
stuffed Mogul costume.
"Ps'sh" commented Auntie Rosebody scornfully. "What are flowers to
rhubarb? And I have enough for two stews, so Rakiya Begum may lay her
tartness to that--if she will eat of it, though mayhap at her age she
hath forgotten her youth. As for me, 'twill be a Day of Resurrection
indeed to taste of it again, for I have dreamt of it all these years."
Akbar caught up the child with a sudden laugh, and setting him astride
his shoulders began the descent to the camp below.
"'Tis as well, most reverend," he said "that some dreamers dream
true."
Did he think as he spoke of a woman who had dreamed her dream through
to the Truth, _whose hiding place is immortality, whose shadow is
death?_
Perhaps he did. Perhaps, even now, on those misty spring mornings when
the sun chases the snow vapours over the blue gentians and rosy alpine
primulas that edge the snow patches on the peaks of the Pir Panjal,
the Self that lay behind the Self that was called Akbar sits,
enshrouded by the mists and looks out over the Empire of the Great
Mogul.
What does the Prince of Dreamers think of it?
F. A. Steel.
_28th January, 1908_.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Prince of Dreamers, by Flora Annie Steel