"The Woman-ChÂran 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 ChÂran, 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.

"Âtma"--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 ChÂran," 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 SalÎm, and how he, deceiving his father----"

Âtma 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!"

Âtma's slow brain busy over that "she" broke in on the silence.

"Was't KhÂnzada Gulbadan or Umm Kulsum?" she asked naÏvely.

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 IbrahÎm?"

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, ChÂran. Nay I, JalÂl-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, JalÂl-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! JalÂl-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 Âtma'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, Âtma 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 JalÂl-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 ChÂran's in the King? Nay, it shall not be so Âtma the ChÂran 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.

"Âtma," he whispered sinking to his knees with the dead weight he held. "Âtma!"

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.

"Âtma!"

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.

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.

OhÍ! 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 JalÂl-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-RÂjah 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 ChÂran Âtma 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.