_Âtma, back in the palace, was once more racking her mind what to do about her remaining responsibility, the diamond. So far Fate and the Gods had guided her aright. She had managed to give the King timely warning that the little coward would claim his promise (better, sure, if she had burned!) then, having little time for thought, and knowing, in truth, that she had no chance of escaping unmolested through the strictly guarded entrances to the King's private apartments, she had returned by the swinging dhooli to her own, thus for the time keeping her method of escape secret from her gaolers. So, immediate urgency being over, she had set to work first to conceal what till then she had hidden in the dark braids of her hair; for she guessed at once, by the luxury with which she was surrounded, that tirewomen would appear in the morning, that every temptation would be plied to make her yield to Mirza IbrahÎm's lawless desires. She smiled at the thought. Yea, let him come; but not till after she was prepared. So she deftly cut a snippet of brocade from a hanging, and greasing it in an oil lamp rolled the diamond and the Wayfarer's square stone together, so as to form a fine large packet, stitched it together with gold thread she found ready on an embroidery frame, and hung it once more on the greasy black skein, telling herself none would interfere with so palpable a talisman. For the rest she had the Death-dagger of her race, which she hid until dressing-time was over in a woman's work-basket; though nothing, she told herself, would happen before her appearance at the Festival as ChÂran. So, seeing always but a short space into the future, she lay down and slept.

When she had wakened, servants had been ready to fly in lawful command, to temporise soothingly with unlawful ones, and she had smiled grimly, telling herself they were afraid of her, and that when the end came, she need only fear the violence of poison.

But that again was not yet.

Even after the Festival was over, after she had lied so calmly to save the King's honour, she had hours to spare. The Mirza would need darkness for his proposals; so she had quite smilingly put on the gorgeous dress of a court lady which on her return from the Audience was all she had found in the place of her own old red garments. What did it matter? The steel hauberk of her father's, the circlet, and the sword were still hers. These she had worshipped, these would look down on her death for honour. So if her white robe trailed on the ground and was sewn with stars, if her jewelled bodice flashed under the light folds of a saffron pearl-set veil, what was that to her, the King's ChÂran, who carried a death-dagger in her waistband?

Nothing mattered so long as her hardly-thought-out project for the delivery of the King's diamond could be brought about. If the message could be sent--if old Deena the drum-banger would take it, then the jeweller might come disguised as a Sufi in the Preacher's dhooli, and she could fulfil her promise; she could give it into his very hands--yea even if she had to yield, before that, to the Lord Chamberlain's desires.

Even this supreme sacrifice she was prepared to make if they failed to send Deena, or if the Feringhi failed to come. For she must have time.

She leant listlessly on the steps below the cupola toying idly with a scrap of silk-made writing paper and pen and ink. A slave-woman, gaoler, duenna--whom Âtma had sent from her very side on plea of chilliness, was standing a little way apart, making believe to drive away the sunset-time mosquitoes with a peacock's feather fan; in reality watching every movement of her charge.

Would Deena come? She had sent for him calmly to drum to her rhythm of pedigrees. That was her right, and he was so far a hanger on of the Mirza's that they might count him of themselves; yet he might be true to her also.

"The drumbanger waits," said a eunuch at the door, and her heart leapt to her mouth.

"Lo 'tis luscious as honey to a bee; lascivious to the liver, as saffron pillau to the stomach!" ejaculated the old man admiringly, In truth Âtma looked superlatively handsome amid the fine feathers of silken carpets and satin cushions.

"Thy liver, and thy stomach, sinner!" retorted Âtma carelessly, as she crumpled up the scrap of paper and flung it into the lacquered pen-tray. "But come! to work! Since I am here as King's woman I may be called on any moment to sing in the harem; and I sing few women's songs: none of the modern style."

She broke into the high trilling commencement of a not over-respectable ballad of the bazaars.

Deena's wicked old face took on an air of outraged virtue, his hands refused to touch his drum.

"Nay! mistress most chaste," he protested in an injured tone, "salvation comes not that way to old Deena. He can get drumming and to spare of that sort elsewhere."

Âtma stared at him, and held his eyes with her large meaningful dark ones.

"'Tis not drumming, but deeds, that count, sir sinner," she said slowly. "As King Solomon said to the peacock who remained to salaam by drumming his wings, while the hoopoe gained his golden crown by running a message."

Deena's old face set instantly like a stone. No muscle quivered, but his wicked old eyes twinkled. He understood in a second what was wanted of him, for intrigue was his very food and drink. It made him feel years younger to carry a love letter. This would have naught to do with love of course; but the joy was in the deception. Happen he meant to help, happen he did not, it was all one to him; it meant the deceiving of a duenna.

"Shall I then take a message for the mistress most chaste?" he asked hardily, winking the while at the latter as if taking her into his confidence.

"Message?" echoed Âtma scornfully "Nay! no message! My lord IbrahÎm, my lover, will come when he thinks fit, and go when I choose, like a cur with his tail belly-wards!"--she had been full of such jibes all day--"So let us to work; the song of the Tale of the Wisdom of the Princess Fortunata can hurt no woman folk! But take heed to the time!" She broke at once into irregular chanting.

Then she changed rhythm and the words swept on like a torrent.

There was a sudden check of irritation; the singer interrupted herself to complain of lack of accord; then continued:

Yet once again some discord in voice and music seemed to rouse ire.

"Fool!" cried Âtma, "hast no sense! Thou art like a sitting hen with thy cluck, cluck, cluck, all out of tune! Take a paper if thou canst not remember and set it down in notation. See there is a bit yonder."

She pointed to the pen-tray and Deena with contrite face took the crumpled scrap, smoothed it out on the top of his drum and thereinafter, with some slight exaggeration in displaying a fair white surface, proceeded to write down quaint musical hieroglyphics. Then folding it, notation uppermost, stuck it into the drum-brace.

"Now let us try again, mistress most chaste," he said cheerfully. "For old Deena never failed a woman yet; least of all one who hath oft times stood between him and damnation."

There was a faint tremble as of relaxed tension in Âtma's voice as she went on:

The nicest musical ear might have detected small change in Deena's accompaniment, but Âtma professed herself satisfied.

"And now," asked the old go-between, as she leant back wearily, "What next?"

"Nothing," she answered. "One is enough for a day. Thou canst come to-morrow--for reward or punishment."

"And the mistress hath no orders, no message?" he asked, winking at the duenna elaborately.

"Nothing; save to get thee gone as quick as may be. See him out, woman!"

That faint tremor of voice only betrayed that her nerves were almost at breaking point; that she felt the need of solitude for a second.

When it came she passed swiftly to the sword of her fathers and kissed it passionately. Then flinging her arms on the parapet she gazed out over the plain scarce seeing the pageantry of sunset that was being enacted on the distant horizon.

What had she written on that scrap of paper? It had necessarily to be guarded--but had she said enough?

"To the Feringhi jeweller! Come disguised as a Sufi in the Preacher's dhooli to-night at one o'clock. Âtma Devi will give thee the luck thou desirest."

After all it did read like a love letter. So much the better perhaps, with Deena as messenger. Anyhow the message was sent.

What, therefore, lay before her? Within measurable distance of probabilities now, she could face them. Supposing the Mirza came that night? Oh! where was the use of considering what at the worst she might have to do, in order to secure leisure at one o'clock! For, that had to be gained. Aye! even though before that hour, say at eleven, she had to----

One, and eleven! Her mind, unaccustomed to strain, circled vaguely. There was only a pin's-point difference between the two hours on paper, just a mere scratch, a duplication and yet--mayhap!--between them, tonight, a whole life--1 and 11--Strange! so little difference!

"Why didst thou lie to-day, woman?" said a voice beside her, "to save my honour?"

She turned with a cry and fell at Akbar's feet. He had met Deena's outgoing, had sent the duenna packing by a word backed by the display of the ring which was Royalty's sign manual in all matters pertaining to the women's apartments; so entering, had flung aside his muffling shawl and for the last few seconds had been watching Âtma. For a sudden new perception of her beauty had come to him, perhaps with the sight of her in a dress familiar to him, since it is generally some such subtle hint which, at first, makes a man's eyes differentiate one woman from another.

Down at his very feet, Âtma's voice was yet proud. "To save the honour of the King."

Akbar was quick in comprehension--"Who never dies--Not to save JalÂl-ud-din-Mahomed Akbar! Still, thou needst not have lied."

"This slave only said what the King would have said."

A quick frown flew to his keen face. "Thou speakest bravely woman! But 'tis true. Akbar's brain was clouded. How came thine to be so clever?"

"My father was a chess-player," she said simply. "He taught me. And it was not difficult, Most High. It was trivial."

For a second he looked really angry; then said quietly. "True again, O ChÂran. Stand up, woman! Wherefore shouldst thou grovel before--triviality?"

Standing there beside her their eyes met, and his showed admiration.

"So thou didst not lie, because the King can do no wrong. Then art thou, woman, to be judge? thy thought, thy standard, always to be right?"

"It--it was to-day, Great King," she said gravely.

He laughed outright.

"This is wholesome as a draught of bitter apples! Lo! ChÂran, thou didst give me a lesson in love last time we met. Give me one in tactics to-day! Not tactics in chess--that is past praying for--but in Kingship."

She looked at him with pitiful humility. "This slave knows not, she is only woman!"

"And yet thou didst come at dawn to save me from a broken promise! I have not thanked thee yet for that; but in truth"--here his voice grew softer, and leaning his elbow on the parapet, he looked into her eyes, "thanks being all on one side----" Then suddenly curiosity beset him. "How didst thou come?"--he looked down rapidly--"not by yonder projecting eave? not by that, surely? Why! even my head----" He paused a while, and her silence assuring him, murmured: "And thou didst that for me?"

"For the King, Most-High!" she protested in a low voice as she clutched convulsively at the talisman. For through her swept with tumultuous force her first real knowledge of what her womanhood might hold. Ye Gods! have pity! she must not lose herself. The King's Luck must be safe first. He must never know the tale.

He looked at her curiously. Her lips were parted her breath came fast.

"Thou hast the nerve of ten," he said rapidly, "thou couldst walk yonder ledge where I--even I--might fear to fall, and yet----" His hand, reaching out as they stood close together by the parapet, caught her wrist swiftly, and clasped it. "Yet now thou art afraid--afraid of what?"

Her pulses bounding under his cool, firm touch seemed to suffocate her.

"Aye," she admitted, turning her mind frantically to excuse, "I fear--I fear the night, alone in a strange place."

In truth she did fear it. Her soul shrank now, knowing what she might have to sacrifice. But for the blind, half-confusing memory of one o'clock she would have fallen at his feet and begged for freedom. She might have done so had she had time to count the cost.

"Strange?" echoed Akbar, haughtily. "Dost forget it is the King's house?--that the King is guardian? Though in truth," he added with a smile "JalÂl-ud-din Mahomed Akbar sleeps to-night in his pitched camp beyond the gates." The memory seemed to obsess him with other ideas, for he turned away gloomily.

"Farewell, widow. Akbar will strive to be King--thou hast done thy best to make him one, anyhow," he added almost angrily. But as he went, something in her face and form recalled his youth, and he hesitated. Then drawing off a ring hastily he strode over to her, and taking her hand roughly, slipped it on her finger.

"Yea, thou hast done many things for me," he said proudly, "so let me do one for thee. This ring, the Signet of the Palace, may calm thy fears for to-night. None dare harm its possessor without my order. At thy peril, use it not unworthily. I----" He paused, drew his shrouding shawl round him, and corrected himself--"It will be reclaimed at dawn."

The dusk had died down almost to dark, the stars grew clearer and clearer on the growing violet of the sky. Âtma stood gazing with unseeing eyes over the wide plain that was losing itself rapidly in shadow. She was scarcely thinking at all. She was only feeling how increasingly hard it was becoming to dissociate Akbar from the King, Love from Love.

"The Lord High Treasurer hath called to inquire and craves admittance."

She awoke to realities at the duenna's voice, but with a new element in her outlook on the future--a palpitating horror at the thought of the sacrifice she had faced calmly but an hour ago.

"He--he is welcome," she said faintly. There was no use shirking, and she might be able to put him off till after one.

But his first words told her theirs was a fight for life in the present.

"All in the dark!" he said lightly, "so much the better mayhap, mistress, for IbrahÎm's peace of mind, seeing that he hath but a few hours to count his own. The jackal hath to eat his bones betimes."

"What meanest my lord?" she asked hurriedly.

"That his Majesty the King will feast on the flesh," he replied recklessly. "Ah I have heard He hath been here this last half-hour. In troth, but that he interferes with my quarry, I would say thank God the anchorite hath found his meat. As it is, I have come earlier to handsel my share." Then he turned swiftly to the duenna. "Leave us for a while. I would speak alone with this lady."

When she had gone he said curtly. "Thou hadst best sit down. I have much to say."

"Say on," replied Âtma laconically, as without the faintest sign of trepidation she sate herself calmly down amid the silken carpets and cushions; for behind her propped against the marble pilasters, were the hauberk, the sword of her fathers, to give her courage. It was the Mirza who showed uneasiness. He walked up and down as if uncertain how to begin.

"Well," she asked with a scornful smile as she played idly with the pens in the open pen-box, "what hast thou to say?"

He cast aside doubt at her words, flung himself on the steps, and leaning forward peered through the dusk into her eyes. "What thou wilt not care to hear; so brace thyself--if thou canst, woman! Thou didst send by Deena----"

"He has betrayed me," she exclaimed involuntarily.

"Or died! Take it as thou willst. The letter was sent to its destination anyhow, for it served our purpose. Thou knowest the King's challenge? Well, we have sought all day to get hold of the Feringhi jeweller, so that his death might break the King's safe conduct. But Birbal hath been too quick for us. He hath him safe cooped up in his house. But thou hast called the man here."

Âtma, with a cry, rose to her feet. "I meant but----" she began.

"What thou didst mean matters not now, though I have my suspicions," broke in the Mirza brutally. "Sit down, I tell thee, and listen. Whether thy call be, as I hold it to be, one that even Birbal would admit, time will show. But if this doubly damned infidel be found within the palace precincts it is death. And see here"--he held out a paper.

"I cannot see," she murmured dully. "It is too dark." And in truth, even as she spoke, the palace gong sounded one stroke.

How often it sounded one she thought as the Mirza struck a light. But this time it meant half-an-hour beyond eight. One, yes--it was the knell of doom.

The spark had come to the tinder-roll, and now a sputtering oil lamp in the sevenfold cresset showed her the writing on the paper. "To the Sergeant of the Palace watch. At one of the clock, guard the Preacher's dhooli and enter the apartment of Âtma Devi. Her lover will be there."

"He is not my lover," she began.

"But he will be there at one." He laughed devilishly, "Now listen. None but me know of this--as yet. Âtma," his voice took on urgency, almost appeal, "grant me thyself--and this paper shall be destroyed."

So it had come. She was the price of honour. Would it not be the simplest way?

"It must be to-night," he whispered hoarsely, "Tomorrow the King----"

She could have struck him full upon the mouth, but she sate trembling with tense desire to do so.

"If I promise," she asked firmly, "may this paper be mine?" She had noticed that it was signed and countersigned by the captain and commandant of the guard. If she had it, it might be difficult to get another. Anyhow it would show good faith.

IbrahÎm's face grew hard. "Nay, fair one," he said, "hardly till the promise is fulfilled. I must have due security."

And she must have it also, she thought fiercely. Aye, she knew him, devil-spawn, vile utterly. He meant to take all from her and send the order too. She might give him everything at eleven and yet at one--eleven and one!--11 and 1!

She glanced hastily at the paper; then sate silent her face hardening, her hands still playing idly with the pens in the pen bag.

"Think over it, bibi" he said insinuatingly for even the faint lamp light showed her bewilderingly beautiful. "It is not so much to ask! I am no ill-favoured churl, and before heaven, I love thee. Then, surely, thou wouldst not betray the King."

Betray the King! No! that must never be. She had thought of a way to prevent that.

"And--and if I give the audience thou desirest at--at eleven?" she began slowly.

He fell at her feet rapturously. "Âtma! I swear!"

She stilled him with a wave of her hand. "I must think," she cried, and rising, walked to the parapet. Only however, to return after a second.

"I consent," she said quietly. "At eleven be it--thou wilt not send this?" She showed the paper she still held.

"Nay," he replied with a bow as he took it from her. "I will keep it ever next my heart as security for happiness--at eleven."

When he had gone she broke into a sudden, wild laugh, and flung the pen she held concealed in her right hand into the pen tray.

"Only a fly's foot on the paper, but it will show truth or untruth!" she muttered.

Then she sate down and waited; there was nothing else to be done. She dare not use the King's signet--if indeed this token of mere personal safety to herself would be of any avail--since that might lead to his discovery of the diamond's theft. And that (this had grown to an immutable creed) must never be!

"Light not so many lights," she said to the servants who came in with long garlands of flowers and coloured lights; but they went on with their work. It was by the Lord Chamberlain's orders they said. And they brought her new jewels, and scattered rose-oil-water about the cushions, and spread a low stool-table with fruit, and goblets, and wine flagons.

She sate and watched them, interested as she would not have been but for the awakening of her womanhood under the King's touch. Now she understood; now for the first time she realised the philosophy of Siyah Yamin.

So IbrahÎm, coming in early--she smiled mysteriously at his haste--found her watching the slave-women who were reaching up to place coloured lights amongst the roses twined round the cupola, and as they worked they sang in a quaint roundel:

Shine earthen lamps, outblaze the stars
So cold, so white, so far.
Shine little lamp, hide Heaven's light
Love comes to Love to-night.