A Moment's Halt--a momentary taste
Of Being, from the Well amid the Waste,
And lo!--the phantom Caravan has reached
The Nothing it set out from.
_Omar Khayyam_.
Fate had called a halt in Babar's life. A court had once more gathered
round him, and, as King of Samarkand, a city of colleges and culture,
this was of different stamp from that of Andijan. It occupied itself
with other things than the edge of a sword-blade or the merits of a
polo-ball.
"Lo!" said Mulla Binai the poet, his voice lubricated with artificial
adulation to extreme oiliness, "I have at last found fitting memorial
for the magnificent victory of the King in these poor words:
"'Tell me, my soul, the conquering day
Fateh Babar Bahadur,' I say."
The horrid doggerel, with its inlay of numerical letters giving the
date of Babar's surprise of Samarkand, was allowed to pass muster in
that crowd of flattering courtiers.
Only Kasim Beg, bluff as he had been from the beginning, said,
smartly:
"Good enough, if so be 'tis accurate; but of that, thank God, I know
naught; for whilst thou rememberest fine fights by dots and strokes, I
keep them by the dents on my good sword."
The old noble disliked Binai; he disliked all poets in general; but
this one in particular. He knew nothing good of him but his _riposte_
to Ali-Shir--who was worth ten of him since he had at least been born
a Beg and who, before he was bitten by the mad craze for jingling
words, had struck a good few shrewd blows for the right. Besides, he
had been author and patron of many useful inventions, and it was not
his fault if the gilded youth of Herat named every new fashion after
him, and when he, in consequence of an earache, bound up his face with
a kerchief, bound up theirs also and called it _a la mode_ Ali-Shir.
Still Binai's _riposte_ to the sarcasms which had driven him from
Herat was a good joke. To order a ridiculous pad for the ass he was to
ride and call it the Ali-Shir pad! The recollection of it always made
good old Kasim laugh broadly. The humour of it suited his sturdy
outlook. An outlook that was disturbed by the jingle-jangle of words
and wits that began to arise about his young master. It was all very
well, and affairs were doubtless in a most prosperous state. All the
same there was no counting on any continuance of fine weather with
half-a-dozen claimants to the throne and Shaibani-Khan close at hand.
The Usbek raider was no man to give in because of one reverse; his
whole life was war.
So Kasim frowned at culture, and as Prime-Minister looked to his
weapons.
It was not however for many months that his fear came true and
Shaibani, reinforced, appeared again on the horizon of Babar's world.
But when he did, the young King set aside everything else and buckled
on his sword once more with zest. He had been studying military art in
his great ancestor Timur's memoirs, and was eager for a pitched
battle. No sooner, therefore, did Shaibani's hordes show themselves,
than the young general marched to meet them, and, over-impatient,
precipitated a collision before his own re-enforcements of over five
thousand men had time to join him.
But it was his first pitched battle, he was keen as mustard, and had
planned it all out on paper beautifully on strategical lines.
And the astronomers were to the fore with a lucky conjunction of
stars.
So the right and left wings marched out in orderly array, and wheeled
admirably to meet the first attack of their flank. But somehow this
separated Babar from his staff of veterans, who possibly did not
believe in the virtue of disciplined movements; and though in person
he led a dashing and impetuous charge of his centre on the foe, which
drove the Usbeks back to the point of rout, Shaibani would not accept
defeat. He stood firm, despite his officers' advice to withdraw while
he could, and continued the wild desert tactics of repeated charges on
the enemy's flank, repeated withdrawals to wheel and reform.
And Babar's army, but half-disciplined, divided by conflicting ideals
became hopelessly confused. His Moghul troops, refusing to obey
orders, reverted to their old habit of killing and plundering, with
the result of rout--complete absolute rout.
That night the young leader, stern and calm, despite the ache at his
heart for his own broken ideals as well as for the loss of the many
Begs of the highest rank, the many admirable soldiers, the many
devoted friends who had perished in the action, held a council of war
in the citadel as to what had best be done under the circumstances.
Capitulation on terms, or unconditional defence?
Belief in their leader and the devotion of the Andijan nobles carried
the day against the more lukewarm Samarkandis. It was resolved to hold
the citadel to the death, to the very last drop of blood; and with
vitality renewed by the need for immediate action Babar set to work
strengthening the fortifications. Here at any rate he was master;
bricks and earth could not disobey orders; they must remain where they
were put.
Yet most of the nobles sent away their wives and families secretly.
Babar's mother and sister, however, refused to leave their beloved one
whose fortunes they had followed for so long through thick and thin.
Grandmother Isan-daulet, also, remained of course. Her brave old heart
rather gloried in the thought of a siege, and with all the hatred of a
desert-born Chagatai, she hated the Usbek raider who had dared to beat
her grandson.
Though on that point she and Babar had many words. He reviling her
Moghul horde as the cause of his failure; she asserting it to be his
cramping conditions which had prevented the success of the old methods
of warfare that had served his fathers well enough.
As for Ayesha Begum she had long since retired in a huff to her own
relations, making as her excuse the plea of grief for the death of the
little Glory of Womanhood. But Babar knew better. She had not cared at
all. Her other plea that he did not love her was more to the purpose.
Anyhow it was as well, thought the young husband grimly; she would
only have wept and been uncomfortable.
For discomfort was inevitable even from the very beginning of the
siege; at any rate for the men. The nightly round of the ramparts
alone entailed lack of proper sleep, since but a small portion of them
was ridable, the rest had to be done on foot. And so long was the
circuit that, starting at dusk, it was dawn before every place had
been inspected. Still, even with the small force at his command, Babar
kept the foe at bay, though, more than once he had a narrow squeak of
it. Once when a feint attack of Shaibani's on the Iron-Gate covered a
daring escalade at the Needle-makers Gate. An escalade that was all
but successful. Four of the attacking party were actually over the
wall, dozens of others were swarming up it, when one Kuch-Beg, noble
by birth and by nature, caught a glimpse of someone where someone
should not be. To draw his sword single-handed as he was, and spring
to the attack was the work of an instant. It was an exploit for ever
to be cited to his honour, though his ringing war-shout brought three
more heroes to his aid. Even so, there were but four against dozens;
but furious blows, daredevil recklessness do much, and almost before
the nodding guards were roused, the danger was over, the escaladers
driven back, to fall a confused heap of ladders and men leaving a dead
body or two on the ramparts.
Then Kasim Beg sallied out again and again to engage the enemy's
pickets and returned, bringing heads to set on pikes upon the walls.
For war was war in those days; there was no talk of Red-Crosses and
ambulance-wagons.
And yet two women went about inside the fortress, bandaging wounds and
applying simples. For the Khanum, Babar's mother, could not bear to
see pain, and though old Isan-daulet sniffed at new fangled ways,
asserting that men could but die once and that it was waste of time to
tend a common soldier as though he were a noble, she came of a
fighting tribe and could give many an inherited recipe for the healing
of cuts, the prevention of wound fever. Then Dearest-One despite her
youth, had a claim, as one who had renounced the world to freedom for
good works; so mother and daughter went about in their close white
veils applying the simples which the old woman pounded and compounded,
and doing all they could for the brave men who were helping the
beloved of their eyes to keep his kingdom. They could do no less; they
could do no more; so at least said the Khanum, as often in the dark
nights the mother and daughter lay awake trembling in each other's
arms, listening during an attack or a sally.
Grandmother Isan-daulet would fall foul of them for their red eyes.
"When a man comes in to his food," she would say, "reeling from blows
at his head or sick at stomach with hunger, 'tis no comfort to him to
see tears, or the signs of tears. Thou sayest, daughter, thou can'st
do no more for thy son? Then I can. I can make him angry."
And she did: so that Babar went from his breakfast with his soft heart
hardened to disdain.
Dearest-One used to admire her grandmother's pluck. Not to care if one
hurt the beloved for his good! That was great. And she would wring her
hands tight and say to herself: "I told him long ago that there was
nothing I would not do for him; but there is nothing, nothing I can
do."
So the months dragged by. Harvest came and went without bringing fresh
supplies to the beleaguered fortress, and Shaibani, cynical, somewhat
afraid of his daring young antagonist, withdrew from actual collision,
and contented himself with blockade. Starvation would do the work
without his aid.
The grain for the horses had already given out; however, while the
leaves lasted the mulberry trees and the rose-wood trees in the
fortified gardens were stripped and did for fodder. But the winter
winds ended this supply, and the shift was made to keep some few
horses alive with the rispings of wood moistened with water and
sprinkled with salt. A sorry appearance was that of the poor steeds on
such miserable fare; but Babar's charger did better, with a daily
share of his master's bread; though the big-boned lad could ill
spare it. For all alike were on short commons; and they grew shorter
day by day. The dying horses were killed and eaten, the donkeys went
next--then the cats and dogs. When matters came to this pass, however,
night after night men--brave men--began to let themselves down over
the wall and make their escape. The haggard young King never knew when
he called a council of war, what trusted, what honoured face, might
not be absent. Yet still he clung to that last drop of blood. The oath
might have been foolish, since, as the ancients said, a fortress can
only be maintained by the joint action of head, and feet, and hands;
that is to say by generalship, two friendly forces on either side, and
a good supply of water and stores as the starting point of all. Still
he had made it, and he meant to stick to it. The others might go if
they pleased.
"If I could only secure thine and my mother's and my grandmother's
safety," he said to Dearest-One--"the other few women also," he
added--"though there is little fear for them, they count not enough
for harm; and Shaibani hath his army well in hand. That is how he
scored against me. Those accursed Moghuls of my grandmother's would
not obey orders. If they killed a man they plundered him--and what is
that, when a turning movement hath been ordered? Ah! it was devilish!
devilish!" And the tall, thin, young figure would throw out its arms
almost appealingly. For Babar was ever high-strung, and his nerves
were going.
He gave himself no rest either. Night and day he was always on the
watch. So it did not matter so much to him as to others when Shaibani
Khan, changing his tactics, commenced making the darkness hideous by
beating large kettle drums and sounding the alarm. Yet the young King
shook his fist over the battlements at his foe, who had now pitched
his headquarters tent close to the Lovers' Cave, and said to
Dearest-One, "It is not fair, and yet it is! I would do it in his
place--and yet I don't know--I don't know!" He was very near the end
of his tether, yet his grip was tight as ever and he would sit on the
top of the gateway with a crossbow and shoot at everyone and
everything living that showed itself.
"I struck a palish white-coloured horse to-day," he said to his sister
with a cruel exultant look in the eyes that had always been so tender
for God's dumb creatures, "and it fell dead--would it had been a man!"
And Dearest-One turned pale. This was worse than death; worse than
anything--anything in the wide, wide world!
She lay face downwards beside her mother that night and thought, and
thought, and thought, until the grey dawn came. Then she sat up and
looked at her mother sleeping beside her.
Yes! it was best. The plan was worth the trying at any rate; and she
would be the only one to suffer.
She lay down again, and laid her head on that gentle, loving, sleeping
breast. And the motherly arms, unconscious as they were, closed round
her and held her fast until she, too, slept, outwearied. That morning
she was closeted with her grandmother for hours, and at the midday
meal the old woman's eyes showed red; but Dearest-One's were clear and
bright; when the mind is made up there is no use in tears.
The evening was stormy. The bitter east wind swept along the ramparts
and drove the dust in blinding clouds into the eyes of all. The very
foe ceased from their disturbing shouts of alarm, and on many a post
the sentry slept awhile.
Did one at the wicket gate by the Lovers' Cave sleep or did he not;
and did the white-robed figure that slipped after dusk through the
deserted streets pass out, unseen, to challenge fate in the Usbek
leader's camp?
Or did Dearest-One send a message only?
Or was it only chance which the very next morning brought the
ultimatum to the haggard young King? Who knows? Certain it is it came.
There was no reason, Shaibani wrote, why those who had been brave foes
should not be brave friends. None could deny the King of Samarkand's
bravery; few would care to deny his own. Why then should they not be
friends? A marriage was ever the best way of securing peace. Let Babar
therefore give his sister Khanzada Begum in lawful marriage to his
foe--who, be it said, was in strong enough position to take her--and
so form a lasting alliance.
"My sister!" burst out Babar in a fury. "Go back to the savage
Usbek Shaibani, robber, raider, sir ambassador; and tell him that
Zahir-ud-din Mahomed is not his peer--he is his master!"
This was all very well in the saying; it sent the blood, growing a bit
sluggish from sheer starvation, flooding to heart and brain; but
afterwards when the envoy had gone, and the hungry anxious faces of
the few who still remained to him showed bitter disappointment, he
leant his head on his hands drearily in the quiet of the women's room,
and tried to put himself in the place of those bearded Begs to whom a
woman's honour or happiness or indeed affection, was, as a rule, of
small account.
He could not, of course, assent; and yet it seemed a pity that he
could not.
And while he sat crouched in upon himself, spent and weary,
Dearest-One herself came and crouched beside him and laid her pretty
head on his shoulder.
"Brother!" she said, "I have heard. Come let us talk it over as in old
days. So let me hold thy poor hand as we used to do; for we have ever
been friends, Babar-ling--have we not?"
Her voice was calm and steady despite the clamant note of tears that
was in every word.
"Talk not of it, sister! I will not have it," he muttered; and his
voice was broken, husky. "By God and his prophet! I could strike him
dead for the thought that I could be such a cur as even to think of
it."
She shrank just for a second. "Many men would think it naught," she
said, "but it is because it means much to thee that thou must think."
"I will not think," he cried passionately, "I will not be coerced. I
will not be cozened. I, Babar, take the consequence."
He left her, baffled, yet still determined, to return to the charge in
a day or two; and in starvation times a day or two means much. So
much, that she spoke sternly with finality.
"Wilt thou kill thy mother by thy pride, Babar? Listen! Long years ago
I said I would do aught for thee--"
"And I answered I would never ask aught," interrupted her brother
hotly; but she went on unheeding:
"And now thou deniest me the right to save thee. I who have so few
pleasures. Lo! as thou knowest, my heart is dead for love; and this
man--this Shaibani--is not all bad--I--I know he is not. Brotherling!
women have borne more for love than I shall have to bear maybe--for
the man must be kind in a way--for--for if it ended, Babar--he could
take me--without marriage--so grandmother says--"
Babar started up with an oath. "So she also is against me!"
Yet in his heart of hearts he knew that the old woman spoke truth. It
was generous in Shaibani even to offer marriage.
"I will not have it!" he cried. "I will not yield! I would sooner kill
thee, myself."
"Thou wilt kill--us all," she said calmly. Then she broke down and
clung to him sobbing. "Let it be, brotherling, for my sake. There is
so little I can do--let me do this."
The quick tears of understanding ran down his cheeks, but he shook his
head and left her.
So, after a day or two, yet another proposition came from Shaibani to
his brave foe. Babar might go with bare life, taking his womenkind
with him if he chose, provided he capitulated utterly and acknowledged
he was beaten.
There were parleyings and parleyings and who knows what secret
promisings beside, what innocent lies, what heart-broken yielding on
Babar's part. At last, protesting vainly that had he had the slightest
hope of relief, or had he had another week's stores remaining he would
never have listened to either threats or entreaties, he agreed to
capitulate for bare life to him and his. His mother, his sister, his
grandmother, these three must share his freedom. The others must take
their chance of horses, or remain, unharmed. Grandmother Isan-daulet,
however, flatly refused to come. She was too old, she said, to be
cocked up on a horse for days. She was not afraid. Thrice, already,
when she was young and good-looking she had fallen into the enemies'
hands and had been unmolested--save once and how that business ended
Babar knew. So, being now wrinkled and undesirable she would just
remain and mayhap give Shaibani a piece of her mind. So her horse had
better go to Mingilek-Gokultash who was perchance over good-looking.
It was ever best not to put temptation in men's way. Besides
Dearest-One might like to have her foster-sister with her. It was
convenient to have some woman one could trust beside one in dangerous
times.
As the old woman spoke, she held her granddaughter by the hand, and
her old fingers tightened themselves on the young ones with a grip
firm as steel, soft as a caress. And Dearest-One stooped and kissed
the old face on the lips.
So by midnight all was ready for the preconcerted escape. The few
sorry horses left in the citadel were standing saddled, the enemy's
pickets, it is to be presumed, were looking another way. Babar,
fierce, miserable, helped his mother to her pad and settled the
stirrups for her. He could scarcely see for the hot tears held back so
angrily in his eyes. He could scarcely speak for the hard-held breath
that seemed to choke him.
Defeated, flying for his life--No! not for his own only; for theirs
also!
He gave a glance round at his party. "Is everyone there? Is everyone
ready?"
And from the midst of the little crowd clustering round the fugitives
with sobs and tears a voice came clearly:
"Yea! brother! I am ready."
It was Dearest-One's voice. That must be she leaning from her horse to
whisper a word to old Isan-daulet who stood waving farewells.
"Then in God's name let us begone, and end the business," he shouted
fiercely, leapt to his charger, dug spurs to its flanks and was off
careless of disturbance. He had sold himself for the sake of those who
loved him, man and woman alike; but the blackness as of death was
before his eyes; he could not think; he could do nothing but dig spurs
to his horse, and ride on recklessly.
And the night itself was dark as death; he had to rein up amid the
great branches of the Soyd Canal, and with difficulty rallied his
party to the right road. Yet, still entangled in the intricacies of
the irrigated fields, there was time for no other thought save that of
getting as far from Samarkand as possible before the dawn. Since
though the Usbek leader himself had given order for free pass, his
followers, still less his allies, were not to be trusted.
The sky was grey with coming day before they reached the comparative
safety of a wild valley set amid encircling hills. Here Babar called a
minute's halt to breathe the horses, and for the first time turned to
take stock of those who followed him.
His keen eye took in his mother's veiled form. But that bundle like a
sack of corn, that crumpled heap like a withered rose leaf--neither of
these were Dearest-One? _She_ rode! In a flash, a sense of pride at
her upright carriage on her horse came to him, even as a suffocating
leap of his heart made him speechless for a second. An awful fear
seized him. He knew, and yet he would not know what had happened.
"Khanzada Begum!" he muttered hoarsely. "Where--where is she?"
No one spoke, and anger--hopeless, helpless anger and grief kept him
silent. Then someone said almost fearfully:
"Mayhap in the night time--in the darkness--"
"It is a lie!" burst out Babar. "It is a lie!--I have been tricked!"
Then something of the innate truth that was ever in his soul made him
pause. He ought to have known--he ought to have guessed. Foes were not
usually so generous, and he saw himself not altogether free from
blame. "I have tricked myself--I ought to have known," he burst out.
"I--oh! may God's curse light on everyone--everyone--"
So he stood, his face turned towards the distant city for a moment,
then with a reckless laugh he loosed the rein on his horse's neck and
threw his arms above his head.
"Come on!" he shouted as the horse bounded forward. "We are free! Let
us ride to hell--to hell and damnation!" And his laughter echoed back,
bringing terror to his mother's heart.
"He is beside himself," she cried. "After him, Kasim--for God's sake
keep him from harm."
But Kasim and Kambar-Ali his squire, were already at the gallop, and
the sound of their horses' feet followed Babar as he fled.
From what?
From everything in the wide world. From anger, love, remorse, helpless
grief, even from resolve not to be beaten. His nerves were unstrung;
for the moment his one thought was escape.
But only for a moment. The sound of those galloping hoofs behind him
brought immediate self-control, immediate grip on kingly dignity.
He turned back on his saddle to cast a word that would re-instate him
in sanity to those following fools.
"A race!" he cried gaily. "Come on! A race let it be!--Ten
_dinars_ ..."
But even as he spoke, he overbalanced. Perhaps he felt giddy, perhaps
the girths on his starving horse were all too slack. Anyhow the saddle
turned with him and he fell; fell clear on his head.
He was up again, however, ere they reached him, standing unsteadily
with dazed eyes, passing his hand gently backwards and forwards over
his brow.
"What was it all about?" he murmured cheerfully. "I've clean forgotten
it all." And he had.
He mounted again after a minute and rode on; but the memory of that
night had gone out of his mind for ever and aye.