Blest is the soul that is lifted above
The paltry cares of Self's selfish love,
Which adds no weight to another's care
And gives no soul a burden to bear,
Which takes what comes as its part and lot,
Which laughs at trouble and worries not,
Which sleeps without malice or fraud in its breast
And rises pure from its daily rest.
_Jami_.
There was a sad meeting, naturally, with the womenfolk Babar had hoped
to help, and who were--somewhat contemptuously--sent to him, unharmed,
after a few days. Or perhaps that "divinity which doth hedge a king"
or whatever it was, which all his life long ensured Babar's own
safety, extended itself to those who were dear to him.
Anyhow they came, and fell with tears on the neck of their dethroned
darling. Dearest-One, slim and tall, her face still showing the lines
of conflicting anxieties, yet still sweet utterly, without trace of
bitterness for her brother. The Khanum, too rejoiced at seeing her son
alive and well to care so much about his loss of dignity. Old
Isan-daulet, keener of look and sharper of tongue than ever, but with
a world of sympathy in her stern eyes for the lad who had lost all
save honour. For she realised that Babar had practically given up
Kingship for the sake of his womenkind. He had had fair grip of
Samarkand, and even with but a thousand devoted followers of his own
to help him hold it, could, nay would have done so.
Babar, himself, did not attempt to deny his virtue. He never did; he
was too frank to gloze over any of his actions, good or bad. He had
done the right thing and he accepted the fact gravely; perhaps a
trifle pompously; but that was his nature. In the same way, he could
not fail to see, that what had placed him in the unfortunate position
of having insufficient followers to hold both Samarkand and Andijan,
was no error of judgment on his part, but simply his extreme and
unusual justice in refusing to grind down the distressed inhabitants
of the former city for the benefit of his soldiery. Could he only have
shut his eyes to the usual undisciplined plunder his army would not
have deserted wholesale.
He was not introspective, but he knew, vaguely, that he had, somehow,
had no choice in the matter. He had been born with this strong sense
of justice, so he could not help himself; therefore despite this
recognition of his own virtue, it slipped from him like water off a
duck's back leaving no self-conceit behind.
So he welcomed his loving women quite whole-heartedly, and then wept
more profusely than ever at the difficulty of maintaining them in
proper fashion. Not that they wanted this. The Khanum, gentle, kindly
soul, was only too glad that her quite capable hands should do all
things for her darling, Dearest-One brisked up with work that took her
out of herself, and Isan-daulet had roughed it too much in her youth
not to enjoy the familiarity of roughing it again. And life, even at
Khojend, a miserable place in which a single nobleman would have found
it difficult to support his family, was not without its interests. Of
the rather more than two hundred, and considerably less than three
hundred followers who chose exile with their young King, quite a
number were men of good family, whose wives and children joined them.
There was, therefore, company of a sort. Then Babar, despite his
tears, was not one to give in. Inspired as he was by an ambition for
conquest and extensive dominions, he could not, on account of one or
two paltry defeats, sit down and look idly about him.
So, at any rate, he told the three loving women with his usual serious
pomp, when he sent a request for assistance to his uncle, the Khan of
Moghulistan, and then set off to reconnoitre around Samarkand. He
returned ere long disappointed; but was soon on the march again
to see his uncle in person at Tashkend. In this he was encouraged by
Isan-daulet who remembered her brother of old. "Lo! I know him. A good
soul but a stupid. The brains of my father, Yunus, went in the female
line. But if you beat his ears with words he will listen. And keep on
the soft side of Shah-Begum, my husband's widow--God rest his soul!
Anyhow he is at peace from her! A clever woman, but like a camel in
mud--slippery!"
And this expedition was so far successful that the young leader
actually returned from it once more at the head of some seven or eight
hundred horsemen. Rather a wild lot, mostly free-lance Moghuls eager
for loot and violence. But it was better than nothing, though Khojend
was not large enough to hold them, even for a night. Mercifully,
however, there was an enemy's fort some forty miles off, so, taking
scaling ladders with them, they rode on to it and carried the place by
surprise. But even one day of Babar's strict discipline was more than
enough for the wild men of the desert, and the very next morning the
Moghul Begs represented that, having but a mere handful of men, no
possible benefit could result to anyone from the keeping of one
miserable castle; and so, there being truth in this remark, they rode
off to their desert again unabashed, leaving Babar to return annoyed,
but not despondent. For at this particular fortress there grew a
particular melon, yellow in colour, with skin puckered like shagreen
leather. A remarkably delicate and agreeable melon, with seeds about
the size of those of an apple, and pulp four fingers thick, which
everyone agreed was not to be equalled in that quarter.
It was as well, certainly, to have gained _something_ if only a good
melon, and the little party at Khojend feasted on it and thanked God
they had their boy back again safe and sound.
The summer was passing to autumn when another fit of despondency came
to young Babar in the news of his cousin Gharib-Beg's death. The
invalid had lingered far longer than had been expected, but still the
certainty that he was gone brought grief; the more so because it
re-aroused regret for the lost Crystal Bowl; regret which had almost
been forgotten in the clash of arms of the last few months. But now he
had time--only too much of it--for thoughts. Not given to mysticism in
any form, he yet wondered vaguely if the Crystal Bowl had ever
existed, or if the whole incident had not been part of the curious
hold Poverty-prince had had upon his imagination; and not on his only,
but on the imagination of all with whom the cripple had come in
contact.
And now he was dead! Gone for ever, like so many friends in these last
troublous times.
Babar, translucent as the crystal itself, gloomed under the shadow of
his regrets till his mother began to fret with the fear of on-coming
illness.
But Dearest-One knew her brother better. "He must get away from us
all," she said. "Yea! even from old Kasim and his warriors. Let him go
to the White Mountains a-hunting for the winter."
But Babar would have none of it.
The White Mountains? Aye! they would be splendid--there were more
bears there than in any other part of the country. Aye! and snow
leopard too--the lad's eyes glistened as he admitted this--but he
_could_ not leave his women-folk again, and he ought not to leave
those who, to their own cost, had chosen to stick by him.
"Then we will go also," said Dearest-One, nothing daunted. "We are not
of towns more than thou art, and thou canst divide thy magnificent
army!--take a hundred men with thee and leave an hundred to guard
Khojend!"
Her sweet eyes smiled at him, and he agreed. No one in all his life
had understood him like Dearest-One, he thought; there was perfect
confidence between them, though, strangely enough, he had never yet
given her the portrait he had found in the Garden-Palace--the portrait
left by Baisanghar in his flight.
Why had he not done so? He scarcely knew, except that he had felt shy
of broaching a subject that seemed buried. 'Twas best not to rouse
coiled snakes, and Baisanghar, who had taken refuge in Bokhara, had
gone out of their lives altogether; out of his, Babar's, at any rate.
But everything seemed gone out of that; as the Turkhi couplet said:
"No home, no friends, no roof above my head;
Six feet of earth, no more, to make my bed."
The White Mountains, however--white indeed during winter with their
snowy slopes invading all save the tiny cleft of the valley where the
skin tents of the little party had been pitched--soon brought back
content. It was as if the soft covering of snow had blotted out the
past, and the winter slipped by, full up with trivial distractions.
Babar, returning long after dark to the encampment with half-a-dozen
or so of bear-skins, forgot he was, or ever had been, King. And when
early spring came on, and the bears were breeding, he took to hunting
tulips instead. There were so many different kinds of them. Over
thirty; and one yellow, double and sweet-scented like a rose.
Dearest-One used to accompany him on these expeditions, for she was a
real Moghul maiden, and the bright, cold winter had braced her up,
until her cheeks glowed once more. Yet still Babar had never given her
the portrait of herself, though he carried it with him more than once
with that determination. Again, he scarcely knew why, except that it
seemed to him the right thing to do. Why should she not have it?
But one day the brother and sister had wandered high over the melting
snow slopes, where the flowers lay thick as a carpet. Blue spring
gentian and clustered pink primrose, purple pansy, and deep brown
nodding columbines above a mosaic of forget-me-not and yellow
crowsfoot. Great sweeps and drifts of flowers where the snow-drifts
ended, and beyond in the far, far distance, in a dip of the hills, a
level line of clear cobalt-blue.
"Yonder lies Samarkand," said Babar, glooming in a second with the
thought of past defeat; but his mind, ever vagrant, followed swiftly a
line of new thought as he narrowed his long eyes to see better. "Had I
the quaint contrivance at the Observatory there," he went on; "did I
not tell thee of it?--no!--Well! 'twas a thing with curved glasses in
a box and it made far-off things seem near--but blurred sometimes.
Still had I it, I could mayhap see the Green-Palace. It stands high
above the town."
Dearest-One, her hands clasped idly over her knees as she sat on a
little peak of rock and ice that rose out of the flowers, was silent
for a space; then she said dreamily:
"'Twas in the Green-Palace, was it not, where Kingship comes and goes,
that Baisanghar was to die that time he escaped?"
Babar hesitated. It was the first time his sister had mentioned her
cousin's name to him; but now that the subject had been broached,
might it not be better to take the opportunity offered? He had the
portrait with him. Why not have it out and have done with it? After
all it was a fitting place; the green alp all starred with flowers
reminded him of the Andijan meadows and they of the green enamel frame
starred with ruby, turquoise, amethyst, topaz.
"I have something here," he said, fumbling in his fur coat, "that I
have meant to give thee for some months; but--I know not why--" So he
began haltingly; then warming to his subject told her in his own
inimitable way, every tiny touch giving life to the picture, how and
where he had found what he finally placed in her hands.
The girl who had listened coldly looked at it still more chillily.
"'Twas not meant for me," she said at last, and her tone was as
ice--"And he prized it little, since he left it behind him."
Babar with the returned miniature in his hand, stared at her in
confused amaze, feeling that, of a truth, women were kittle cattle.
One could never count on them--and all these months he had been afraid
of exciting a storm of tears!
Distinct ill-usage was in his voice as he said gravely: "But thou hast
not seen the verses writ behind, and they are good. I stake my word
they are excellent and correct in every elision, every poetic
licence."
It may have been the bathos in the lad's last eager protest which kept
the pathos of poor Baisanghar's words from making full mark, which
kept the girl's lips from quivering overmuch, which kept the mist of
tears from overflowing to her cheeks as the words fell on the
flower-scented air. So little, to frail humanity, turns grief to
laughter and smiles to tears.
Anyhow Dearest-One sat silent, and a faint smile curved her thin red
lips.
"Yea!" she said softly, "they are good verses; but he was ever a
poet."
And then suddenly the poetry which lies hid at the heart of all
sorrow, all longing, all deprivation, surged on her and her face lit
up with passionate feeling. "Give it me back, brotherling! give it me
back. Let us leave it here! Here! on this high unknown place among
God's flowers! Here! amid ice and snow! Here! overlooking the Palace
where he would have died. Here! close to high heaven where there is
understanding!" Her voice had risen as her thought rose, and now
rang out joyous, triumphant. "Lo! the _Heft-Aurang_ will look down on
my face night after night and the pole star will point the way to
him.... Ah! Baisanghar! have patience, have patience! love will point
the way!..."
She laid the portrait face upwards to the clear blue sunshiny sky on a
cold slab of ice that filled up--and looked as if it had filled up for
centuries of chill summers and frost-bound winters--the wide clefts of
the rock beside her; then stood up and stepped down amid the flowers,
tearless, radiant.
"Come, brother!" she said. "It grows late. Let us descend, they will
be waiting."
But Babar looked meditatively at the pictured face, and then at the
one before him transfigured by emotion.
"So that is love!" he said at last with a curious impersonality in his
tone. "Truly it is wonderful; and after all there is not so much
difference between it and tears!"
So in a flood, came back to him that one glimpse he had had in the
Crystal Bowl of his cousin's face. He saw it again clearly; he seemed
to hear his voice telling of the frightened maiden. He had never
thought of her since; such things passed quickly from his boyish mind.
But now the wonder came as to whether he _would_ ever meet her. He
might, without recognising her, since he did not know who she was.
But Dearest-One might know; such things were part and parcel of the
woman's life. His sister, however, was already half way down the slope
and he had to run to overtake her.
"Do I know?" she echoed to his question, quite calmly, having had time
to recover her serenity. "Wherefore not? Such knowledges have to be
kept by someone; so we women guard it. She whom Mirza Gharib-Beg
deserted--" she spoke with distinct blame--"was well within the circle
of distinction, being both of the royal house and also of the lineage
of Sheik Jami, the divine poet--on whom be peace! Therefore she
deserved a better fate than to live her life in a House-of-Rest--as I
shall live mine," she added with conviction.
"But thou art so young," protested Babar, ever ready to follow any new
lead of thought.
Dearest-One flashed out on him in her old way. "Young! One year older
than she--so there! She was but a child, and Gharib-Beg, remember, was
but two years older." She paused, then added hurriedly: "Did I not
tell thee we silly women guarded such trivial knowledge as our lives?"
To judge by Babar's women-folk (one of his many widowed aunts had
joined the little camp on a visit--he had endless aunts and he seemed
to be a favourite with all--) they guarded other trivial knowledges as
their lives also. Babar returning home of an evening would find a
regular Turkhi feast including goats' milk cheese fritters, made, of
course, after the family recipe, spread out for his delectation, and
Dearest-One never forgot to put violet essence in the thick milk. And
plenty of sugar, for the lad had a sweet tooth. Then as they sat round
the great, pine-log fire at night, Isan-daulet would call for a song;
none of those niggling Persian odes, about the Beloved's Eyebrows and
a Cup of Wine--the which was forbidden, though many good men fell away
from grace and were none the worse for it--not in _this_ world at any
rate, and for the next who could tell since the dear Kazi was not
there to lay down the law ...
"The Kazi was a saint," interrupted Babar with certainty; "I know it;
first because the men who martyred him have all since died. That is
one proof. Then he was a wonderfully bold man. Most men have some
anxiety or trepidation about them. The Kwaja had not a particle of
either, which is also no mean proof of sanctity."
Old Isan-daulet chuckled. "Then are all my family canonised," she
said, "and Paradise will have small peace! But sing, boy, a rattling
Turkhoman ballad and bawl it fairly, if thou canst, now-a-days."
But Babar had learnt better than bawling over in Uncle Hussain's camp,
and though his grandmother shook her head over his rendering of
"Toktamish Khan" still 'twas a fine song with a good stirring chant to
it:
The pale white willows grow in the sand,
Toktamish Beg.
Choose one to hobble thy horse's leg
That thy bay steed stand.
Thy red blood drips on the yellow sand,
Toktamish Khan.
Wilt bind his wound, wife of Mirza Jan
With thy jewelled hand?
The wound is doleful, the kiss was sweet
Toktamish Kull.
Which poison, man! makes thine eyes so dull
And thy breath so fleet?
Oh! my bay horse neighed when I did sing,
And Mir Jan's wife
Swore she would love me all my life
And gave me a ring.
Thy steed will find him a rider soon
And fair Narghiss
Will have a new lover to cuddle and kiss
Ere another moon.
But thy mother is old; she has lost her brave
Toktamish Khan;
Let her carry her sheaf to Death's wide barn
And dig her a grave!
The firelight danced on the young face as it sang cheerily. The
Khanum, his mother, wept unobtrusively at the thought of what she
would do if _her_ young brave were to die. Old Isan-daulet beat time
with precision; Dearest-One smiled gently; but Nevian-Gokultash--the
Heart-of-Stone--held up his finger.
"Hist!" he said, "a horse's steps."
Not one but many. A little detachment of loyalists headed by Kasim
Beg, arriving in hot haste with renewed hope!
Babar stood up tall, strong, and threw his wide arms out as if to
shake off inaction.
"Whence?" he asked briefly; "East, west, north or south?" There was
weariness in the thought, not in the tone. He was ready to fight
anywhere for Kingship again, though his heart sank at the futility of
it all. Bokhara, Samarkand, Hissar, and half-a-dozen other chief-ships
always changing hands. But this, a message of treaty from Ali Mirza
who had held Samarkand since it had dropped from Babar's hand might
mean something. So he was in the saddle and off; only to return then,
and half-a-dozen other times, despondent, to admit that his star was
not yet in the ascendant.
Isan-daulet wearied of waiting at last, and set off herself to
Moghulistan to levy troops to aid her grandson in the name of her dead
husband. The Khanum went with her, and Dearest-One took the
opportunity of retiring with one of her old aunts, to a House-of-Rest.
So Babar was left alone. He would not remain at Khojend, however; he
felt that he had already taken too much from the loyalists there, so
in a state of irresolution and uncertainty he made for the border land
of the Pamirs beyond the White Mountains. There he remained amongst
the nomad tribes, perplexed and distracted with the hopelessness of
his affairs.
And here, as winter passed to spring once more, a saintly Kwaja--also
an exile and a wanderer--came to visit him. And having no help to
give, no advice to offer to one so down-cast, prayed over him and took
his departure much affected.
"And so was I," writes Babar frankly. Doubtless he was; and yet before
sunset that very day he must have been out on the hillside, possibly
hunting for new tulips in this new country; for he descried a horseman
making his way rapidly up the valley.
A horseman!
Within half-an-hour, without an instant's delay, Babar had backed his
lean Turkhoman mare and, followed by a leaner troop of such friends as
still clung to him (Kasim and Nevian-Gokultash of course amongst the
number) was galloping for Marghinan (the place where they remove the
stone from apricots and put in chopped almonds!). For a message had
been sent by the governor of the town to say he was ready to give it
up to its rightful owner, and would hope for forgiveness for past
offences.
It was then sunset, and Marghinan lay more than a hundred miles away
as the crow flies. All that night till noon next day the little band
rode fiercely on. On those wild hills there was no road to speak of;
one could but follow the water-courses as the streams sought their
level. At noon next day they drew bridle for the first time. They had
not come far, or fast, yet so hard had been the way that their horses
needed rest. Twelve hours to give them a chance, and also, in the
close valley of Khojend to secure night time for the first part of the
march, and they were off again; this time to let sunrise pass to
sunset and sunset pass to night before they again drew rein in the
grey dawn. Drew rein and looked at each other doubtfully. Yet their
goal lay not four miles ahead of them, a shadowy hill crowned by a
fort and scarce seen in the half light.
But the doubt was this:
They had ridden for forty-eight hours up hill and down dale, over
breakneck precipices and roaring torrents, without ever considering
that they had no real warranty for so doing!
The Governor of the town was one who was known to stickle at no crime.
With what confidence then could they unconditionally put themselves in
his power?
So at least urged Nevian-Gokultash. Others joined in, and Babar, ever
reasonable, saw cogency in the doubt, and ordered a halt for
consideration.
Out in the dawn, the horses, heads down, taking a nibble of grass
between heaving breaths, the sweat running down from their polished
backs, the tired troopers, too tired to dismount, arguing _pros_ and
_cons_ wearily, until Babar rising in his stirrups, showed tall,
straight, strong, commanding.
"Gentlemen!" he said. "Our reflections are not without foundation, but
we have been too late in making them. We have now ridden three nights
and two days without sleep or rest. Neither horse nor man has strength
left. There is no possibility of retreating, since there is no place
of safety to which we _could_ retreat. Having come so far we must
proceed. Therefore let us go forward remembering that nothing happens
save by the will of God. Right turn, gentlemen! Forward!"
And forward it proved to be from that moment. Marghinan his, the
country people, disgusted with the late usurpers, crowded round their
old young King.
Of course Grandmother Isan-daulet was in at the finish with her horde
of two thousand wild Moghul horsemen; who nevertheless did good, if
barbarous, service at Akshi, where treachery met with its just reward.
For the Moghuls, stripping their horses, rode barebacked into the
stream and sabred the escaping traitors in their boats.
So the peach trees had not shed their blossoms before, by the Grace of
the most High (and many real fine fights) Babar recovered his paternal
kingdom, of which he had been deprived for two years.
Two years!
He could hardly believe it as he rode through on the mantle of
lambskins between the fort of Andijan and the river, where not so long
ago he had been playing leap-frog when first King-ship came to him.
"Nevian-Gokultash!" he cried suddenly, "an thou lovest me! off from
thy horse and give me a back like a kind soul. I must leap to my
kingdom once more!"
He stood there laughing, the embodiment of boyish youth and energy;
forgetful of past troubles, eager to enjoy life.
"Ul-la-la!" shouted some of the nobles catching the spirit of the
thing and throwing themselves from their horses.
So leap Babar did, not over Nevian only, but over half-a-score or more
of the friends of his adversity including Kasim who nearly tumbled
over with laughter and joy.
And the young King, as he once more cast himself face upwards on the
soft furry little blobs of blossom amid a chorus of applause, felt
that the whole world was splendid indeed.