 
CHAPTER I"Youth asked the lark, 'Why dost thou sing When clouds are darkling?' 'Behind the dark Youth begged the Hours 'In Heaven's bowers "To-day I will shave," said Babar with conviction; and his long, fine fingers felt his rather ragged young beard reflectively. He was altogether a bit ragged after his long wanderings. But he had come back from them wiser, steadier in mind, still stronger in body. The record of years of clean, hard living showed in his bright hazel eyes, and the general alertness of his lithe young body. But he was ragged! The brilliant June sunshine poured down on the sorry encampment set out on the summer pasturage of the high alps of IlÂk, and revealed the rents and patches of the two tents which were all that Babar possessed; his own, terribly tattered in its royalty, reserved for his mother's use; a common felt tilt, flexible in its cross-poles, for his own. And then his followers! Some two hundred in all; mostly on foot with brogues to them: blanket frocks over their shoulders; clubs in their hands. A miserable court, indeed, for a Prince of the Blood Royal! Yet the sense of Kingship rose stronger than ever in the young mind. "Yea! I will be shaven!" he said, magisterially, and summoned the court barber. He came running barefoot with a tin basin. "There should be ceremonials and entertainments," said the KhÂnum, his mother, plaintively. "Even at my brothers' first shavings there were ever illuminations and feastings, and thou art King; but what will you, here in the wilderness?" Babar laughed. "One King is as like another King as split peas, when there is lather to his face, motherling; so quick, barber, image me to Sulaiman-the-Wise, or Haroun-ul-Raschid. Lo! I could be Emperor as well as they, were fate but kind." So, out in the June sunshine, the young man sat while the white lather foamed up into his eyes and made them smart. "Have a care! slave," he said sharply. "Lo! I shall see things cloudy--and I would fain see clear." See clear! Aye! that was what he wanted. The past was leaving him--with his beard! He had made up his mind to that. Never again would he quarrel possession of that sweet valley on the extreme limits of the habitable world. He would go farther afield; how far depended--On what? On himself chiefly. So for the present he was on his way to KhorasÂn, the centre of civilisation. Ay! Bare feet and blanket frocks were well enough in boyhood; but when a man came to his own there were other Kingships to be fought for besides those which involved a temporal throne. There was Kingship in thought, Kingship in Art; a dozen or more Kingships ready to be gripped. The razor sweeping backwards and forwards, seemed to be shaving away all the disappointments of his past life; he leapt to his feet when the business was over and stretched his strong young arms out as if to embrace the whole world. "Lo! I feel a new man. I am ready for anything--for everything!" So, as he stood there, the memory--never very far distant from his mind in his moments of exaltation--of the Crystal Bowl of Life came back to him and he sang the last verse, his full voice rolling away among the hills: "Clear Crystal Bowl, I laugh as I quaff. Joy, Grief, Life, Death." "Where didst learn that song, sonling?" said his mother, fondly. "And how well thou singest now! Thou hast learnt much of late, Babar." "I learnt it," replied her son, his face sobering, "from my cousin GharÎb. Dost know, motherling," he added swiftly, the light coming back to his eyes, "I learnt more of him than I wist at the time. Sometimes I think I owe all to him." "All?" echoed the KhÂnum, hurt. "Dost owe nothing to me--or at least to thy grandmother?" Babar's face showed whimsically reverent. "Oh, yea! Oh, yea!" he assented readily; "I owe much to my revered grandparent; yet at this present it shows but little." And he pointed to the two ragged tents, the two hundred tatterdemalions. "I would I were a tulip at times," he added irrelevantly, as he flung himself down on the grass that was all starred with the blood-red blossoms. "Think of it, motherling! To lie cosy all winter at your own heart, and when the sun has warmed the world to unfurl your banner and flaunt it independent--disobedient, if you choose!"--he rolled over on his stomach to look clear into one ruby cup--"Yea! little one!" he said patronisingly. "Rightly art thou called 'na farmÂn.'[2] Thou holdest thine own treasure secure, caring for none--yet will I touch it with my hand," and the tip of his long finger dived into the chalice to touch the stiff stamens, and come out all covered with pale, yellow pollen. "An augury!" he said gravely, as he smeared his forehead with the powder of life. "Lo! I am marked like a Hindu--I shall conquer Hind yet." "God forgive thee, child," exclaimed his mother hastily. "Say not such things--they tempt Providence. Even not thyself to an idolater." Babar looked contrite. "Yet if I conquer Hind, I cannot kill all my subjects," he replied thoughtfully. "There is a puzzle for thee, motherling--how to be true Mussulman and yet not a fool?" His mother looked at him and shook her head. Dear son as he was, always loving, always affectionate, he had a bad habit of getting away from her ken mentally and bodily. It all came of leading such a wandering life. If only he would marry and settle down. But there seemed no chance of either. Yet Fate held the latter to close quarters. It almost seemed as if that shaving of his beard, that setting aside once and for all of his boyish aspirations had had a magical effect on Babar's environments; for within two months, seated at his ease in a splendid tent, he was writing in his diary: "The Lord is wonderful in His might! That a man, master of twenty or thirty thousand retainers, should, in the space of half-a-day, without battle, without contest, be reduced to give up all to a needy fugitive like myself, who had only two hundred tatterdemalions at his back (and they, all in the greatest want); that he should no longer have any power over his own servants, nor over his own wealth, nor even his own life, was a wonderful disposition of the Omnipotent!" Undoubtedly! And as the enemy who was thus discomfited was no less a person that Khosrau-ShÂh, the man who had so treacherously caused Prince BaisanghÂr to be strangled, it is certain that his lack of power over his own life was a sore temptation to Babar. The man undoubtedly deserved death: it was indeed conformable to every law, human and divine, that such should meet with condign punishment. But an agreement had been entered into, so he must be left free and unmolested, and allowed to carry off as much of his personal property as he could. For Babar was no promise-breaker. Perhaps also the memory of poor, miserable Khosrau's appearance when this pompous man (who for years had wanted nothing of royalty save that he had not actually proclaimed himself King) presented himself for audience and bent himself twenty-five or twenty-six times successively, and went and came back, and went and came back, till he was so tired that he nearly fell forward in his last genuflection, may have weighed with the keen young observer. The man was getting old; let him go with his sins upon his head. So he went. And Babar with the thirty thousand retainers at his back set out promptly for KÂbul. His paternal uncle, its King, had died leaving a young son. A perfidious minister had ousted this boy from the throne, but had himself been assassinated at a grand festival. Thereinafter all was disorder and tumult. Fitting opportunity then for a coup d'État. So, over the peaks and passes, Babar at the head of a movable column passed swiftly. Still more swiftly--since surprise is the essence of success--when news came that the usurper for the time being had left KÂbul at the head of his army to intercept another adversary. The instant this information was received, the young leader gave his orders; within an hour the force was on the march. A hill pass lay before them; it must be mastered ere dawn; they must go up and up all the night through, the laden mules stumbling over the stones, dismounted troopers hauling their horses up rock ladders. A troublous time, indeed; but at last the crest of the hill was reached, and there, bright to the South, showed a star. The young leader's heart leapt to his mouth--Could it--could it be Canopus?--the lucky star of the conqueror? The star of which he had read--the star he had never seen before ... "That--that cannot be Soheil," he said almost timorously. "It is Soheil, Most High," replied BÂki CheghaniÂni in a courtier's voice; then repeated pompously the well known verse: "How far dost thou shine, Soheil? Soheil!'" "Gentlemen!" rang out Babar's jubilant young voice, cutting the clear night air like a knife. "Let us give it all we can...! All hail!--Soheil!" "All hail! Soheil!" The cry clamoured round the rocks and surged up from the ravines where men were still striving upwards; while on that downward path to the pleasant valleys below where spear points were already beginning to cluster, the troopers paused to echo and re-echo: "All hail! Soheil!" And Babar's star was veritably in the ascendant. Within a month--yet once more without battle, without contest--he had gained complete possession of KÂbul and Ghazni with the countries and provinces dependent thereon. It had been almost unbelievable success ever since that day when on the uplands of IlÂk, he had shaved off his beard and set aside, once and for all, his childish hopes and aims! Really, it was rather quaint! The thought of it, with its hint of imagination, its something beyond the dull routine of the inevitable, added zest to the young King's almost rapturous appreciation of his new dominions. To begin with KÂbul was in the very midst of the habitable world. That was a great point in its favour. Then it was in the fourth climate; and so of course its gardens were perfection. Its warm and its cold districts were close together; in a single day you could go to a place where snow never falls, and in the space of two astronomical hours you might reach a spot where snow lay always (except now and then when the summer happened to be peculiarly hot). Then the fruits! Grapes, pomegranates, apricots, peaches, pears, apples, quinces, jujubes, damsons, walnuts, almonds, to say nothing of oranges and citrons! The wines, also, were strong and intoxicating; indeed, that produced on the skirts of one mountain was celebrated for its potency. This, however, was only a matter of hearsay since Babar was still a tee-totaler; and as the verse says: "The drinker knows the virtue of wine Then the honey was delicious, the number of beehives extraordinary, and the climate itself was so extremely delightful that in this respect there was no other such place in the known world. But it was the gardens, after all, which made KÂbul what it was, a place that filled the imagination with joy. Years and years afterwards the mere thought of them was to make Babar homesick almost to tears; now every moment of time he could spare was spent on the skirts of the ShÂh-KÂbul hill where terraces rise one above the other to touch the Summer Palace of the New Year. It was early October; the plane trees were dropping their golden leaves, the peaches were crimson and pale red, the vines vied with each other in vivid colouring. It was all so much pure joy to the young King, and he passed on his content to all. His dearest mother was housed as she never had been before. And when old IsÂn-daulet came, just to have a peep at her grandson's success, he lodged her in the New Year's palace where the old lady could have her fill of the garden. Since, quaintly enough, it was from the ancient desert-born dame that Babar inherited his keen delight in flowers. KÂsim-Beg was back too, and so was Dost-Ali, his oldest friend amongst the nobles of AndijÂn; but Kambar-Ali had left; he was a thoughtless and rude talker and the more polished courtiers of KÂbul could not put up with his manners. Not that he was a great loss, for besides talking idly--and those who talk persistently cannot avoid at times saying foolish things--his wits were but skin deep, and he had a muddy brain. There was but one fly in the honey, and that was the desire of all Babar's female relations that he should marry. There was justice, he felt, in his mother's claim for grandchildren. Undoubtedly it was his duty; but ... He was too good-natured, however, to resist making everyone as happy as he was himself, especially after old IsÂn-daulet arrived with a bride in her pocket; so, before he quite realised the magnitude of the affair, he was duly wedded to yet another cousin, a half-sister of dead Prince BaisanghÂr. She was some years older than her groom and very, very beautiful. But Babar came out from the bridal-chamber with a stern, set mouth and went straight to his mother. "Tell her to say no more of Dearest-One," he said briefly; "or there will be trouble. And 'twere as well if she left BaisanghÂr in peace also. She loved him, doubtless--but--but so did I." His voice softened over the last words. Trouble, however, was not to be avoided. Babar made no more complaints; possibly because he gave few opportunities for fresh injury. His mother wept and scolded in vain. That hurt him; but for his cousin-wife he cared not at all. He was proud; he could not understand a woman's petty spite, especially when shown to him, a good-looking young King in the zenith of success. "We do not agree," he said gloomily. "Lo! it is true what SaÁdi saith: 'In a good man's house a cross-grained wife Mayhap if we part we may come together again in better fashion; and sure I pray God that such a thing as a shrew be not left in the world." He would not acknowledge any fault on his side. Perhaps there was none. Anyhow he was determined this year of good fortune should not be marred by silly domestic squabbles. So, with affectionate farewells to his mother, whom he left determined to bring her choice to reason, he set off in light-hearted fashion to make that irruption into Hindustan which he had threatened when he had marked his forehead with pollen dust. He was not strong enough as yet, his army was not yet sufficiently disciplined for any attempt at real conquest; but he meant at least to cross the river Sind and set foot on Indian soil. The expedition, however, fizzled out into a mere plundering raid along the western bank of the Indus. But Babar at least saw India, getting his first glimpse of it across the wide waters and sandbanks of that great stream. He was deeply impressed by the sight. At some places the water seemed to join the sky; at others the farther bank lay reflected in inverted fashion like a mirage. And he saw other strange and beautiful things also. Once between this water and the heavens something of a red appearance like a crepuscule cloud was seen, which by and by vanished, and so continued shifting till he came near. And then with a whirr of thousands--nay! not ten thousand nor twenty thousand wings, but of wings absolutely beyond computation and innumerable--an immense flock of flamingoes rose into the air, and as they flew, sometimes their red plumes showed and sometimes they were hidden. So, with his mind stocked with endless new ideas, for he had been struck by astonishment--and indeed there was room for wonder in this new world where the grass was different, the trees different, the wild animals of a different sort, the birds of a different plumage, the very manners of the men different--he returned in early summer to KÂbul. But here he once more found trouble. There was an epidemic of measles in the town and one of the first victims was his cousin-wife. He was vaguely distressed; mostly it is to be feared because of his mother who had nursed her daughter-in-law devotedly. Partly also from a remembrance of his own parting wish. Yes! it was distinctly wrong to say such ill-advised things, for if anything did happen one always regretted one's own words. And yet one had meant nothing. "I will marry again, motherling! I will indeed; but this time let me choose for myself," he said consolingly as the fond woman clung to him in mingled joy at seeing him again, and grief at the failure of her schemes. Not that they would have come to much, likely, even had the cousin-wife not died; for she had been a handful doubtless, all those months. "Lo! motherling," said her son once more, "let us forget the mistake for a time. Thy hands are hot, thou art outwearied. Lie so among the cushions, and I will sing to thee." She loved to hear him sing, and even in the old TurkhomÂn ballads, she did not--like old IsÂn-daulet--claim to have them fairly bawled. This new soft fashion was utterly sweet. So was her son's close-shaven chin. He had gone far from the wild TurkhomÂn tents; far ahead of her; God only knew how much farther he was to go. "Motherling! Thou art not so well to-night," he said with solicitude as he noticed how fever-bright were her kind, worn eyes. "I will bid the Court physician send for him of KhorasÂn. He will likely know all methods; for I cannot have thee ill, my motherling." The KhÂnum held him fast with her hot hands. "I care not, sonling," she sobbed suddenly; "so long as thou art here to the last--the best--the bravest son-- "But I?" he said in tender raillery, though a sudden fear gripped at his heart. "Whom have I in the wide world but thee, mother? Lo! thou art the one thing feminine left to me after all these years." And his eyes grew stern as he thought of that dearest Dearest-One away in far Samarkand. Thank God she had a child. "Have I not always said so?" wailed his mother. "Have I not bid thee have children? Ah, Babar! if I live, promise thou wilt marry." "I will marry either way, motherling," he said. "Lo! I promise that; so cease thy tears and try to sleep. Thou wilt be better by morn." But morning found the palace hushed with the hush of mortal sickness. There was no longer any doubt that the KhÂnum had contracted measles in its worst repressed form, and regret, vague almost unreasonable regret, seized on Babar. He was responsible. It was his fault. His mother had nursed his wife. The KhorasÂn physician came and ordered water-melons; he of KÂbul let blood. And Babar sat dry-eyed beside his mother, holding her hot hand. She did not know him. Those words of hers, begging him to marry had been her last to him. His to her his promise that he would marry. Even amid his dazed grief he remembered this; remembered it keenly as, when the end came in quiet unconsciousness, he bent over her to give the last caress before Death claimed the body and it lay soulless, impure. But she? She was received into the Mercy of God. He said that over and over again to himself as, on the Sunday morning, he put his strong shoulder under the light bier and carried it to the Garden of the New Year. It was summer-time now, the roses were beginning to blow, the tulips were nigh over, but the wild pansies were in full blossom. They had dug a grave under the plane trees and here, after the committal prayers had been said and flowers strewn, Babar, holding the head and KÂsim, his foster brother, the feet, laid the light, muslin-swathed, tinsel-bound corpse in the long, low niche, cut coffin-wise in the side. His voice scarcely trembled at all as he laid a handful of earth upon the breast with the solemn words of admonition and hope. "Out of the dust I made you, and to dust I return you, to raise you yet once more out of the dust upon the Day of Resurrection." But his eyes brimmed with tears as, with lavish hand, he scattered pansy blossoms till the white shroud was hidden by them. Then without one word he drew himself up from the grave, and taking a shovel worked his hardest to fill in the earth. Afterwards he sat down and looked out over the valley. When his time came, he, also, would lie here. One could not desire a more peaceful, a more beautiful spot. But he would have no tomb built over him to blot out the blue sky. No! He and his mother should rest together till the Resurrection morn out in the open, among the birds and flowers.
CHAPTER III set Death's Door wide open for thee, Friend, With the swift family affection of their clan, relatives gathered round Babar in his bereavement. His paternal aunts came from KhorasÂn, and ere the forty days of mourning were over, a small cavalcade arrived from Tashkend. But it brought an aggravation of grief; for old IsÂn-daulet had predeceased her daughter by a few days. Babar's uncle, the little KhÂn, had also died; but beyond the fact that this deepened the Shadow-of-Death which seemed to have fallen over his young life, it brought no sorrow to the King. It was different with his grandmother. With her passing he had veritably no feminine thing left to whom he owed affection and duty, to whom he could go for comfort and counsel. There were his paternal aunts, of course; good creatures every one of them, especially Ak Begum, though the others always flouted her because she had not married. Which was very unkind, since anyone with half-an-eye could see it was because she had devoted her life to her fat, half-witted lame sister. Poor Badul-jamÂl-Begum! What an irony of fate it was that she had been called that! The "Lady of Astonishing-Beauty." But feminine names were beyond reason. Even Ak Begum--the "Fair Princess." What a name for that little bird-like, dark creature who twittered and preened herself at every word. Yet she was the only one of them who understood, who gave the young man's sore heart any comfort at all. She came to him, looking as if no pin were out of place, so natty, with her scanty hair still braided in virginal fashion on her wrinkled forehead, and said in her high piping voice: "Lo, nephew! here are violets. A man brought them from the snows. Are they not sweet? Sniff them! Thy mother was ever so fond of them." And Babar sniffed at them and afterwards took them to his mother's grave. Yes! The Fair Princess was certainly his grandfather's daughter; of the same blood as he was. Still, grief must have its way, and here it was unbounded. Regret and remorse were mixed with it; and, yet once again, Babar gave way before the mental strain. He tried to resume his ordinary life and actually started to lead his army afield, but was struck down with a sort of sleeping sickness. For days no matter what efforts they made to rouse him, his eyes constantly fell back to sleep. Yet after a time he pulled himself together again and started once more, but this time with no definite plan. Nor did he quite recover his normal health all that winter, which was spent in half-hearted attacks, and whole-hearted forgiveness of all and sundry of his enemies; for it was not his wish to treat anyone harshly. The snow lay very deep that winter in the high glens and passes. At one place off the road it reached up to the horses' cruppers and the pickets appointed for the night-watch round the camp had to remain on their horses, from sheer inability to dismount. Half the army suffered, and Babar himself had to be carried back to KÂbul, helpless with lumbago. Mental unhappiness always seemed to affect his bodily health. But spring comes early in KÂbul and the pulse of renewed life began to beat once more in Babar's veins. By March, when the red tulips he had planted there were in full bloom about his mother's grave in the garden of the New Year, he was once more looking out from that high ground at the world beneath his feet, and straining his bright eyes over new horizons. One thing he must do. He must marry. But this time he would choose for himself. This time he would give himself a chance of finding that new world he had seen when he was a boy in Dearest-One's eyes. Poor Dearest-One! He had had letters from her concerning their mother's death, and their pitifulness had almost broken his heart. Yet he could do nothing, nothing! She was as one dead; only not at peace like his mother. But she also had urged marriage. Yes! he must marry, and no one should have a finger in the matrimonial pie but himself; least of all his paternal aunts. If needs be he would marry privately. The idea attracted him; he pondered over it. The question arose, in that case, whom he was to choose. Amongst the well born, those who lived in the circle of distinction as the phrase ran, it would be impossible. Without a confidante the mere broaching of marriage was out of the question. And yet the very idea of one low born was distasteful to him. So, as he pondered vaguely over possibilities, an idea came to him. What of the frightened girl? Why not? She could not be more than a year or two his senior; if that, for she had been much younger than his Cousin GharÎb. And her father was dead. And she lived in a House-of-Rest. That is to say if she still lived--or if she was not married. Bah!--he was a fool to let his fancy run so far. Still he could enquire when he went to KhorasÂn as he meant to do some time that summer. Meanwhile a feeling of content came to him; partly because his imagination endorsed the idea as delightfully sentimental; mostly because it postponed necessity for immediate action. And yet, when a day or two after a missive arrived from his uncle, Sultan Hussain, begging for his assistance at KhorasÂn against the arch enemy and raider ShaibÂni-KhÂn who threatened an inroad, Babar felt pleased at what seemed an order from Fate; especially as the missive came by the hands of rather a quaint ambassador; namely by the son of his uncle's professional Dreamer-of-Dreams. To be sure Cousin GharÎb had made fun of the man's pretensions; but there was more in that sort of thing than could be accounted for by reason. Anyhow, it was a clear duty to set off at once. If ShaibÂni was the enemy, then, if other princes went to the attack on their feet it was incumbent on him to go if necessary on his head! and if they went against him with swords, it was his business to go, were it only with stones! "The Most High must have a care of KÂbul nathless," said wary old KÂsim. "Look you the saying runs: Ten dervishes in one rug The most High's brother--and his cousin--" But Babar cut him short. He never would listen to suspicions of his own relations. "I have done nothing," he said, with just that little touch of conscious virtue that in him was so translucent, so simple, though in one less artless it might have been offensive, "to provoke either of them to hostility; neither have they given me ground for dissatisfaction." KÂsim shrugged his shoulders and muttered under his breath that it would need the Day of Judgment to make some folk believe in sin, and applied himself to seeing that the garrison left was sufficient to keep order. Babar himself was full of spirits. Apart from other considerations the prospect of, at last, seeing HerÂt, the most civilised city in Central Asia, filled him with keen interest. It was full, he knew, of poets, painters, philosophers, and its luxuries were things to speak of with bated breath. In addition, he had a pleasant remembrance of his Uncle Hussain. It was more than ten years since he had seen him over in the camp which had struck him, the hardy barbarian, with awe. Did the old man--old now with a vengeance since he had reigned a good fifty years--still keep butting rams and amuse himself with cock fighting? Above all, did he still on festival days put on that small turban tied in three folds, broad and showy, and having placed a plume nodding over it in that style go to prayers? Babar wrote in his own hand--in the Babari writing which he had just invented and of which he was vastly proud--a letter to the kindly old man, telling him that he had set out from KÂbul and hoped to be with him shortly. This he entrusted to an ambassador who with the Dreamer-of-Dreams started express for HerÂt; he himself having a small job on hand by the way, in the punishment of some wandering tribes to the west. It was not much of a task; but summer quarters in the hills had a fascination for Babar, and he remained on the top of one of the many ranges he had to cross; despatching KÂsim-Beg meanwhile with a body of troops to scour the countryside for rebels. There was a sense of freedom about the wide upland stretches of sweet grass, where flocks and herds grazed placidly, where flowers blossomed by the million, and the tall fir forests edged the downward slopes. The whole world of blue waving hills touched the blue sky. One might be adrift on a huge raft in the River of Life. Babar would doff shoes and wander barefoot for hours, content with a chance shot after an escaping deer, or a chance following of his own vagrant thoughts. And these often fled in the direction of a House-of-Rest wherein dwelt a frightened girl. He could not help it. He was made sentimental to his heart's core. Remove the pressure of fine fighting, of ardent ambition, and there he was, ready to be touched by pity, love, admiration. And the thought of the woman to come was a perpetual stimulus to his imagination. The mere fact that he did not know her name was delightful; it took from the idea all trace of earth. And Babar, though the very reverse of ascetic in his tastes and pleasures, had ever been repulsed by sensuality. His was the Epicurean enjoyment of the spirit, as distinct from that of the mind, or that of the body. So in his thoughts he called the woman he intended should be his wife "My moon," which is the eastern equivalent of "My queen"; and, in easy dilettante fashion wrote more than one ode to that luminary. Most of them were in Persian and contained exactly the proper number of feet, and rang the appointed interchanges of meaning and words with faultless accuracy. He was quite proud of them, and thought better of them than of the one in Turkhi; which, however, he set to music and sang, for his innate good taste was for ever breaking loose from scholastic tradition. He twanged the tune on a cithÂra as he sat on a rock in the moonlight and felt quite light-hearted over his own unworthiness; it fitted so neatly into the rhyming fall ... Moon of still night! Whence the bright light that enfolds In its pure smile Earth's untold guile; that upholds Silver in glow, whiter than snow, this my hand Tuning thy praise? Whence come thy rays? From what land Bringest thou peace, thus to release, from its sin Stricken sad heart, wailing its part in Life's din? Lo! from God's sun must thou have won thy kind light. Though I am clay, watch me alway through the night. I am of earth; thine is the birth- right divine. Moon of my soul, thine is this whole heart of mine. The distance from KÂbul to KhorasÂn was over eight hundred miles; so with even every-day marching the journey would have taken some time, and Babar was in no particular hurry. Less so than ever when news came to him with the return of his ambassador, that Sultan Hussain had suddenly died from an apoplectic seizure. At first Babar felt inclined to turn back. His uncle, he knew, had left his kingdom, in unheard of fashion, to his three legitimate sons, in defiance of the old saw about the ten dervishes, and Babar had too much experience to believe that such an arrangement could work satisfactorily. However he had other motives for advancing, and therefore he continued his route, and, passing over the last range of high hills, found himself in the country where the advanced detachments of the Usbek force were already raiding. This in itself was an attraction, bringing as it did a chance of fine fighting. He found his cousins, the new Kings, encamped, ready to meet the advancing foe on the MurghÂb river; or rather he found two of them. The third, from private motives of pique had refused to join the confederacy. This appeared to Babar to be inexpressibly mean, when everyone else had united and were sparing no efforts to oppose an enemy so formidable as ShaibÂni. He could not understand how any reasonable man could pursue a line of conduct which must after his death, stain his fair fame. Surely everyone with the commonest grace would push forwards his career, so that, even if closed, it would conduct him to renown and glory, since fame is truly a second existence? These sentiments, however, fine as they were, did not make much mark on the luxurious camp on the banks of the MurghÂb. His cousins received Babar fairly well, though their manners required some polishing up by old KÂsim-Beg's inflexible rules of etiquette. Of course, the fact that two of the younger and illegitimate princes did not come out as far as they ought to have done to welcome their Kingly cousin was objectionable; but that might be put down to delay in starting due to an over-night debauch, rather than to intentional slight. But when it came to the State reception in the Audience Tent, KÂsim had to pluck at his young master's girdle and remind him with this jog, that he was to go no further, but to await his eldest cousin's advance. Which he did obediently, knowing that old KÂsim held his King's honour as his own, and was keenly alive to his consequence. But he, himself, was always forgetting these convenances, where he was concerned. If you really felt affectionate it was a nuisance having to wait, and bow, and scrape. The State reception, however, went off very well and it was followed by a sort of entertainment at which wine was served in goblets of silver and gold, that were put down by the meat! Fateful innovation which sent old KÂsim back to his own camp hungry, in the highest of dudgeons. "Had it been a drinking party, sire," he protested, "'twould have been my own fault for being there. But at an official dinner, 'twas scandalous. No faithful MussulmÂn could touch a morsel of food so defiled." Babar, somewhat regretful at a rather abrupt departure, murmured an excuse to the effect briefly, of "autres tempes, autres moeurs"; whereat KÂsim-Beg, a purist for the old ways, broke out hotly: "Lo! sire! the Institutions of Ghengis KhÂn have brought your Highness' family well through much trouble. Sacredly have they observed them in their parties, their courts, their festivals, their entertainments, their down sittings, their risings up, and it would ill become their descendant to flout them." Babar flushed up; in his heart of hearts, he was not quite such an admirer of the old Turk. "Lo! the Institutes are good enough," he said; "a man may well follow them; yet are they not of Divine authority, so that one be damned for disobeying them. Besides, see you, what hope would there be for the world if folk made no change? If a father has done wrong why should not a son change it to what is right?" Old KÂsim, munching away at the dry bread and pickles which was all his servants could produce, snorted. "'Tis the other way round most times; and see you, sire, I give those Kings your cousins one year, one little year, to hold HerÂt! Then the Kingdom of their father--God rest his soul since he had gleams of grace and once let one of his God-forgetting sons go before the magistrate--held--despite wine bibbing--for nigh fifty years, will have gone for ever." "Aye," replied Barbar, thoughtfully. "I have noticed that myself. Some men drink with impunity. I wonder if 'twould hurt me?" "God forbid! your Majesty!" said old KÂsim with a tremble in his voice. "Shall all our care, mine and the saintly KwÂja who held you as a boy in his guardian care, be wasted? God forbid, say I." But Babar said nothing; he knew that in his inmost heart he had had for years a great longing just to see what it was like to be drunk! It could scarcely hurt for once, and the land of inebriety could hardly be the arid desert it had been painted for him, or so many folk would not wander in it. He was always open to reason on all points. Nevertheless he gave out solemnly that he drank no wine, and his cousins, being good hosts, refrained from pressing him to do so. Badia-zamÂn, the elder of the three, doubtless thought little of him for the abstinence. To be young, good-looking, able to enjoy yourself in every way and yet not to take the best of Life, seemed to him sheer foolishness; and he showed his estimate in his manner, so that Babar came home from his second interview in a fume of anger. "This shall not be!" he said hotly. "KÂsim! send proper representations that young as I am, I am of high extraction. Twice have I by force regained my paternal Kingdom, Samarkand. To show want of respect to one who has done so much for his family by repelling the foreign invader is not commendable." For a marvel the young King was on his dignity, much to old KÂsim's joy. And with good result; for nothing more could have been desired at the next audience which Babar attended with his full retinue. And a fine figure he looked, dressed in the very latest fashion with a gold brocade coat, a flowered undershirt and white silk baggy trousers all lined with gold thread. His hair, too, was scented and curled and his turban tied with a difference. A very different person this from the ragged, out-at-elbow fugitive, or even the stern young soldier in his tarnished coat of mail, fighting for life against overwhelming odds. He rather liked the change. It was a new experience to ruffle with gilded youth, and he ruffled fairly until his boon companions began to play indecent and scurvy tricks, when he left, disgusted for the time being. But the entertainments were wonderfully elegant. There was every sort of delicacy on the comestible trays, and kababs of fowl and goose; indeed dishes of every sort and kind. The Prince-Kings vied with each other in the refinement of their luxuries, and certainly Badia-zamÂn's parties deserved to be celebrated; they were so fine, so easy, so unconstrained. On the other hand Mozuffar's entertainments were more amusing, especially when the wine began to take effect. There was a man who danced excessively well; a dance of his own invention. "Dance or no dance," grumbled old KÂsim, "the Princes thy cousins have taken four months to reach this place. And now news comes that a plundering party of Usbeks is well within touch not more than forty miles off--and they dance! 'Twill be to another tune ere long." "Mayhap they would let me go," said Babar eagerly, "'twould be a diversion." So he was off to lay his proposition before his Cousins; but they, afraid of their own reputations, would not suffer him to move. The fact was, as he admitted to old KÂsim privately, the Princes, though very accomplished at the social board or in the arrangements for a party of pleasure, and though they had a pleasing talent for conversation and society, yet possessed no knowledge whatever of the conduct of a campaign, and were perfect strangers to the arrangements for a battle, or the danger and spirit of a soldier's life. This left nothing more to be said; especially as his hearer agreed with every word. Early autumn, however, had passed, and ShaibÂni, being a careful general, prepared to withdraw his forces against the winter's cold. This being so, there was no longer any reason--there had been but little before--for remaining in camp at the MurghÂb, and the Prince-Kings proposed a return to HerÂt and invited Babar to accompany them. "Were I your Highness," said old KÂsim sturdily, "I would not go. So far God in His mercy has kept virtue on the lips of the King, and kept wine away from them. But in that God-forsaken city of HerÂt who knows what might happen? They tell me even the women there are castaway, and that your uncle the late King's widow drinks like a fish--may God reward her!" "I have never seen a woman drink wine," said Babar quite thoughtfully. "Have you?" KÂsim looked at his young master critically. "New things are not always good things, sire," he replied drily, "and, as was mentioned ere we set out from KÂbul, God only knows what may happen there if we delay our return too long. Already have five months passed and 'tis a fifty days' march homewards." "Not if we take the high road," said Babar. "The high road," echoed the old general; "that may be covered with snow any moment now." "Yet will I chance my luck," returned Babar gaily. "See you, old friend, I have my reasons! I must see HerÂt--in the whole habitable world they say there is not such a city; besides ..." He paused, for his was a truthful soul even to itself; and he knew that the past six weeks of jollity and convivial male merry-making had considerably dimmed his desire to do his duty and marry. Still he had promised himself he would try and seek out his Cousin GharÎb's betrothed--for she had never been his wife--and he meant to do it. Between whiles of course. For he must make the most of his time in HerÂt. Yes! it would be a pity to miss the chance of his life. To be in the most refined of cities which possessed every means of heightening pleasure and gaiety; in which all the incentives to, and apparatus for, enjoyment were combined into one vast invitation to indulgence, and not to indulge, would be foolish. If he did not seize the present moment, even to the point of tasting wine, he was not likely to have such another. And, certainly, wine seemed to raise the level of a man's mind. His cousins were but dullards out of their cups. And there was no need to exceed. To be dead-drunk was no pleasure to anyone.
CHAPTER IIIThe Load of Love, nor Earth nor Heav'n can bear, Ebd-ul-HomÎd. HerÂt was entered. It was his! Babar, his eyes wide with curiosity and appreciation had ridden through what were to him interminable streets. He had seen towers and pleasure houses and palaces rising on all sides, had noted the crowds which surged out from every side alley to see one who was already renowned in the songs of half Central Asia, as the embodiment of youthful valour. And all had been simply inconceivable in its beauty, its size. Yusuf-Ali who had been appointed his guide, rode at his right hand, and supplied him with endless information. Close on a million of people in the town and suburbs. Over a hundred and seventy thousand occupied houses. Nigh on four hundred public schools. Shops! Why there must be at least fifteen thousand of them! The statistics went in at one ear and out at another. It was the sheer beauty of the place which held Babar's mind. The wide valley, the surrounding hills just touched with snow. The white buildings following the blue curves of the river. The marble colonnades terracing the slopes, the marble palaces crowning the heights; and, dense-packed between high carven houses, the multi-coloured crowd all intent on pleasure. Roars of laughter rising from it at every passing jest, a chorus of "Victory, young champion!" following him as he rode along. By God and his prophet! Life was a splendid thing to live! Had he had Prince Fortunatus' purse in his pocket he would have flung gold pieces along every inch of the way. Even in the mausoleum of his lately deceased uncle, where, in accordance with etiquette he had, before even taking up his quarters in the palace assigned to him, to pay his respects to the female members of his uncle's family, his ceremonial condolences were somewhat marred by the joie de vivre which simply exhaled from him. Yet he was none the less sympathetically impressed by the dim Dome-of-Kings all lit up darkly by swinging lamps, by tall funereal tapers throwing flickering shadows on the purple-crimson pall fringed with gold that covered the catafalque. Dim blue clouds of incense filled the air; their scent mixed with the perfume-sodden rustle of the silks and satins beneath the circle of ivory-tinted mourning veils that enshrouded the crouching figures of the female mourners. The low guttural chant of canons appointed to sing prayers for the repose of the dead, rose monotonously, a fitting background to the little conventional sobs and cries, as each lady in turn stood up to embrace the newly arrived member of the family. There were so many aunts to embrace; but Babar went through them decorously; with a little real emotion when he hugged Aunt Fair, and some rather obvious impatience when fat, silly, Astonishing Beauty--who loved young men--hugged him. They did not, however, keep up the "marsiah" for long; the ladies--who after the expiry of five months had got over the first flush of grief--being anxious to have their handsome relative's budget of news. So they all repaired to KhadÎjah-Begum's house and had a repast. It was very refined and--rather to Babar's disappointment, for he was curious to see a woman drink wine--strictly teetotal; doubtless because PayandÂ-Begum, the late King's chief wife and--as his father's sister--Babar's real aunt, was present. And she was naturally of the highest circle of distinction and of the most correct behaviour. KhadÎjah-Begum on the other hand, whom Babar now saw for the first time, showed her low birth despite the fact that as favourite wife she had managed the court for years. Even the knowledge that she was Cousin GharÎb's mother could not prevent Babar's putting her down at once as a vulgar talkative woman who posed for being a person of profound sense. There was another Begum of the late King's present, however, on whom the young observer, seeing her for the first time, passed a very different opinion. This was one Lady Apak, a delicate fair woman who spent her childless life in nursing other people's children, and who Babar felt deserved all the respect and kindness it was in his power to give. He was not sorry however, when, various other visits paid, he found himself in the house assigned to him. And sure, no better place could have been discovered in the whole habitable world! For it was the garden palace which the great Master-of-all-Arts, Messer Ali-ShÎr--dead this while back, God rest his soul!--had designed and built for himself. Babar spent hours wandering through its cool corridors, sitting awhile in cunning alcoves whence the enchanting view, framed in gilt filigree arch, showed like a picture indeed. He sampled the rose-water baths, all mosaicked like a garden with buds, and leaves, and blossoms; he sat stroking the soft silk pile of carpets, green and set with flowers as thick as AndijÂn meadows in spring. And there was one, deeply darkly verdant and almost covered with the softest, fleeciest white furry blobs, on which he could have lain down and cried, so keenly did it bring back the mantle of clover lambskin into which he had poured the first grief that had come to his young life. He read round the walls of the central marble hall, veined and mosaicked with precious stones, the boast that in after years one of his descendants was to use in the Court-of-Private-Audience at Delhi. "If Earth holds a Paradise--it is this, it is this, it is this." Yes! it was true! Not only in the hall, but in every niche and corner--in the ivory carven bedstead, in the crystal goblets inlaid with coral, in the curiously beaten metal-work, in the very shading of the coloured tiles, here was perfection of Beauty. Even with their shoes doffed in respectful Oriental fashion, Babar could hardly endure to see servants, whose minds he knew were not attuned to that high level, passing backwards and forwards in what he felt to be a Shrine. He dismissed them all and sat, pillowed by the softest down, looking out from the colonnade which gave on the garden. It, also, must be beautiful beyond compare. He would see that to-morrow. To-night it was sufficient to revel in the burnished dusk of the orange trees, seen in the soft moonlight, to watch the glittering radiance of the fountain drops against that background of distant hills--purple--aye! positively purple even in this light. Lo! it was beauty concentrated almost to pain. Beauty, unearthly, beyond the senses. Something not to be seen, or heard, or tasted, or touched, or even felt. Beauty that brought an utter abnegation of Self. "This slave has a letter for the Most High," came a clear sweet voice. "It is from his Cousin GharÎb. It was to be given--if occasion came--in private, and in person if possible. So I have brought it." Babar turned quickly. At first to see nothing. Then several paces away faintly outlined against one of the square white pilasters he caught the silhouette of a white, curiously shadowless figure. A woman's figure surely; slim, elegant, despite the enshrouding veil. He rose swiftly; his heart beating. His dead cousin! Could it be--No! Impossible--And yet-- "With deepest reverence--mother," he said almost mechanically, as the figure remaining quiescent he stepped forward to take what it held out. He could see the hand--a marble hand in the moonlight--beyond the line of the pilaster. A pretty hand too, with fingers pointed and delicate. "May God reward you," came his mechanical thanks, as instinctively he stepped back again. The figure remained quiescent, silent. In the moonlight he could see clearly the sweeping black curves of the writing. The letter was very brief. "Shouldst thou, cousin, ever come to KhorasÂn, I have counselled her, who was my wife in name, to give you this. I make no claim, I express no wish save this--I should like her to be happy, for I have loved her--and thou also, O Babar. Farewell! May the Crystal Bowl give Love, not Tears." For an instant Babar stood confounded, irresolute: it was so unconventional: so almost impossible. Yet it fitted strangely with the place; with his vague feeling that had been beyond even Time and Space. p175 There was a ruby jewelled lamp swinging from the arch between them. It scarce gave light, but it sent a patterned shimmering rose upon the white marble floor. A gentle breeze swayed the lamp; the rose flickered between them backwards and forwards. His eyes were on it as he stood holding the letter, the moonlight catching at the signet ring he wore, dallying with the gold embroidery of his light silken coat. "Is it possible," he said at last, fluttering a bit like a girl, "that she who stands before me--" "Yea, I am she," came the composed reply. It settled the young man by bringing conviction of his own confusion. "But how--" he began, a certain blame in his surprise; and once again the answer was ready, grave, sufficient. "My lord's slave comes every Friday after the custom of her family--she is of the blood of the divine JÂmi as doubtless my lord knows--to place flowers on the tomb of the now sainted Messer Ali-ShÎr--may his ashes rest in peace--who is interred by his own wish in this garden, and who was her distant relative. But in life he was ever kind to this dust-like one, teaching her, and allowing her to be his disciple. So her litter comes hither often. It awaits her return yonder at the grave. Thus the letter was easy to deliver in person, and it is delivered. May God keep the King." Faintly the figure moved as if to go; but Babar stepped a step forward. His head was in a whirl, his heart curiously steady. "And has the cupola of chastity no word to say of herself?" he asked. "What word is there to say, my lord?" came the quick reply. "I have performed my duty. The rest lies with my lord." There was just a suspicion of raillery in the voice which spurred Babar to hardihood. "Then I would fain know if--if she who thus deigns to honour me is satisfied with--with what she sees?" "But yea! my lord, quite satisfied! And this is not the first time she has seen my lord. She was at the window when he made his entry to the town." "Then the lady has doubly the advantage," said Babar with an irrepressible laugh. "Yet will I not ask her to make us equal and unveil. That were not meet at such a time and place." There was just that faint suspicion of conscious virtue about the remark, but it was met promptly, coolly. "Nor is there need. My lord would not be frightened at what he saw, as I, poor foolish child, was frightened. But I lived to be wiser. I lived to know that deformity of body is as naught before deformity of mind. But my lord has neither. Nor has this dust-like one. She is counted beautiful, and though she catalogues not her own charms, she hath two eyes, somewhat large, that look straight, a passable nose, thirty-two sound teeth, even and white, and a mouth that can say kind things harshly, and--an' it please my lord--harsh things kindly. Shall the recital proceed further, my lord?" "By God and the prophets no!" cried Babar catching fire at last. "There is but one more thing between us. Lady, wilt thou take me for husband?" "Of a surety; therefore came I here." So far the reply was as ever, cool, collected, without shadow of emotion; now the sweet, polished voice broke faintly. "There is but one matter of which I would remind my lord. I am older than he by three years. And I am not quite like other women. Messer Ali-ShÎr taught me much. If my lord would rather someone else--" The rose light on the pavement flickered between them backwards and forwards. "Lady," said Babar, and involuntarily he drew himself up to his full height, "in my childhood they married me to one for whom I cared little. She left me, saying truly, I did not love her. Awhile back my mother--God rest her soul for she was very dear to me--married me to yet another wife whom, mercifully, God took; since we were as cat and dog. But I have never loved a woman. I do not now; perhaps I never shall. 'Tis well to be prepared." Was it a faint sigh, or only another breath of wind that set the swinging lamp swaying. "I am prepared. And God may send the father's love to the mother of his son." There was silence. The splash of the glistening fountain made itself heard faintly; the soft coo of a dove in the orange trees seemed a lullaby to the whole wide world. "Lady," said Babar when he spoke at last, "I have sworn to myself that none should know of my marriage till it was accomplished. Till I could place my wife before them and say 'See her whom I have chosen.' I stay but a week or two in HerÂt. My kingdom calls me back. Is it possible that ere I go the formulas may be said privately, so that when good fortune enables me to send to HerÂt it may be for my wedded wife that I send?" There was a pause Then the cool, quiet voice replied, "Wherefore not, my lord? I have said I am ready." "But when?" Babar spoke anxiously, almost appealingly. He felt himself as wax in a woman's hand--a woman he had never seen. "Next Friday, my lord, when I come again to lay the flowers at the shrine. If my lord makes preparation, and if he changeth not his mind, his servant will be there." "Unless she also changeth her mind," interrupted Babar with forced lightness. "That might be," came the answer. "Yet is it not so likely as the other. The caged bird does not choose its song. And now farewell. God have you in his keeping." The figure stooped to gather its flowing robes together, and something in the supple elegance of the movement sent Babar's blood to his heart and head. "Not so, my moon," he cried, every atom of him vibrant with emotion. "Not so do we part." And with two swinging strides he was across the flickering rose light on the marble floor, took the hand held out to him unflinchingly, and stooped to kiss it. "Wife and mother, guardian and friend, so shalt thou be to me, so help me God." The next instant he was alone staring into the night, wondering if he had fallen asleep and dreamt it all. No! It was a reality. His signet ring was gone. He must have put it on that firm delicate hand, the memory of whose touch thrilled him through and through. And he had called her his moon. Yet his heart was beating tranquilly. When he lay down on the carven bed he did not toss and turn. He did not even feel inclined to indite a sonnet to his mistress's eyebrow or compare her to anything in heaven above or the earth beneath. He was simply content, and fell into a dreamless sleep. It was not till the next morning that he recollected that he did not know the lady's name, nor where she lived. Not that either ignorance mattered. He would find out next Friday.
CHAPTER IVNoisy the Tavern where Life's wine has sped Ebd-ul-HamÎd. There was not much time for thought in HerÂt. Early in the morning Babar was astir to ride out with Yusuf to some of the sights, and find the first collation of the day spread in some suitable place. Then on his return there was the State visit to the Court, where with pomp and circumstance he took his place as King of KÂbul. After that, each day had its entertainment at some new palace of delight, and sometimes after dinner had been served, the party would be carried off by one of the guests to a further and more intimate circle of amusement. Once this was done by no less a person than KhadÎjah-Begum herself. She took a few of the young princes to the King's Pleasure House, a delightful little edifice of two storeys high which stood in the midst of a still more delightful garden. The upper storey was simply perfect! Four little apartments at the four corners, each with a wide balcony, and between them and enclosed by them, one large central arched Hall. Every portion of this upper storey was covered with frescoes representing the battles of Babar's grandfather Sultan Abusa'id. And it was all so charmingly arranged. Carpets and hangings everywhere; especially in the balcony where the party assembled and where Babar as the guest of the evening was placed above his hosts. These little attentions always flattered Babar and he never failed to notice them. So the entertainment began with a cup of welcome which was charged and drunk by the host in chief. Then the cupbearers began to fill up the cup of the others with pure wine which everyone, including KhadÎjah-Begum, quaffed as if it had been the water of life! Only the tall good-looking young King refused, even when, the party waxing warm, and the spirit mounting to their heads, they took a fancy to make the young abstainer drink also. The night was fine, the moonlight streamed in upon fruit and flowers. JelÂl the flute player fluted to perfection, and BechÂb on the harp might have wiled doves from their nests. Then HÂfiz sang well in the HerÂti style, low, delicate, equable. Everything tempted to pleasure and Babar sat with a half-frown on his kindly face watching the others get lordily drunk. Then mercifully a false note was struck by one of his own following. JahÂngir Mirza, who was far gone, insisted that his favourite singer of Samarkand should delight the company. And the man sang (as he always did) in a loud harsh voice and out of tune; altogether a dreadful, disagreeable performance. So disagreeable that the KhorasÂn Princes, though far too polite to stop it out of respect to Babar, had to yawn and furtively protect their ears. This, and the reflection that if he was to yield and taste wine it would be more courteous to do so when he was the guest of the eldest of the Princes, and not of the younger, decided him not to give way; at that party at any rate. But he was no wet blanket; for after a time, having had enough of the Pleasure-House, they repaired to the new Winter-Palace, where Yusuf, being by this time extremely drunk, rose and, for a marvel, danced remarkably well; possibly because he was a musical man. Here they all got very merry and friendly. Babar was presented more or less ceremoniously with a corselet, a sword, a belt, and a whitish Tipchak horse, and someone sang a Turkhi song well. On the other hand while the party was hot with wine two slaves again performed indecent scurvy tricks. But this time Babar did not leave. He remained to the bitter end when the party broke up at such an untimely hour that Babar thought it best to stay where he was; the others doubtless, being too drunk to move. Perhaps it was this experience, coming in such close contrast to the marvellous peace of that moonlight night when, as if in a dream, he had handfasted a nameless woman, that made Babar listen to old KÂsim's horror-struck remonstrances concerning his young master's failing adherence to orthodoxy in the matter of wine. The rigid old Mahomedan was fairly scandalised, and made such a fuss that the KhorasÂn Prime-Minister intervened, and took his young masters to task so severely that they wholly laid aside any idea of urging their cousin further to drink. Rather perhaps to that cousin's private regret. It seemed a thousand pities to leave HerÂt without having tasted all Life's pleasures; all, that is, that were not indecent or scurvy. And a man could be drunk and yet remain a gentleman. Still, when the elder prince did give the promised party, at which Babar had promised himself he would for once drink wine, he still refrained, though he fretted because his nobles thought it necessary only to drink by stealth, hiding their goblets and taking draughts in great dread. It was so foolish; when they knew he was never one to object to the following of common usage, if so be the follower could reconcile it to his own conscience. He was altogether a trifle hoity-toity at this supper party; for a whole goose, after HerÂti fashion, being set down before him, he did not touch it; and, on his host's asking if he did not like it, said frankly, that being accustomed to the unrefined habit of having his food served in gobbets, he did not know how to carve it. Whereupon his host obligingly sent for the goose, cut it up, and placed it himself before his guest. Badia-zamÂn was, of course, unequalled in such attentions, and life was very delightful; yet still Babar's thoughts began to turn to the next Friday, and after that to KÂbul. His future life seemed more settled than it had ever been before. But Fate had a surprise in store for him, as he found out one afternoon, when, after his usual kindly custom, he had gone to pay a duty visit to his paternal aunts. Running down the narrow stairs which led to PayandÂ-Begum's upper storey, he came full tilt on two veiled women coming up. The stair was but shoulder wide; no room to pass, even had the first figure not been so appallingly stout. Impossible to pass, rude to turn one's back on those who were evidently of the circle of distinction-- Nor could he, King of KÂbul, retreat step by step like a lackey. He stood for a second gracious, debonnair; then with a merry "Your pardon, mother," wedged his arms tight between those narrow walls, so swung himself back. And there, in two such bounds, he was up the six steps and at the top of the stair. "Have a care, nephew," shrieked a fat, familiar voice from the first bundle. "Thou wilt fall and crush thy YenkÂm!" "My bridesmaid!" cried Babar joyously, repeating the pet nickname. "Say not so! When didst thou come?" And he was down the stairs again to embrace a favourite aunt he had not seen for years, and help her mount the remaining steps. So, still panting, the elderly matron unwound her veil and stood revealed; fat indeed. "Lo! YenkÂm," said Babar, his eyes twinkling. "Had I fallen, I should have fallen--soft." "Fie on thee, scapegrace! God send thee not a skinny old age," retorted Habee-ba-Begum good humouredly. "But what of thy cousin Ma'asuma here? Ma'asuma that is like the fairy princess, weighing but five flowers--have a care of thy veil, child!" The tiny little figure, slim and graceful, which now stood beside the fat one, apparently made a court salutation beneath her thick veil, and a bird-like voice said, with a laugh in every tone, "My cousin Babar, never having seen my smallness, Mother, cannot gauge it." The young King returned the salute in his best manner. "If the gracious lady would allow me to judge," he began, when his YenkÂm cut short his hardihood. "Fie! no nonsense, children! Ma'asuma! Follow me. Thou must be presented at once to thy eldest aunt. I shall see thee, scapegrace! doubtless, later on." So, with a nod to Babar, bundled propriety moved off down the corridor. Was it chance?--Was it really a trip over a tiresome veil...? Anyhow Habee-ba-Begum had rounded a corner, and those two young things stood staring at each other as if they had never seen anything in the wide world before. It was a real case of love at first sight. As for him, he did not even realise what she was like. He only knew that she was beautiful exceedingly. And she knew he was a Prince indeed. The mirth in their eyes died down. Then hers grew startled, his caught fire. So they stood; till suddenly hers flamed back into his, and with a low cry she huddled her draperies round her, turned, and fled after her mother. Babar stood still as a stone. What had happened to him? He felt confused, lost, yet utterly, entirely, absurdly happy. After a time he walked soberly downstairs feeling vaguely that the world was a new world, and that he must go and find himself. Once in the street he went on walking blindly, on and on, till he found himself in desert places outside the town. Then, aimlessly, he turned back and walked as he had come, wandering through the city as though in search of mansions and gardens. Yet all the while he felt as if he could neither sit nor go, neither stand nor walk. He was literally obsessed by a passion, pure in its very intensity; a passion which at one and the same time made him long to be with its object, yet covered him with shame and confusion at the mere thought of her beauty. He returned after long hours to Ali-ShÎr's palace, worn out in body, but yet more restless in mind. He had decided that this must be love--love at long last. In that case he must write verses, and began to catalogue the beauty of the face he had seen. He remembered, now, that they were unusual; for little Cousin Ma'asuma had the rare distinction of fairish hair and blue eyes. A little flowerful face, merry, sparkling; rebellious curling hair flecked with red gold--a tint of rose and creamy champak-- All this he remembered dreamily as he laboured to fit together the fine mosaic of a Persian love ode. "Impassioned loved one! fairest of the fair, He got so far as this, then threw away his pen in disgust. Anyone could write that sort of stuff. He had read pages of it in books: had sung such rhymes by the score. But that sort of thing had nothing to do with his great love for Ma'asuma and hers for him. For she had loved him, of course. The reverse was incredible, absurd. He turned round and buried his face in the downy cushions that had, as usual, been spread for him in his favourite corner of the colonnade. He had had no dinner. He did not want any. He had refused his cousin's invitations with some excuse. He forgot what--it did not matter. Nothing in the wide world mattered but his love for Ma'asuma and hers for him. The moon was still bright. Not quite so bright as it had been that night, five days ago, when he had promised to marry someone else. Babar sat up, leant his head on his hand and began to consider how matters stood. Oriental in mind, marriage was to him by no means synonymous with love. He could legitimately have four wives at a time. If he liked. But honestly he felt he would rather not. Still--as nothing possibly could prevent his making Ma'asuma his wife--if the other nameless lady wanted to be his wife also, he would acquiesce. He would not go back from his promise. Only--what a pity he had called her his "Moon"! That name belonged to his love by right. So, as he sat dreaming, a voice said with the nasal twang of the common folk-- "A letter for the Presence." The coincidence of time and place startled him. He looked up half-expectant of that tall, slim, female figure. But this was a lad in the uniform of the Palace servants. A message mayhap from one of the Begums. He took it carelessly from an awkward brown hand and opened its seal. A scent of fresh violets came to him as he did so. And the letter? It was written in the finest Babari hand--the hand he had invented!--with a delicacy, an accuracy at which even the inventor of it marvelled, and it contained but a quatrain; but such a quatrain! Babar's scholastic appreciation of the form forced its way through his emotional delight at the words. Ali-ShÎr himself could not have written anything neater, more absolutely correct in prosody. And in such difficult metre too, with its enlay of rhymes. "My heart has part in this thy smart. And it was signed: "Thy true friend Ma'asuma." Yea! That was worth writing! That told the tale. Babar sprang to his feet. The whole world seemed filled with radiance. He and Ma'asuma were the only people in it. But what should he answer? What should he write? Nothing but the truth--God's truth. "I love thee. I love thee, Ma'asuma. I love thee." In his haste, his brimming emotion, the words fell from his lips, as seizing pen and paper he set them down and signed them. "Is that the answer?" asked the waiting lad as Babar held out the missive impatiently. "Am I to take that to my mistress?" A faint hesitancy over the latter words made the young man look at the boy--a dull, rather sullen face, but not ill-looking. "Yes!" he replied joyously. "Take it to thy mistress. It is my answer, now and always!" The lad salaamed and went, leaving Babar in a heaven of perfect content. Two days later, on Friday evening, however, he was waiting to fulfil his promise in Ali-ShÎr's tomb. Absolutely Oriental as his outlook was, so far as marriage was concerned, he yet wondered, vaguely, if he were fool or knave in acting as he did. For the path of true love, never very rough when Kings are concerned, had been made very smooth, indeed, for the two young people. Babar had sent his AkÂm to see his YenkÂm and the whole affair had been settled in five minutes with enthusiasm. Even the preliminaries had been arranged. It being nigh December, Babar should return to KÂbul and make preparations there, while YenkÂm would complete hers at HerÂt, and with the first blink of returning spring, the marriage should take place at some intermediate place. Meanwhile the young people, after ChagatÂi fashion, had been allowed to see each other and were in the seventh heaven of delight. The betrothals were to be made public in a few days; though already Babar's conduct was suspicious. For he refrained from his cousin's convivial parties and mooned about in the gardens composing "Sonnets of the Heart," as he was pleased to call them, in his native Turkhi which gave him much more freedom than the severely technical Persian odes. These he sent as written to his dearest dear, and they invariably brought back the most beautiful replies, more correct, if not quite as genuine in feeling, as his own effusions. He felt he was, indeed, in luck to find so peerless a maid, perfect in beauty and in intelligence. One of these compositions--the last--lay in his waist-wallet, as he waited in Ali-ShÎr's tomb. The moon had not yet risen, and all was dark. Yet he got up once or twice from the parapet rail on which he sat, and paced aimlessly up and down. In truth he was restless; vaguely dissatisfied with himself. He was going to explain, of course--oh, yes! he would explain; but it might have been better to write. Yet how could he, knowing neither her name nor where she lived? He could have found out of course; but that might have been to put his paternal aunts on the scent. They were dear creatures, but dreadful scandalmongers. Besides he had so much to say. A personal explanation would be easier; less abrupt, kinder. Not that he meant to back out--far from it. He was ready to be a good, just, generous husband; unless of course, the nameless one preferred not to take second place, as she must do. There was no helping that. It was not his fault. Love had come ... He paced quicker as he remembered the words which had so touched him-- "And God the Father may send a father's love to the mother of his son." Well! God send He might; though that would be a different sort of love altogether from this absorbing passion. Anyhow he could do no more. A KÂzi, able if necessary to perform the marriage ceremony, was within call. He, himself, was ready. All that was wanting was the lady. Surely she was late in coming. A rustle made him start and listen; but it was only the doves in the orange trees. No one! No one! The moon rose after a time over the garden and flooded the terraces with such silvern brilliance that the very pebbles on the path showed distinct. But no one came--no one! Could she have heard? Impossible; it was still a Court secret, and she was a religious recluse--so far as he knew. Besides; even if she had changed her mind, she might have come--or sent a message. So, at last, in rather an ill humour he went back to the Palace and dismissed the waiting KÂzi with a handsome fee. There was one more Friday ere he left HerÂt; and, feeling ill-used, sore, yet in a way mightily relieved, he waited in Ali-ShÎr's tomb for another hour or so. No one should say he had failed in his part of the bargain! He was quite ready. Besides he had told the woman plainly that he was not in love with her; so she had no right to feel aggrieved. If she did. But that could scarcely be. Every good MussulmÂn knew she had no claim to a whole man--though little Ma'asuma had every bit of him. Yea! every bit. So it was as well, doubtless, that no one came. And as he went back to the palace his only regret was that he should have called the nameless one "My moon." The title belonged to his love, of right; but she would, she could never bear it because of the nameless one who had changed her mind--apparently; but she had not sent back his ring!
CHAPTER VForward and onward! do not ask the task, KÂsim-beg was in a fever to leave HerÂt. Marriage, he said, was good, and it was proper to choose a cousin, who was doubtless charming; though for his part he believed the rather in choice by outsiders; for if the result was not happy there was no self blame, and self blame was the devil for destroying decent calm. But Kingship was more important still, and as the Most High had not been so very secure on his new throne before he had started, he simply could not afford to be away more than six months. And Babar could not but admit his faithful old minister was right. So he said farewell reluctantly to little Ma'asuma and started at the head of his small army for KÂbul. And as he rode up the last slope whence he could see the gilded city of HerÂt, he told himself he could not have done it better. He had seen everything--he ran over the list of the sights in his mind, and found eighty-two of them! In fact the only one worthy of notice which he had omitted was a certain convent. He flushed a little at the remembrance, and set the thought aside with self-complacence that he had come through the temptations of the most luxurious town in the world quite unscathed. He had not played any indecent or scurvy tricks, he had not touched wine. He had altogether been quite a virtuous prince. So, with characteristic buoyancy, despite the fact that he had said good-bye to his first and only love, he settled himself in the saddle, and his face for home. Here difficulties arose at once. It began to snow the very day they left HerÂt, and Babar was for taking the low road for safety's sake. It was the longer of course, but the hill road was at all times difficult and dangerous; in snow practically impassable. But KÂsim-Beg, who had been in a fuss for days, behaved very perversely, so that in the end Babar gave way and they started for the passes, taking one BinÂi, an old mountaineer, as their guide. Now whether it was from old age, or from his heart failing him at the unusual depth of the drifts, is uncertain; but this is sure--having once lost the path he never could find it again so as to point out the way! However, as KÂsim-Beg and his sons were anxious to preserve their reputation as route-choosers, they dismounted, beat down the snow and discovered something like a road along which the party--much reduced by defections due to the delights of HerÂt--managed to advance for a day, when it was brought to a complete stand by the depth of the snow, which was such that the horses' feet did not touch the ground. Seeing no other remedy, Babar ordered a retreat to a ravine where there was abundance of firewood, and thence despatched sixty or seventy chosen men, to return by the road they had come, and, retracing their footsteps, to find on the lower ground any HuzÂras or other people who might be wintering there, and to bring a guide who was able to point out the way. This done they halted in the ravine for three or four days awaiting the return of the men who had been sent out. These did, indeed, come back, but without having been able to find a guide. What was to be done? Nothing but place reliance on God and push forward. So said Babar, a light in his clear eyes as he recognised that he was in a tight place, that before him and his lay such hardships and sufferings as even he had scarcely undergone at any other period of his life. But then at no other period of his life had Love been waiting, her rosy wings fluttering, for him to win through. "Warm yourselves to the marrow this night," he said to all. "Eat your fill and carry firewood in place of the victuals. We shall need every atom of strength we can save and spend." But he himself spent a wakeful night and wrote a Turkhi verse to console himself. It ran thus and was rather poor; though nothing else was to be expected under such circumstances: "Fate from my very birth has marked me down, They were up betimes, a long straggling party doing their best to struggle on by beating down the snow and so forming a road along which the laden mules could go. It was luckily a fine day and by evening they could count on an advance of three miles. What was more, as no snow had fallen, they were able to send back along the beaten track for more firewood. So it went on for two or three days. Then the men began to be discouraged, and Babar set his teeth. With Love awaiting him at the other side, he meant to get over the Pass. He only had about fifteen volunteers from his immediate staff, but those fifteen, headed by vitality incarnate, worked wonders. Every step taken was up to the middle or the breast in soft, fresh-fallen snow; but still it was a step, and he who followed did not sink so far. Thus they laboured. As the vigour of the person who went first was generally expended after he had gone a few paces, another advanced and took his place. "Lo! gentlemen, 'tis as good as leap-frog," cried the young leader joyously, and thereinafter they strove for steps. And as ever Babar came out first. "See you," he said gravely, in explanation of his own prowess, "'tis I brought you hither; and if we do not beat hard we shall be beaten." At which mild joke KÂsim laughed profusely, though he felt as if he could have killed himself for having thus jeopardised his young hero's life. The fifteen or so who worked in trampling down the snow, next succeeded in dragging on a riderless horse. This generally sank to the stirrups and after ten or fifteen paces was worn out. The next fared better and the next, and the next. And after all the led horses had thus been brought forward, came a sorry sight. The rest of the troops, even the best men and many who bore the title of "Noble" advancing (not even dismounted!) along the road that had been beaten down for them by their King! Some of them, certainly, had the grace to hang their heads. But this was no time, Babar felt, for reproach or even for authority. Every man who possessed spirit or emulation must have hastened to the front without orders; and those without spirits were worse than useless at such a time. "We must do without them, KÂsim," said the young King, when his minister would have spoken his mind. "'Twill not mend matters with cowards to tell them they be such. Could any tongue circle the lie I would praise them for their bravery, but with Death staring us in the face I stick to Truth." And to work also. The life and soul of the fifteen, he kept them going by jokes and quips and the singing of songs. Aye! even when storm and snow came with blinding force and they all expected to meet death together. Then it was that, ahead of all, Babar's full mellow voice rang out in such ballads as: THE HAND OF THE THIEFThe bog was black outside KazÂn, Now Adham-KhÂn was over-lord, "Oh! Adham-KhÂn avenge the wrong, "My hand holds fast the skirt that's long," Then rose in wrath young ZulfikÂr, "Now show I him in full durbÂr He saddled steed and rode away And Adham-KhÂn, he sat in state "Now who is he who comes so late "I bring a gift from the Black-Horde-chief, The stiff dead hand skimmed through the air, "Oh! warrior hear! Against the right They were, in truth, fighting for dear life. And there was a chance of it ahead of them; for, nigh the top of the great Zerrin pass, lay a cave wherein shelter might be found. At least so said BinÂi the guide. But the snow fell in such quantities, the wind was so dreadful, so terribly violent, it needed all Babar's courage not to give in. But the rosy fluttering wings of Love would not let him yield. He could not lose little cousin Ma'asuma. The very thought of her warmed him; the scent of her hair came to him with the snow. The drifts deepened, the possibility of path narrowed in the steep defile, the days were at the shortest, with difficulty could the horses be kept on the trampled road, yet all around was certain death in unfathomed snow-depths. Babar's face was stern. He was nigh his end, and he knew it. And then, suddenly, a shout from keen-eyed TengÂri, old KÂsim's son. "The cave! The cave! Yonder is the cave." And it was; but to all appearance disappointingly small. Not large enough to hold one-half of those seeking shelter, though the surrounding cliffs in some measure tempered the bitter fierceness of the wind. "The Most High had better go in," said KÂsim, as Babar set to work arranging what best he could for his troopers. "I will see to the men." But Babar shook his head and went on. He felt that for him to be in warmth and comfort while his men were in snow and drift, for him to be enjoying sleep and ease while his followers were in trouble and distress would be inconsistent from what he owed them and a deviation from that society in suffering that was their due. "'Death in the company of friends is a feast.' At any rate, so runs the proverb," he remarked lightly. "And indeed, KÂsim, having brought these poor souls to this pass, it is but right that whatever their sufferings and difficulties, whatever they may have to undergo, I should be equal sharer in all." So when he had done what he could and shown others what to do, he took a hoe and dug down in the snow as deep as his breast without reaching the ground, then crouched down in it. The day was darkening, evening prayer time had passed, and still belated troopers came dropping in. The snow was now falling so fast that the men in the dug-out shelter ran some chance of being smothered as they slept from sheer fatigue. Babar himself found four inches of snow above him as he scrambled out of his hole when a last party straggled in, bringing BinÂi the guide, with the welcome news that the cave was far larger than hasty observation would expect, and that a narrow passage led to quite a spacious cavern within where there was ample room for all. Joyful news indeed! Sending out to call in all his men, Babar soon found himself, by one of his own extraordinary changes of luck, in a wonderfully warm, safe, and comfortable place. For there proved to be firewood within the cave, and such as had any eatables, stewed meat, preserved flesh, or anything else they might have, produced them for a common meal. Thus all escaped, as by a miracle, from the terrible cold, the snow, the bitter, bitter wind. And the rosy wings of Love fluttered gaily, as Babar laid himself down to sleep--the first sleep he had had for days. It was the turning point; though there was still distress and misery to come. The snow, however, had ceased to fall by the morning, the wind had died down. Moving with the first blink of dawn they still had to tread down the snow in the old way: but it was with more hope. The cave in which they had rested was, as they were aware, close to the beginning of the last steep ascent to the Great Pass. This, the shortest way, they knew to be impassable, and even KÂsim and his sons, warned by experience, did not advise its attempt. Bad enough was a lower valley road of which old BinÂi the guide had vaguely heard. Yet it was their only chance, so they took it. But evening found them still in the defile; and such was its precipitate nature, that there was nothing for it but for every man to halt where he found himself, dismount, scrape a hole in the snow for himself and his horse if possible, and so await the tardy dawn to bring sufficient light for safe advance. It was an awful night. The retreat of the storm had brought frost; icy, keen, piercing; and though none of the hardy troopers actually lost their lives, many lost hands and feet from frostbite. Babar himself kept his blood warm by pacing up and down, singing at the top of his voice with that curious instinct of shouting which comes always to humanity with the grip of cold. Mayhap it cheered the others to hear the mellow melodious chants echoing so blithely over the snow. He sang many things, but his favourite was the From Sunset until Dawn-of-Day, When Angels walk at Break-of-Day It had a palace of pure gold So in the Dark and in the Snow Dawn came at last and they moved down the glen. It was not the usual road,--that was more circuitous--but with the snow filling up the valley and obliterating precipices, ravines, crevasses, there seemed a chance of being able to manage a shorter route, and time meant so much to those exhausted men. Yet Babar himself halted for awhile, and so did a few of his immediate followers when his horse stumbled, fell, could not rise. "Take mine, my liege," said half-a-dozen voices. But the young man's face set. "I will not leave the beast," he said resolutely. "It hath done me good service and may do it again. See you! bring some of the men's lances and their halter ropes. SamÛr and I live together, or die together," and he laid his young cheek to the horse's soft muzzle affectionately. Then starting up, he set the men to work to form a criss-cross raft or sledge of lances on to which SamÛr was pulled by main force. "'Tis all down hill now," said he when it was finished, and seizing a rope strained at it. "Nay! Sire!" remarked old KÂsim drily--"If the Most Excellent choose to risk lives for the sake of a dumb brute, let them be the lives of dumb brutes, not Kings. Troopers! Six horses to save one!" Babar hung his head, but held to the rope. "Doubtless I am a brute also," he murmured half to himself, "so let me be dumb; save for this--God made me so!" The staunch old warrior heard the words and shook his head. Yet in his heart of hearts he would not have altered one jot or one tittle in his idol. Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar was for him the first gentleman in the world. "Truly," said the latter with pious cheerfulness after a time, during which the sledge slipped easily down the steep slopes of snow, "it is well said 'Looked at wisely with clear eyes But for this extreme depth of snow which till now hath seemed our worst enemy, we should all be tumbling down precipices and being lost in crevasses." This was obvious; but it cheered the party, until in the far distance something more tangible showed to bring sudden alacrity to outwearied steps. A hut surely! And that figure on the lessening snow slopes--was it a man? Still it was nigh bed-time prayers before they extricated themselves from the mouth of the valley and the villagers of YÂka-Aulang came out to meet the forlorn party, to help, and even to carry, some of them into warm houses, and thereinafter to slaughter fat sheep for them, bring a superfluity of hay and grass for their horses, and abundance of wood to kindle their fires. Once again Babar felt that to pass from the cold and snow into such a village with its warm houses, and to escape from want and suffering to find such plenty of good bread and fat sheep as they did, was an enjoyment that can only be conceived by such as have suffered similar hardships, or endured such heavy distress. But better by far to him than this material satisfaction, was the glow at his heart when an old white-headed patriarch nodding by the fireside, mumbled-- "Never has it been done before, never since the memory of man hath Zerrin been passed in such snow. Never hath any man ever conceived even the idea of passing it at such season--Never! Never!" It was something to have done! After this, marching was easy. But the strain had told upon the courage of the rank and file, and once when the little party came upon a clan of HazÂras who disputed passage in a narrow defile, there was near disaster. The young King, who was in the rear, galloped up to find his force retreating before a deadly flight of arrows. "Stand!" he shouted. "Stand!" But the men would not be rallied. "Fools!" he cried, rising in his stirrups, a fine young figure, unarmoured, without sword or lance, without helmet or aught but his bow and quiver--for the attack was entirely unforeseen and he had been, for the time, off-duty--"Call ye yourselves servants to stand still while the master works? Lo! He who hires a servant hires him for his need; not to stand still like a slipped camel!" So with a wild huroosh! he set his horse spurring forward. The reckless bravery did its work. The men roused by it turned to follow. The ambuscade was reached, the hill beyond climbed after the enemy, who, seeing the troopers were in real earnest, fled like deer. So the danger passed; but Babar wondered vaguely that night if it was to be ever so; if the great mass of humanity ever needed a flaming match ere they would catch fire. But there was more trouble to come, as, with such haste as was possible--for the snow which was very heavy that winter, hindered them even in the valleys--they pushed on towards KÂbul. It was one day at noon when, being almost perished with the frost, they had alighted to kindle fires and warm themselves ere going on, that a messenger on horseback arrived with ill news. The Moghuls left behind in KÂbul had risen, and, aided by outsiders and some of the immediate relations of the King, had declared for Babar's young cousin Weis-KhÂn, on whose behalf they were now besieging the Fort, which in capable and loyal hands was still holding out for the rightful King. "Said I not so, sire?" remarked old KÂsim drily. "The devil is in it when women are left alone too long." Babar flushed. "The devil is in a Moghul thou meanest." KÂsim sniffed. "The Most High's step-grandmother ShÂh-Begum is of pure Moghul descent, I grant, if that is what my liege means. I stake my word she is in it. Did I not beg the Most High to send her packing back to Tashkend? Aye! and the boy and his mother too. Also the other aunt of my liege's who married the commoner Doghlat; wherefore, God knows, since some of us had better right to royal wives than he. But if 'tis a question of aunts! the Most High is soft as buffalo butter." Babar bit his lip. He felt that old KÂsim had right on his side; but what could one do? They were women, and he was undoubtedly the head of the family. But this was serious; the more so because the messenger said that reports had been diligently circulated to the effect that he, Babar, had been imprisoned in HerÂt by his cousins; and would never return. "They must know that I shall return," said the young leader grimly, and forthwith wrote despatches to be conveyed to known loyalists in the town, advising them of his immediate appearance, of which, however, they were to say nothing. A blazing fire on the last hill-top would herald his approach; this was to be answered by a flare on the top of the citadel, showing that it was ready for a combined surprise-attack on the besieging force. With these orders given stringently, Babar set out at nightfall. By dawn KÂbul lay before them and a glow of light from the citadel answered their signal fire. All therefore was in readiness, so they crept on to Syed KÂsim's bridge. Here Babar detailed his force, sending Shirim-TaghÂi with the right wing to another bridge; he himself with the centre and left, making for the town. Here, instantly all was uproar and alarm. The alleys were narrow; the assailants and defenders crowded into them could scarce move their horses. "Dismount! cut your way through!" rang out the order and it was obeyed. A few minutes later Babar was in the Four-corner Garden where he knew the young aspirant was quartered, but he had fled. Babar followed in his track. At the gate he met an old friend, the Chief-Constable of the town, who made at him with a drawn sword. Babar, after his usual fashion, had despised either plate-mail or helmet, and when, whether from confusion of ideas arising from the battle of fight, or from the snow and cold affecting his eyesight, the swordsman failing to recognise his King or heed his cry of "Friend, Friend," hit a shrewd blow, Babar was like to have his arm shorn off. But the grace of God was conspicuous. Not even a hair was hurt. So, as quick as he could to the palace of Doghlat-commoner, where he found KÂsim already on the track of the traitor; but the latter had escaped! Here a Moghul who had been in Babar's service deliberately fitted an arrow to his bow, aimed at the King and let go. But the uproar raised around him, the cries and shouts "That is the King! That is the King!" must have disconcerted his aim, for he failed of his mark. And here also one of the chief rebels was brought in ignominiously, a rope round his neck. He fell at the young King's feet. "Sire," he whined, "what fault is mine?" The young face was stern indeed. "Is there greater crime," came the clear, cold answer, "than for a man of worth and family as thou art, to conspire and associate with revolutionaries?" Then the contemptuous order came sharp, "But remove that rope and let him go hang himself. He is of my family, no harm shall happen to him through me." So on again through the town (where the rabble had taken to clubs and were making a riot) in order to station parties here and there to disperse the crowds and prevent plunder. Thus, growing cooler, more dignified as stress ceased, to the Paradise-Gardens where the Begums lived. No time like the present to show his mettle, to let these foolish women know that he did not consider their intrigues worth a man's consideration. He found the chief-conspirator ShÂh-Begum huddled up, out of all measure alarmed, confounded, dismayed, ashamed. All the more so when that brilliant young figure paused at the door to make its accustomed and reverential salutation. He looked well, did Babar, with the fire of fight still in his eyes, a certain quizzical affection about his mouth. "I salute thee, O revered step-grandmother," he said cheerfully, good-humouredly. So crossing, he went down on his knees in filial fashion and embraced the old lady cordially. Whereupon, of course, she began to whimper. Babar sat back and looked at her kindly. "Wherefore, revered one? Lo! I am not vexed. What right has a child to be so because his mother's bounty descends upon another? The mother's authority over her children is in all respects absolute, save that this grandson, and not the other is King of KÂbul!" Then he laughed: "Lo!" he added, "I am so sleepy. I have not slept all night. Let me rest my hand on thy bosom, grandmother, as I used to rest it on my mother's." The whimper changed into a storm of sobs. And afterwards when the young aspirant and the Doghlat-commoner had been caught and brought up for condign punishment by KÂsim, he forgave them both. "But the traitor deserves death, sire," stuttered the stern old martinet. "He hath been guilty of mutiny, rebellion. He is criminal, guilty; and the younger one is devil's spawn." "You mistake, old friend," said the young King quietly; "they are of my family." Poor old KÂsim had to content himself by assenting loudly in whatever company he found himself that however much the King might try to wear away the rust of shame with the polish of mildness and humanity he was unable to wipe out the dimness of ignominy which had covered the mirror of those miscreants' lives.
CHAPTER VIYes! Love triumphant came, engrossing all NizÂmi. The Judas trees were in full blossom. But a day or two before they had been dry branches, brown, wrinkled, to all appearances dead. Now, with a swiftness nigh miraculous they had flushed, every inch of finest twig, to rosy red under their mantle of sweet-scented bloom. The ground underneath them was already carpeted with fallen flowers, their five-petalled cups, like those of a regal geranium, still perfect utterly. "'Tis like the blossoming of love in the heart, is it not, little one?" said Babar idly, as, lying amid the spent blossoms he raised one to perch it coquettishly on the goldy-brown curls that rested on his breast. He had been married five months to little Cousin Ma'asuma but it seemed to him like five days. Aye! though happenings stern and sad had filled the interval, KÂsim had been right. HerÂt had been plundered by the arch-enemy ShaibÂni. His cousins had fled, leaving wives and children to fall into the hands of the conquerors. At another time Babar's hot anger might have led him to attempt reprisals, though he knew it would be but an attempt. But in these first months of marriage he could not find it in his heart to leave little Ma'asuma for any time--if, indeed she would have allowed him to do so. For small, young, delicate as she was, those violet eyes of hers could set hard as sapphires. Aye! and have a gleam in them too, like any gem. The first time Babar saw it, he caught her in his arms and half smothered her with kisses until she bade him peremptorily put her down. And then they had both laughed, and Babar had vowed in his heart, that never had lover been so fortunate as he. His mistress was--what was she not? Briefly, she was all things to him. He had never been in love with a woman before, and his self-surrender was complete. Small wonder, indeed, if it were; for there was something almost uncanny in the beauty of the face which looked up at him, love in its eyes. "Put it on thine own rough head, man," she said superbly, "thou needest ornament more than I." And it was true. From the tiny silvern and golden slipper she had kicked off, to the light, gold-spangled veil which just touched her curly head, she was ornament personified. The dainty heart-shaped opening of the violet-tinted gauze bodice she wore over a pale green corselet was all set with seed-pearls and turquoises, hung on cunning little silvern tendrils. And the corselet itself! all veined with golden threads and pale moonstones. So with the flimsy, full, almost transparent muslin petticoat, pale pale green, that lay in shrouding folds over the violet-tinted under garment. All edged and embroidered, all scent-sodden with the perfume of violets--his favourite flower then; to be his favourite flower till his death. Truly a marvellous small person from head to foot! "Have a care, man," she said sternly, as he crushed her closer to him, "or we shall quarrel; and 'tis not good for me to quarrel--now." He released her quickly, yet cautiously; gentle as he was, he was always forgetting, he told himself, that she was doubly precious to him--now. "Lo! dear heart!" he said penitently, "we have not quarrelled these five days." "Not since I was angry because the tire-woman overdyed my hands with henna," she replied mischievously. "And thou didst tell me there were worse evils for tears. As if I cared; so long as my hands were not pretty ... for thee." She held them up for him to admire. And they were pretty. Delicate, and curved, and pink, like rose-petals. He kissed them dutifully; so much he knew was expected of him, and he loved the task. "And as penance for rudeness, man," she went on, her face all dimples, "thou wert to write me a love ode on the subject. Hast done it, sirrah?" "That have I," assented her lover husband gladly. "Dost know, little one, I string more pearls now than ever; but thou--thou hast not written one line since we were married; yet thou hadst the prettiest art." Ma'asuma lay back on her resting-place and laughed softly. "Someday, stupid, I will tell thee why. But now for thy verses." Babar caught up his lute and sat tuning it, his eyes wandering away to the girdle of snows that clipped the blue hill-horizon. They were in the garden of the New Year; alone, save for that dear grave yonder where the jasmine flowers were drooping their scented waxen stars. Dear mother! How glad she would have been to see Ma'asuma, to think of the grandson who was so soon to make life absolutely perfect. Yes! the cup of life, the Crystal Bowl could hold no more. He lost himself in dreams, to be roused by an impatient, "Well! I listen." Then he turned and smiled at her as he began with exaggerated expression. "Oh, fair impassioned, whom God hath fashioned "Sweet calamity!" she echoed, pouting her lips and trying hard to frown, as the song finished. "Couldst find no other title for thy lawful wife? And yet--" here smiles overcame her--"Lo! Babar! 'tis a beautiful name and I am thy sweet calamity alway, alway!" Then suddenly, to his dismay, she began to cry softly, the big tears running down her pretty cheeks in easy childish fashion. "Nay!" she went on, half-smiles again at his solicitude, "I am not ill,--there is naught wrong. 'Tis only that I am lonely when thou art doing King's work, which must be done. If only foster-sister would come, I should not be so frightened." "But my YenkÂm, thy mother, will be here--" protested Babar. Ma'asuma shook her head. "It is now, dear heart! And foster-sister will not come unless thou askest her. She said so. Couldst not write to her, Babar?" "But I know not foster-sister, nor aught of her, save that she was good to my Ma'asuma, for which, may Heaven reward her!" Ma'asuma sat up, her charming face happy in thought. "Oh! so good, my lord! Not a real foster-sister, either; but we sat under one veil and drank milk out of one cup. That was when we first came to KhorasÂn, thy YenkÂm and I. And since then she--Babar!--Be not angry but I will tell thee--I meant to have told thee--I should have told thee before--" The violet eyes showed trouble once more and Babar kissed them deliberately. "What, sweetheart?" he asked carelessly. He knew the gentle kindly heart too well to fear any revelation. "Only it was she, not I, who wrote the verses--the verses I sent--I was too stupid. And she is clever--oh! so clever!" Despite his certitude the young man looked startled. "So," he said at last, "Fortune hath not given me the grace of a poetess to wife. So be it. But who is this paragon?" Ma'asuma, however, was too delighted at having got over her confession so happily to refrain from autocratic dignity. "That I have said. She is foster-sister and of the circle of distinction. Thy YenkÂm can tell thee of genealogies; they tire my head. So write! Dost hear?" Babar laughed. He loved to take orders from those sweet lips; besides a certain zest came with the idea of writing to an unknown poetess. "Yea! I will write," he said meekly, "but I will have to regard zals and zes; for more elegant nastÂlik saw I never than hers." So the letter was written and despatched express to the care of his YenkÂm at KhorasÂn, and six weeks later little Ma'asuma sat beside her foster-sister in the summer house of the new Garden of Fidelity which Babar was laying out at Adinahpore, and whither he had taken his young wife whose daily increasing delicacy filled him with concern. Of all the gardens that Babar planted and watered, this was the one nearest his heart. In a most romantic situation, on the south side of, and overlooking the river, its groves of oranges and citrons grew untouched by hard winter frosts, while every flower, every tree of his beloved hill country flourished side by side with those of warm climates. Above it towered the White-Mountain and the Almond-Spring Pass, below it the valley debouched into wide fertility. And Babar was hard at work, delving away himself like any Adam; making a four-square cross of marble reservoirs, through which the clear, hill stream might run, planting new flowers from here, there, everywhere. The tan of his sunburnt face and hands contrasted sadly with the sallowing skin of the girl-wife, who, despite his care, was sinking under her task of son-bearing. "Then he knows not who I am," said the tall, slender woman on whose knee Ma'asuma was resting her pretty, weary head. "I deemed thou hadst told him, as we agreed." She spoke gravely and her level black brows were faintly knit. The rest of the face was richly beautiful in strong sweeping curves, but those level brows and the dark, thoughtful eyes beneath them held the attention. "Not that it matters," she added quickly, seeing tears ready to brim over the violets upturned to her. "After all, 'tis nothing to thy lord--or to any other man--whether I be widow to Mirza GharÎb Beg or no, so long as I be honourable woman. Therefore tell him not, now that I am here." And Babar coming in to see his wife found the veiled new-comer courteous in speech, charming in manner. Found also such favourable change in his darling's spirits, that a glow of comradeship for his aide rose up in his soft heart at once. So they were very happy together, those three, and by degrees foster-sister's thick enshrouding veil was changed for a more filmy one and Babar could get a glimpse of those glorious eyes and see the little satirical smile about the strong curves of the mouth. They reminded him vaguely, why he knew not, of his dead Cousin GharÎb; but he never spoke of this to Ma'asuma. With her burden of coming life it would be unlucky to speak of the dead. Thus a week or two went by, and all insensibly the man learnt to rely on the woman who shared with him the charge of the girl. "The Most-Benevolent one is very good to my wife," he said suddenly one day, "and my gratitude can only lie in words." The Most-Benevolent bowed gravely. "Thanks are not needed. Ma'asuma-Begum came into this dust-like one's life, when it was unhappy. She hath been God's best boon to me." "And to me also," answered the young husband sadly. Do what he would he could not escape from fear, the shadow of impending evil seemed to darken his life. He had to brisk and hearken himself up to face the future; for perilous times were at hand. The fateful seventh month, so much dreaded by Indian midwives was beginning; but his YenkÂm would be with her daughter in a day or two, they would together take Ma'asuma back in her litter to KÂbul by easy stages, and all would, all must, go well. It was one glorious morning in early August when this feeling of ill to come, made him catch up his lute to chase away thought by song. He had carried little Ma'asuma himself down to the tank half surrounded by burnished orange trees which was the very eye of the beauty of the garden. They had dismissed all attendants, bidding them leave behind them their trays of sherbet and sweetmeats. But not even the perfect loveliness of hill, and sky, and garden, not even the faint flush, as of returning health, on the invalid's face could charm the splendour of Life into Babar's soul. The Crystal Bowl seemed dull, opaque. This must not be. He set the strings of his lute a-twanging and began-- "Clear crystal bowl. Thy wine bubbles laugh--" The figure seated by the tank side, its reflection in the water, rose suddenly as if startled, gathered its draperies round it, so, with face averted, strolled off into the garden. "There!" came Ma'asuma's reproachful voice, "thou hast driven her away, stupid!" The young man arrested in his song looked hurt. "But wherefore? 'Tis a good song." "Good mayhap," came the thoughtless answer, "but, see you! It reminds her of GharÎb-Beg who wrote it." "And wherefore not?" asked Babar swiftly. Little Ma'asuma looked scared. "Lo! There I have told thee! and I said I would hold my tongue! Because, see you, GharÎb-Beg married and left her in the old days; whether rightly as some say, or foolishly, as others, I know not; but 'twas so. She was religious for long years and when I went to the school to learn the Holy Book, we became friends. And oh! Babar, thou wilt never know how good she was to me when I fell in love with my lord--and he with me." The roguish face, looking more like itself than he had seen it for months, nestled on to his shoulder. He put his arm round the slender figure and drew it to him mechanically, grateful that her words had given him time to pull himself together. GharÎb-Beg's wife! The woman he had called "MahÂm--his moon!" "So." he said with an effort, "she was my cousin's wife; but wherefore ... was I not told?" Ma'asuma pouted. "Because I did not at first. And then when she came, she would not have it--why I know not--save that mayhap, before the son was coming, I wanted thy praise for--for such things as verses. And now, my lord must say naught. Promise me he will not, or she will be vexed." "I will not vex her," he said diplomatically, and changed the subject adroitly by picking up a tiny red-silk cap half embroidered with seed pearls on which his wife had been working, and which had fallen on the path. "Lo!" he laughed, "is that the way to treat my son's head-dress!" And he held the ridiculous little object out on his forefinger and twirled it round. So the question passed. But he was of too frank a nature to palliate concealment and that night when the moon had risen, he found himself once more confronting a tall, slender figure that stood, aggressively this time, against a marble pillar. But there was no swinging lamp to cast a rose reflection between them. "Yea! Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar," said the proud voice. "It is even as my lord hath divined. I knew. I was the lad who brought my lord his mistress's message--which I had written. It was to me that my lord gave his 'I love thee, ever, ever!' This being so, what else was there left to do, save what was done?" The finality of her words struck Babar like a blow. He never minced matters even with himself. "Naught," he said gloomily. "Naught." Then he added, "But now?" The veiled figure caught him up quickly. "Now? She must not know; she must never know." Babar stood still and leaning his head on his arm against the pilaster, looked out into the garden. It lay silvern, peaceful, a thing of perfect beauty, a place wherein no sinful man should walk or set foot. "Lo!" came the sweet voice. "I have kept--I will keep my lord's ring. It was not he who broke faith, but I." "The Most-Noble is very good," he said simply and left her. There was no more to say. Had there been more, there would have been little time for it. A hasty twinkling light showed ere long adown the palace colonnade. Voices came in excited whispers. Her Highness, the Begum, was not well. God send it might be nothing; but 'twas the fateful month. Fateful, indeed! All that night long Babar waited in a fever of anxiety, listening to the fitful wails, the thousand and one slight sounds of sudden, direful sickness. What were they doing to his Ma'asuma? his little Ma'asuma, his love, his heart's darling, his little one? Would he ever see her again? The dawn came, and still he watched, still he waited. The birds in the bushes began to sing--to sing forsooth! while she lay in the shadow of death! Heartless! cruel! For she must die! so small, so slender, how could she stand out against those long hours of agony. Noon passed and still he waited, every nerve in his strong young body wearied by imagined pain. It was not till sun-setting that a voice roused him as he sat crouched in on himself: "My lord has a daughter." He was on his feet in a second, setting the idea aside as trivial. What was son or daughter to him beside his dearest dear? "She?" he asked breathlessly. "My lord had best come and see," replied the kind, sympathetic voice; he recognised it faintly, but it made no impression on him. The small room was hot and close; full of smoke also from a useless fire hastily lit up. And Ma'asuma lay covered by endless quilts. But it was Ma'asuma herself who lay there peaceful as if already dead; but her face was alight with feeble smiles. Only for a moment, however; then the curly, goldy-brown head turned restlessly on the pillow. "I am sorry--" she murmured, "I--I wanted it to be a son, but--but--" the voice trailed away into weaker sobbing. "Hush! silly one!" said Babar gently, his heart in his mouth as he noted her looks. "What God gives is best. If she is like thee she will be all I need." A small trembling hand fluttered out to a corner of the coverlet. "Like me. I know not. Babar! What wilt thou call her, when I am gone?" The words cut him like a knife, because he knew they were true; there was something which told him that the dearest thing on earth to him was fast slipping from his grasp. Yet the simplicity of his nature kept him calm. "I will give her her mother's name," he said quietly. Ma'asuma sighed with content and was silent for a space. Then after a while her voice, weaker than ever, rose again, a low, monotonous voice that told of ebbing strength. "Babar! who will nurse my child? Give her not to strange women. Lo! I never loved strangers; nor dost thou, thou, dear heart. Foster-sister where art thou? Send the strangers away and the slaves, and come close. I want thee." One wave of Babar's hand cleared the little room, and once more came that faint sigh of content. "That is nice. Only thou, and I, and she, and little Ma'asuma--all the folk I love in the world. That is right." For a moment she seemed to sleep, and when she opened her eyes there were dreams in them. "Set the window wide. I would see the sunset," she said in quite a strong voice and when the red light flooded into the little dark room she lay in it peacefully. "Will it not mayhap hurt?" whispered the tall figure in white. "She is past hurt," whispered Babar back. His heart was as a stone. He could not have wept, he could not even feel grief. "Thy hand, my heart," came the voice feeble again, "and thine, sister--how warm they are and mine grow so cold--so cold. Yet that matters not. I am only--only the KÂzi." The ghost of a flickering smile hovered over the lips that, in the monotonous Arabic drawl of the professional priest, began on the opening sentences of the Mahomedan wedding service. The man and the woman standing instinct with Life, looked helplessly at each other and instinctively drew apart. Ma'asuma's violet eyes seemed to strive with coming darkness. "Don't," she murmured. "It is not kind! Look you, I cannot see; and my hands are so weak. Be quick or I shall not hear. Say it quickly and then there will be peace, then I shall have given my lord a son--then we shall all be at rest. It is the last thing--" There was a second of silence and then Babar's clasp on the hand he held beneath that small chill one tightened, and his voice rang clear. "Before God I take this woman to be my wedded wife." And swift on the words came a woman's voice, "Before God I take this man to be my husband, the father of our son." A sigh of content seemed almost to end life, and there was silence for a space. But it was broken by a pitiful, helpless murmur, "The ring! I have forgotten the ring." "I have it already, sweetheart," came the woman's voice, soft, calm, soothing. So they stood, till the chill little hands grew more chill in the warm clasps that held them; finally one withdrew itself slowly, slowly, and Babar was left alone with Death and Love. The tall white figure fell on its knees and wept softly; but Babar stood still, stern, calm. What use to kiss unconscious lips? What use to strain at broken cords? "She hath found freedom," he said after a time. Then he turned to the kneeling figure. "MahÂm," he said quietly. "Thou wilt see to little Ma'asuma for me, wilt thou not?" It was sunrise when they laid to rest Babar's first and in a way, his only love. The birds were singing in the garden he had made so beautiful. The roses that decked the grave were full of scent. But Babar noticed none of these things, he moved about calm, self-controlled, conscious of but one thing, that he was glad he was not at KÂbul where he would have had wailing women and ceremonial condolences. Here, in the open, among the flowers, all was peace. He need not even realise that his dearest-dear was dead. But he had overrated his emotional strength, or rather he had underrated it as he always did. All the day long, as he went about as usual, his face haggard, his manner courteous and gentle, a storm was brewing within, and when sunset came again, bringing the sadness of a dead day with it, the tempest burst. MahÂm, her eyes red with weeping, was seated in the dusk of the little room where Ma'asuma had died, with the dead woman's babe on her lap when she looked up to see a tall, swaying figure standing at the door. A helpless, bewildered figure that stretched out bewildered hands to her. "MahÂm! MahÂm!" it cried, "save me! Save me from myself." She rose instantly, laid the sleeping infant on the bed, and went to him. "Thou art tired," she said, as a mother might have said it. "Come hither and rest awhile, my lord. Sleep will bring peace."
CHAPTER VIII am the dust beneath thy feet, my sweet; "Dear God be praised for Love of Thee and Me." MahÂm had her work cut out for her. But she was a wise woman and from the first gauged Babar's volatile, kindly, affectionate nature to a nicety. He had had a shock, and one with such fine-strung nerves as his required time for recovery. Therefore, with easy ability, she took the tiller ropes and steered his craft and hers through the troubled waters which instantly raged about him. She even, rather to their resentment, succeeded in pacifying Babar's step-grandmother and his paternal aunts as to her position (which she claimed at once) as Babar's wife. They had been betrothed for months, she told them; indeed for long years the intent to marry had been existent. So much so that they had her late husband GharÎb-Beg's hearty assent to their union. She had come from KhorasÂn at Ma'asuma Begum's earnest wish, and the marriage had taken place when it did--this she left hazy--entirely to please her when she was ill and ailing. Doubtless the dear little thing had had a prescience of her own death. Such angels of Paradise often had. She, MahÂm, could never hope to hold the same place in the King's affection; still it was lucky things had happened so, or the Most-Clement might have gone out of his mind with grief, deprived as he was in the wilds of Adinapur of the consolations of all his womenkind. And the gracious ladies knew how dependent he had always been on them, as well as on his deceased mother--on whom be God's peace--and his unfortunate sister. Besides, she could be useful in bringing up the King's little daughter. "If thou wilt give him a son 'twould be to more purpose," quoth outspoken ShÂh-Begum. "God helping me, I will, madam," came the cool reply. "She is well spoken," admitted the old lady grudgingly, after the interview was over. "And of the inner circle. 'Deed! now that one comes to consider it," wept Babar's YenkÂm, "more suited for the work than my fairy, who was ever too lightsome for such task. And, look you! there be no question of evil eye or such things. She loved my Ma'asuma as herself, and was ever good to the child. It is doubtless God's will." "Yea! Yea! God's will," snivelled fat, silly Princess Astonishing Beauty; but little Ak-Begum's keen eyes were soft. "There is more in it than mayhap we know," she said softly. "And she hath a good, clever face. So God send our kind Babar peace." Good wishes were well enough doubtless, but MahÂm felt that action must be taken; and at once. My lord the King must not be allowed to lounge at home, eating his heart out; and to this purpose she sent for old KÂsim and explained her views. "Lady," he replied, "I would rather, in faith, have had my master free of all feminine wiles. The last seven months have passed without much glory, and my sword rusts in its scabbard. But this I will say, for a woman, the cupola of chastity shows much sense. The King would be best away from KÂbul." "And from me," added MahÂm, coolly. "So look to it, Sir General, and take him--where thou canst." As it so happened, the times fell in with her desire. The Timurid family was at its lowest ebb; Babar himself, being, for the moment the only member of it which had kept his kingdom independent; the rest having either succumbed utterly to the great Usbek-raider or become mere vassals to his power. Thus the King's position was weak, even if he had been himself. But MahÂm's clear eyes appraised her haggard young King as he went about grave, silent, doing everything by an effort. That was not the stuff for single handed combat against Fate. Then sorrow set his feet firmer than ever on the path of what he considered right; and this mood was not one in which to rely on those Moghul troops of his who were ever ready to take offence at strict discipline. No! he must be induced to divert attention from KÂbul by carrying war to some further field. The further the better, so long as it gave those same Moghul troops opportunity for legitimate raiding. Babar himself never knew how much one woman's influence had to do with his resolution to march on HindustÂn; even old KÂsim, though he had the key, did not realise how MahÂm managed to set aside his proposal of an attempt on BadakhshÂn in favour of the larger, more imaginative project; but it was done. So one day Babar, sad-faced still, but with a certain spring in his walk came to say good-bye to his little daughter and to the woman who quietly, unobtrusively, had done so much for him. "Yea!" she said smiling, "I will be Queen whilst thou art gone, Babar, never fear. Nor ShÂh-Begum, nor Mihr-Nigar nor any other woman in the Palace shall give trouble, this time, I warrant me. And the child will thrive! Aye! it will thrive. So there is no gnawing thought at thy heart, remember--" She paused for a second and something in her face made Babar say hastily: "Nor in thine, I pray, kind wife." "Nor in mine," she echoed with a brilliant smile. "And now, ere he go, I have something for my lord--a remembrance of someone he loved well and whom I--respected." She put her hand in her bosom and drew out thence all warm and faintly scented a small crystal bowl. Babar gave a cry of delight. "The Bowl! The Bowl! How didst find it? Did he give it thee? Did he really give it me?" Her kind eyes smiled on him. "That I cannot say; and this is not the Bowl, but perchance a likeness of it. 'Twas the dear dead one, my lord, who told me the tale when thou didst tell it to her. So, knowing what sort the cup must be, since there is an old man in my native village who still can make them after a fashion, I sent to him pressingly for one. My lord will remember that 'twas in this village graveyard that the Crystal Bowl was found. Doubtless one of olden time. This is but a copy--and poor doubtless, since the old craftsman can scarce see--but it may serve to remind my lord--of many things." "And much kindness--" said Babar gravely, and as he took the bowl he kissed the hand that held it out to him. No! it was not the Bowl. It was but a dim likeness of it; but as he placed it in his bosom he felt vaguely that he had more than he deserved. The next few months passed swiftly. Once in the saddle and out of KÂbul, Babar's spirits began to rise. But he soon found it inadvisable to pursue his intentions on India. The very idea of his absenting himself so far, roused the insolence of the wild border clans. Here was their opportunity, whilst the cat would be away, to resort to their favourite plunder. So it was mid-winter before it was possible for him to advance, and by that time the complexion of affairs had changed. To begin with the Usbek-raider had retreated, patching up a sort of peace hurriedly, and returning westward over more important business. Then, whether by reason of MahÂm's firm hand or from mere ambition, old grandmother ShÂh-Begum announced her intention of leaving Babar's protection, and going with her grandson to snatch at the sovereignty of BadakhshÂn. The crown had been hereditary in her family, she declared, for over 3,000 years and though as woman she could not claim it, she knew her grandson would not be rejected. This intention, involving as it did a breaking up of conventional family life, brought back Babar in protest. The old lady had never been on the best of terms with him, she had once almost succeeded in her intrigues against him, but he had always treated her generously; and then, worse than her defection, was that of his own mother's sister who insisted on accompanying her. It was intolerable! Babar went straight to his grandmother and argued with her; coming back irritated and annoyed by failure to make any impression on the old lady's obstinacy, to his own palace, where, without giving notice, he made his way alone to MahÂm's apartments. As he entered her room he could see her reclining amongst cushions in the cupola'd balcony, his little sleeping daughter in her lap. She was crooning to it the lullaby which TurkhomÂn women sing sleepily during a night march. Her pose was exquisite; there was a look of almost motherhood in her face; he paused to listen as she sang:-- "Sleep, croodie! Talk with God! The curious drowsiness of the rhythm held him almost silent for a while, so did a great surge of admiration for this self-restrained, kindly, capable woman who had taken her full position as his wife so firmly, without any feminine flutterings or sentimentalities. Truly that sort of thing was what he, with his volatile emotionality, needed to make him not only successful, but persistent. "MahÂm," he said almost timorously, "I have come back to thee--and the child." She gave a little cry, started to rise, then pointed to little Ma'asuma. "I should waken her!" she said in a low voice, "but welcome, thrice welcome is my lord--to me and to the child." Her voice lingered over the words; her smile had a certain gravity in it. "But thou," he said anxiously. "Hast not been well, wife? Thy face shows ill--why didst not write to me?" "Because 'twas not worth while," she replied. "And I am most better. The spring comes and with it health. And I have had anxiety over thy grandmother. What said she?" The deft turn succeeded. Babar gave vent to his dissatisfaction in no measured terms. "See you," he said, "Have I ever failed in my duty or service? When my mother and I had not even a single village nor a few jewels, I treated all my relations, male or female, as members of my family. I have made no difference between my maternal and my paternal connections. I say not this to appraise myself. I simply follow the scrupulous truth as everyone knows. And now, even my mother's sister desires to leave me! I am her nearest relation. It would be better, and more becoming for her to remain with me." MahÂm's face showed whimsical smiles. "Not, my lord, unwillingly. God's earth holds not a more deadly poison to happiness than a discontented woman. So let them go; my lord has plenty of paternal aunts." There was a certain patience in her tone! But Babar, still protesting, yielded; and set himself solemnly to settle the judicial as well as the executive system of his kingdom. It was about this time that he wrote his famous Essay-on-Jurisprudence which for many long years was to be a work of reference. His enquiries took him out often into the out districts which, now that spring was advancing were excessively pleasant, abounding in tulips and indeed in all plants of every description. He began again to write poetry; pretty things still touched by profound, if somewhat scholastic, melancholy such as this-- "My heart's a rose full flaming, Ah me! in vain I lavished Her life-blood is a-falling He used to send them to MahÂm, who used to reply in her beautiful nastÂlik hand that was always a joy to Babar's simple delight in anything and everything artistic. And he wrote, also, and told her of the thirty-five different kinds of tulips he had gathered, and of the inscriptions he caused to be cut on springs and rocks. And of a certainty when he visited, as he did, the Garden-of-Fidelity at Adinapur, he must have had much to tell her of a small flowerful grave there, where his sad heart was laid. It was all very pathetic; sweetly pathetic. A noble young King, doing his duty bravely, though glad life was over for him forever. Even the crystal cup which he carried in his bosom, and from which he drank ever the water of the cool mountain springs, brought him only modified comfort. Perhaps, because, from a sense of duty to himself, he would not allow it to bring more. And then suddenly the whole wide world changed for him. "MahÂm! My son!--my son!" was all that he could say when urgent summons brought him to a smiling mother and a new-born infant. "He is like thee," she said, a tremor in her calm voice. "God forbid!" interrupted the father hastily. "God send he be like thee--the best woman in the world--the best--the very best!" Never were such rejoicings. The paternal aunts, who of late months had been let into the secret, were almost crazy with delight. And wherefore not? When a King has lived to be six-and-twenty without a son; when despite three marriages only two children have been borne to him, miserable little daughters, one dead, one but a few months old, it is time to be festive over a proper birth. And was there ever such a baby? So tall, so strong, so handsome and so altogether satisfactory. No wonder his father, who ever had a pretty wit, called him HumÂyon. That might portend the phoenix, the bird of good omen, besides half-a-dozen other side meanings, each charming in its way. But Babar, leaning over the happy mother said softly, "He shall be my protection in the future. Lo! MahÂm! I have put myself outside myself as they say in the child-stories of our youth. Who was't who put his life safe in a gold box? Well! my life is hid in my son's. So there, my wife, have a care of us both--for, verily in some ways, MahÂm, I need looking after like an infant." The feast of nativity was a very splendid feast. Everyone who was Big, and everyone who was Not, brought their offerings. Bags on bags of silver money were piled up, until everyone was forced to confess that never before had they seen so much white money in one place. And the entertainments! There were fireworks and marionettes and conjuring tricks. In fact a perfect fair for a whole week in the Great Four-square-Garden on the hill. But the greatest amusement of all was one to which the Palace Ladies invited a select audience. It was organised by the Fair Princess who had a genius that way, and its piece de resistance was a huge roc-egg brought in by fairies, which, cracking in most realistic fashion, disclosed the most magnificent phoenix that ever was seen, with feathers of every hue and plumes galore (it had, of course, a gold crown on its head) which monstrous bird being removed, like a tea cosy, appeared no less a personage than "The Heir Apparent" Endless was the laughter, the tears, the embracings, the gratulations. But that evening as MahÂm and Babar sat hand in hand, looking at the sleeping infant, its mother cried suddenly-- "'Tis Ma'asuma's child also, thou must remember, husband. 'Twas for her sake I married thee." "Not for mine own, one little bit, MahÂm?" he queried a trifle sadly. "Well! if that be so, I must be lover instead of husband for a time."
CHAPTER VIII"Like a wide-spreading tree whose roots en-thread "Look you! what a young man sees in a mirror, an old one can see in a burnt brick," quoth old KÂsim crossly to ShirÂm-TaghÂi. "Did I not tell the Most-Clement that benevolence such as his, is doubtless fit for Paradise where man shall have shed his sins; but 'tis in this world, pure incentive to wickedness. To leave Prince Abdul-RisÂk in KÂbul where, seeing he is the late King's only son, he hath some right to claim power, was foolish; not to believe when old servants as you and I, ShirÂm, tell him intrigue is going on, is well nigh criminal. Yet God knows it all comes from kindness of heart! In truth, old friend, to be king one should be as Timur, the Earth Trembler, who never spared man, woman or child who stood in his way." "Aye," assented Shirim-Beg whose beard by this time, after long years of faithful service, required a purple dye to pass muster. "And yet, to my mind, the King is most hard on the Moghul soldiery. What means life to a Moghul without rapine and plunder? Bread without salt, friend! Bread without salt! Yet the Most-Clement is so inclement that thou hadst trouble to save the lives of those three last week." KÂsim gloomed. "Aye! and I know not now if I were not wrong, since those same are the head and front of this present offending of which--God save his innocence--the King takes no heed, having it forsooth, that my surmisings art not entitled to credit! Look you! he is so set on making his men wheel in step and to time, that he hath forgotten how quick honest rebellion can step when it chooses." It was true. Babar, profoundly happy in the birth of his son, profoundly absorbed in the new title of Emperor which he had, in consequence, bestowed upon himself, was impervious to suspicion, and busy expending his exuberant vitality in marshalling and manoeuvering his troops. He was out all day in camp; thus, at once, being more ignorant than usual of what was happening in the city, and having less time to listen to cautions; the latter being, in truth, the last words suitable to his feelings. He could not, for the life of him, see a single cloud ahead, and being absolutely full of good intentions towards his world, refused to believe that the world could have any ill intentions towards him. But his eyes were opened one night, and that rudely. He took his evening meal as a rule in the Four-corner Garden on his way back to sleep in the Secluded-Palace. It was a charming place; the summer house all lit with coloured lamps, hung with beautiful draperies; and there were ever musicians, singers and dancers ready to amuse the King, who lingered late at times, especially on moonlit nights when the garden showed entrancingly beautiful. But it was moonless and fairly early, when two friends arrived from the city in hot haste, full of the discovery of a plot to seize and assassinate His Imperial Majesty that very night. Babar downright refused to believe it. Even treacherous Moghuls, he said, must have some reason for rebellion; and what had he done to them?--Nothing! Nor to anyone else. There might be disaffection. In what kingdom was it not to be found? But for wide-spread disloyalty?--No! it was frankly impossible. So he set warning aside. Nevertheless the party broke up early and started through the darkness for the city. The running lanterns ahead threw light only on the forward path, and Babar was engrossed in solving a question of drill; so it was not till he reached the Iron Gate that he realised he was alone, save for the three or four household slaves who ran beside his horse. In the darkness every one of his escort had disappeared! In a second he saw that something was, indeed, amiss. But in the same second he saw what had to be done. MahÂm and her son must be reached and placed in safety. That accomplished he would have time to consider. But as, with a rapid order to the slaves, he turned sharp down a more secluded alley, a man running full tilt, brought up suddenly at the sight of him. It was an old friend, one Mahomed-Ali. "Thank God! I have you, Sire," cried the runner breathlessly. "Go back! Go back! The Moghuls are in arms, the traitor Abdul-RisÂk at their head--I was in the market place a minute syne and they await the Most-Clement there. Go back! Go back!" Babar dug his spurs to his horse's flank. "Nay! I go on," he said recklessly. But Mahomed-Ali hung to the bridle. "Most-Clement! listen. They will await thee there till midnight. If the King does not come till then what signifies it? Naught; since the Most-High is given to gardens and is often late. So they are there--safe! Now 'tis not yet ten of the chime. If, therefore, the King will be wise, turn his horse, and ride out to the Camp-of-the-Veterans beyond the Hill Garden, I and my following--if the Most-Noble will send a token to the Gracious-Lady--will bring her safe thither before the carrion have wind of anything. Sire! 'tis the better way! To go on is certain death--for all--The Moghuls...." "God curse them!" muttered Babar. But he was no fool to let his own wild anger needlessly endanger those two precious lives. Therefore his resolution was taken at once, and he fumbled for his signet ring-- No! not that--it might be used to ill purpose. The Crystal Bowl was better--none would send that but he, and so she would be the readier to act upon it. "Aye" he said slowly. "But mark you! I turn but to the Ditch by the KhorasÂn gate. There will I wait. Take this to the Queen and say I pray her come--in half-an-hour mind, in half-an-hour! If thou comest not by then--" His face said the rest and augured ill for failure, as, gathering the few slaves together lest any might escape and blab, he drove them and the torch bearers before him towards the further gate. With time for thought he reviewed the position and was satisfied at his action. At the worst, it meant but a delay of half-an-hour when time was literally no object; since it was his appearance which would start the traitorous scheme. He set his lip and his hand clenched on his sword at the very thought. Again, his retreat amongst tried loyalists might save the situation altogether; for he would be ready for instant retaliation if needs be. If not, no harm was done. He had simply spent the night amongst his oldest friends, the AndijÂn troopers. Yet, as he stood waiting in the darkness of the ditch at the KhorasÂn gate, his heart beat in his ears. He could hear nothing. And time passed--It must be nigh on the half hour! Time to tighten sword-belts ... Hark! that was a jingle--the jingle of a swift borne doolie!... "MahÂm?" "My lord, I am here," came the answer and Babar shook his fist at the darkling city. All was quiet nigh at hand, but from the distant market place came sounds of rough merriment. "Till to-morrow, friends!" he muttered, then paced his horse beside the doolie with a whispered word or two of encouragement. Now that imminent danger was over anger, sheer, almost reckless anger took the place of anxiety. "To-morrow!" he whispered to himself again; "To-morrow!" But that to-morrow to which he had appealed so confidently brought bitter disappointment. Dawn showed him an almost empty camp. Out of all his soldiers a bare five hundred remained with him. The rest, with most of the KÂbul courtiers had slipped off to the city during the night on pretence of looking after their families, or saving their property from the Moghul plunderers. Disloyalty was widespread indeed! KÂsim-Beg, of course, was at his beloved young master's side, and so was ShirÂm-TaghÂi and half-a-score other trusty friends, all of the old school. They waited the livelong day for the old order to up saddle and away; since what could five hundred swords, be they ever so nimble, do against a city full of soldiers? But the order never came. It was close on sunset when KÂsim, impatient at the delay, suggested that it was time to move. "I go not," replied Babar coolly; "See you, old friend, never again do I seek shelter like a rat in its hole till I have no other chance. I fight in the open." Old KÂsim's jaw dropped. "My liege!" he exclaimed. "When fortune was against the ChagatÂi in one place, he ever sought her favour in another." "And found it not, most times," put in Babar with a grim smile. "I have had too much of fighting and running away. I have been at it my life long. Now let us see how it does to fight and stick to it--to the death." "To the death by all means, sire," said old KÂsim with affectionate admiration, "but 'tis madness all the same." If it were so, there was distinct method in it. Babar threw up strange earthworks round his camp and disposed pickets in quaintly modern fashion on the points of vantage in the hills. This done he sat down calmly and awaited events, much to the discomfiture of those within the city. They were not besieged, of course, but there was an enemy to be reckoned with beyond the gates where an enemy should not be. Being hopelessly in a minority, he ought to have run away. "Lo!" said one soldier to another doubtfully, as, hand over his eyes, eaves-wise, he looked out keenly from the watch towers, "I dare swear that is the King going his rounds. How I mind me of his smile as he passed the meanest." "Aye!" would come the assent, "but none were mean in his army. We all felt brave men. At least so 'twas with me. I could have swaggered it with Rustam." And both pair of eyes would hold a vague regret. A regret that deepened as day after day skirmishes that were almost battles, resulted invariably in a retreat back to the walls of KÂbul for the night. For Babar's five hundred were ready to fight all the twenty-four hours, while the insurgent twelve thousand preferred their beds. And the next dawn rose calm over that orderly encampment, which it was no use trying to rush because of its cunning defences. Then Babar's cavalry had learnt to charge without an inch of spare room between stirrup and stirrup, so that there was no hope of passage or escape between that close-linked, supple, chain of lance and sword. Altogether it was disconcerting. Then no one had a moment's peace. To show your head beyond the gates was to bring down on you the King in person, heading a reckless band of picked swordsmen. "KÂsim-Beg is the best fencer in Asia," murmured a trooper with a slash on head and arm; "'tis small wonder I got this from him. And his teaching hath made even the rank and file better at swordsplay than our leaders--curse them--who sit at cards and drink, while we--" The rest was sullen silence. "Yea!" said another, with a leg bandaged. "And I got this from a mere back blow of the Most-Clement's. See you, he hath youth on his side, as well as all old KÂsim's art. I saw him, as I fell, cleave a Moghul to the very chin." So round the watch fires at night it became the fashion to applaud the prowess of the foe. With this result that in the morning, more than one place was vacant on the ramparts; the holder of it had slipped away in the night to join Babar's forces. As time went on, the latter grew more and more adventurous. His military skill, his personal strength, his courage, his invincible spirit, brought mingled admiration and dread to his enemies. "Lo! he is a true Shaitan," admitted one of the chief rebels. "Didst hear that when he was at the KhÂrwa Fort he amused himself by leaping from battlement to battlement--and there is sheer fall of a thousand feet to the river below." "Aye!" assented another gloomily. "And ShirbÂsh saith he hath seen him do it with a trooper under each arm." So ran the stories, the one outdoing the other. At last, one day, just before the opposing forces began the clash of arms, the armies stood thrilling, aghast, expectant, as a tall young figure rode out alone, and in a voice that echoed and re-echoed, challenged Abdul-RisÂk, the usurper, to single combat. The challenge was refused. "Then send your best man," cried Babar, "and may God show the right." There was a pause; and then from out the rank and file of the insurgents rode one Ali-Beg, and a chorus of approval went up on both sides. The opponents were well matched. Both young, both in the very pink of training. "Art ready, friend?" came Babar's clear joyous voice, and with a dash they were at each other. "Now God send he remembers the trick of wrist," said KÂsim-Beg under his breath, "for Ali-Beg hath it to perfection. He was my best pupil at Samarkand." But Babar remembered it. How, he felt, could he forget anything with so much for which to fight? His eyes blazed, not with anger--what cared he for the actual enemy?--he was but the dummy of possible defeat--but with calm will. He meant to disarm this fellow--not to hurt him. The horses reeled against each other, the sword arms were interlocked, for Babar, at close quarters, would not let his antagonist break loose. God and his prophets! they would be down! Nor horse nor man could stand that boring pressure, that invincible strength. Wrist against wrist; and beneath them struggling legs and tails and fear-snorting crests! There! over!--A confused heap upon the ground, but Babar uppermost with two swords in his hand. A shout of triumph rose from the five hundred. But as the discomfited champion rode back without his sword, another rode forward to take his place. This was not in the bond; still Babar, checking his laboured breaths to more even rhythm, threw away the second sword and sprang to his horse, which had risen unhurt but dazed. "Come on, friend!" he shouted; "I am ready!" This was a very different sort of adversary. A lean, ewe-necked horse, a nimble, dapper, little swordsman with a blade like a razor, who buzzed and wheeled, and settled and fled again like a hungry mosquito. Babar with his half-dazed horse was at a disadvantage for a time and the razor-like edge caught him on the little finger once. But only once. The next instant in one furious charge, a back-hander with the flat of the sword had sent the King's antagonist spinning from his saddle like a tee-totum. So it was with five champions, one after the other. Babar more and more weary, yet more and more triumphant in fierce vitality with every victory, unhorsed, disarmed, or routed every one of them. Raising a laugh, indeed, in his own favour when YakÛb-Beg, last but one, escaped by hard riding from the rain of pitiless blows which fell instead on his horse's rump, urging it to greater speed. Only once did sheer merciless anger leap to Babar's eyes, and that was when NÂzir, the Usbek, letting go his horse's bridle during a close-locked tussle of sword arms, drew a dagger with his left hand and would have plunged it in his adversary's heart. Then, with one wild cry of rage, Babar's hand left his sword, clipped his adversary round the middle, literally tore him from his horse and flung him head downwards on the ground, where he lay unconscious, the dagger still in his hand, the blood oozing from his nose and ears. "Take the carrion away," shouted the young champion, breathless, "and come on, if there be any more." But there were none ready for personal combat; so the battle began. It was one of Babar's best battles--at least in his own opinion. And it was the prelude to many another, in every one of which Babar drove home his lesson of sheer courage. Finally Abdul-RisÂk fell into his hands, and from that moment there was peace; since folk could withstand the King's prowess, but they were helpless beneath his magnanimity. To be forgiven, not grudgingly or of necessity, but with open-hearted friendliness, was disarmament pure and simple; for all but Moghuls. And the Horde in this instance, disgusted at defeat, took abrupt French leave. Abdul-RisÂk also, ever a weakling, had the gratitude and good taste to die comfortably and conventionally ere long, so KÂbul was left at peace. Such peace as Babar's life had never known before. He was in the plenitude of his manhood, his strength, and, even after all these years, the imagination warms to the picture of his glad content. A trifle flamboyant, perhaps, he may have been in his consciousness of virtue, in his very successes. But nothing came amiss to his happy nature. The plants he planted throve, the flowers he loved blossomed, he was as keen over repairing a ruined aqueduct as he had been over taking a fort. He knew the name of every bird and beast in his kingdom; he learnt their habits, when and where they are to be caught. He tells of the strange migration of fishes, and with keen appreciation of the pathos and poetry hidden in the tale, how the flights of summer birds are driven in stormy weather against the chill glaciers of the Hindu-Kush Mountains and perish in their thousands. Then he interests himself in his people. Knows the race of which they come, the language they speak, and the superstitions in which they believe. And he is stern over some of these. There is a celebrated rocking tomb much frequented by pilgrims of which he discovers the trick and visits his hot wrath on the manipulators, daring them to repeat the imposture; for deceit is the one thing he cannot forgive. So during the next three years, not only peace, but happiness reigned at KÂbul. HumÂyon grew and flourished. A daughter and then a son were born, and MahÂm remained the anchor to which Babar's versatile, volatile, affectionate nature was moored. A woman of education, of natural talent, she could enter into that side of his life from which the majority of his companions were shut out; and between the two there was always the inward and spiritual tie of which the Crystal Bowl was the outward and visible manifestation. There was another soul, however, which touched Babar in a lower plane. Sultan Said KhÂn, his cousin, the son of the dead and dispossessed younger KhÂn of Outer MoghulistÂn, sought refuge at KÂbul, and there sprung up between the two young men perfect love, accord, and trust. "The two-and-a-half years I spent as exile in KÂbul," writes this same Said KhÂn, "were the freest from care or sorrow of any I have experienced, or am likely to experience. I lived on friendly terms with all, welcomed by all. I never had a headache (except from the effects of wine) and never felt sad (except on the account of the ringlets of some beloved one)." But Babar himself still abstained from wine, or at any rate from intoxication. Love had stepped in at HerÂt to keep him from yielding to the first of Said KhÂn's temptations, and the other form of amusement was never to his liking. Then there was another refugee who forty years afterwards sets down his impressions of KÂbul and its King. This was Haidar, yet another cousin, ten-year-old-orphan, whose father had been that Doghlat-commoner rebel of two years back. What matter? His mother had been a maternal aunt. That was enough for Babar. Besides the poor child had no other protector. His welcome must have made a vivid impression on Haidar, for, as one reads, the scene rises before one. The timid child wrapped in the one old shawl which the forlorn party of refugees possessed, attempting to kneel at the feet of that glorious figure with life or death in its hands. The merry laugh, the swift stoop to catch up the child and hold it close with comforting words. Then afterwards, the elegant mansion, its rooms all spread with many coloured carpets and soft cushions, with everything in the way of furniture, food, clothing, servants, and slaves, so fully prepared as to leave nothing to be desired in the whole building. And afterwards, again, the promises of kindness, the threats of severity by which the little lad's love of study was stimulated and encouraged. The lavish praise bestowed on any little virtue or new accomplishment, the quick blame for anything mean or lazy; these were such as most men would scarce do for their own sons. "It was a hard day for me when I lost my father," writes Haidar; "but I scarce felt the loss owing to the kindness of the Emperor." "Have a care, youngster," he would say when, study time over, young Haidar came as usual to play with Baby HumÂyon. "He is smaller than thou art. Never be rough with weaklings. 'Tis not their fault. God made them so. And he is thy cousin, likewise." "But HumÂyon holds his own already," said MahÂm, proudly. "There is no boy of his age in the court can come nigh him." Babar laughed and put his arm round her. "Yea! Yea! little mother! He is true phoenix, and we are the happiest folk in KÂbul, which means much." Then his face fell, he walked to the arched window-way and looked out over the garden. "What is't, my lord," said MahÂm, at his elbow in an instant. He looked at her affectionately. "Nothing, my moon! 'Tis only this. The dear mother lies yonder in the Mercy-of-God. I would not bring her back, if I could. And little Ma'asuma--" he paused--"I would not bring her back either, wife, if I could. She was too tender for this world--aye! even for me. So she sleeps peacefully--God rest her!--but Dearest-One--" his voice broke--he turned away and MahÂm had nothing to say. That thought was the fly in the pot of ointment, it was the one bitter drop in the Crystal-Bowl-of-Life.
CHAPTER IX"Bring! bring the musky scented wine! So the months, even the years sped on bringing calm. Sometimes Babar felt a trifle regretful over the old storms. The glints of sunshine between had seemed, mayhap, the brighter for them. He was now only nearing his twenty-ninth year, and yet he felt almost as if life had ended for him. He looked round on his growing family, on his gardens, his aqueducts, his highly-disciplined small army; all were well in their way, but for all that his restless eyes followed the doings of ShÂh-Ismael of Persia, who, young as he was, a mere boy in fact, had dared to send the arch-enemy, the Usbek-raider, ShaibÂni KhÂn, a spinning-wheel and a spindle, and bid him if he would not fight, go sit in a corner and busy himself with the little present like the woman he was! It had been splendid, that interchange of discourtesies. First of all, the ShÂh's demand for a treaty followed by ShaibÂni's contemptuous advice to make no claim for kingship through his mother, who had withdrawn herself from the circle of distinction by her marriage; since he, ShaibÂni, made one through his father, a Sultan and son of a Sultan. This was accompanied by a beggar's bowl and staff with the script: "In case you wish, as is fitting, to follow the profession of your father, I remind you of it and the verse-- "'Clasp the bride of sovereignty close to you if you will, But don't ShÂh-Ismael, however, had been no whit behind. Back had come the spindle and distaff with the rhyming insult-- "Who boasts of his dead fathers only owns After that, naturally, there was but one end--extermination of one or the other. Which would it be? ShÂh-Ismael, with his thousands of disciplined and heretical kizzilbÂshes, or ShaibÂni KhÂn with his hordes of wild Mongols? "God's truth," said Babar to old KÂsim who had been ailing this while back, "I scarce know which to choose. I hate the Red-caps almost as much as the Moghuls." Old KÂsim's eyes were growing a little dim for the things of this world; perhaps he saw those of the next more clearly in consequence. "There be good men on both sides, Most-Clement. A flat face and split eyes count no more than a red-cap when we have lost clothes and bodies at the Day-of-Judgment." The shrewd commonsense of the remark clung to Babar's receptive brain long after the speaker had gone to his account. "Yea, I am restless," admitted Babar to calm MahÂm. "I cannot help it, my moon! I am not made as thou art. There was a book at Samarkand when I was a lad that treated of the Great Waters. And it said they rose and fell as the moon waxed and waned. So 'tis thou who art responsible, sweetheart; though God knows, thou art ever full moon to me." And he sat down instantly to write a rubai on that fancy. He had not half finished it, however, when news came that drove everything else out of his head. ShÂh-Ismael had defeated ShaibÂni in full force at Meru; the Usbek-raider was dead, smothered in a band of escaping Mongols. "I must go," muttered the young King hoarsely; "I must go. Samarkand is mine by right." So, with hardly more than an hour's preparation he was off, though it was the dead of winter, across the snows to join forces with his cousin of BadakhshÂn. The fighting fever was on him once more. He could not, he did not even try, to resist it. And MahÂm let him go; she was too wise to attempt to chain her wild hawk. "When spring comes we will meet in Samarkand," she said quietly. He took Haidar, the boy, with him though, because the lad wept and refused to be left behind. And right proud was the lad, when at the very first fight, it was the opportune arrival of a party of his father's old retainers who had come out to join their young master, that turned the tide of victory towards Babar. "Let the name of Haidar Mirza be inscribed on the first trophy," said the Emperor smiling; and the boy's blood went in a surge of sheer delight to his face. But, despite the fact that he was able to reach the river, and settle himself in some measure of security at Kundez, Babar felt himself not sufficiently strong to attempt Samarkand without help. And there was none to whom he could apply save ShÂh-Ismael, who had already sent him a letter containing guarded offers of friendship. It rather went against Babar's orthodox grain to ask a favour from a persecuting Shiah heretic; but old KÂsim's words came back to him. Yes! there was good on all sides, and--pace the priests!--a man might be an honest fellow in spite of his saying "Ameen" in schismatic fashion. For Babar, like many of his like, had no taste for dogmatic differences and preferred to differentiate by visible and audible signs. So Mirza-KhÂn, his cousin, was despatched to IrÂk in order to make the best terms possible, and Babar, meanwhile, sent for his family from KÂbul. The spring had passed to summer ere they arrived at Kundez, and Babar, now reinforced by some of the surrounding tribes, crossed the Amu and marched on to await events at the strong fortress of HissÂr. It was close on eighteen years since he had been encamped with his old uncle, Sultan Hussain, upon the opposite bank. Close on eighteen years since, one darkling dawn, he, a lad of thirteen, dear old KÂsim-Beg and half-a-hundred or so of rough, honest AndijÂn troopers had ridden through Khosrau ShÂh's picket, and he, Babar, had lost the Crystal Bowl which GharÎb had given him. And now? He looked across to the frightened girl, the mother of his children, in a way the mother of himself, and thought what a marvellous thing Life was. Even as he saw it, limited by Birth and Death, isolated by those five personal, bodily senses which none could say he shared exactly with his fellow, how strange it was to watch the compensating balance at work on all things, keeping all things as it were to true, perfect level. He looked back over his life and saw that balance everywhere, save in one thing. The tragedy of Dearest-One remained as ever poignant, unappeased. "Thou art sad, husband! what is't?" asked MahÂm, fondly. She was ever quick to see his moods. "Nothing, wife," he answered gaily. "Save that today or to-morrow at least comes the answer from ShÂh-Ismael. What will the red-cap heretic reply?--God knows!" So with a laugh he left her for the cares of State. But he had scarcely gone before he was back again, white, trembling, a gold-dust-sprinkled letter in his hand. "It hath come," he said brokenly. "It hath come--and oh! MahÂm--Dearest-One! Dearest-One!" He fell at her feet, buried his face in her lap and sobbed like a child. She must be dead, thought MahÂm, and to her lips came the usual blankly-tame commonplaces of consolation. "Nay, 'tis not that!" he said, recovering his calm. "She is alive and well--and ShÂh-Ismael, who hath found her, is sending her back to me with all honour--" he sprang to his feet suddenly and raised his right arm high. "Oh, God! may my arm wither if ever it strike a blow against this just man, may my tongue dry up if ever it utter word of blame; I, Babar, am his servant for ever! There is nothing I will not do for him." "Does he not desire aught of thee in return?" asked MahÂm when Babar had fairly outwearied himself in joy, in confessions of past regret, in promises of future content. "Aye! Yea! he asks much, but not more than he has a right to ask--not more than I will give cheerfully. And he is sending men also, MahÂm. I shall have an army of sixty thousand! With that Samarkand is assured, and, of a truth, no man can deem it a disgrace to own justice as his sovereign lord! I hold it an honour." And he upheld this view of ShÂh-Ismael's proposal that if the aid of the Persian kizzilbÂshes were given to conquer Samarkand, Babar should acknowledge the Persian Satrapy as over-lord, against all the criticism of his nobles; not that there was much, for it was indubitable that without such help Samarkand would remain unwon. And Babar had many arguments in favour of this nominal vassalage. To be part of a great Empire, was always an advantage; besides the Kings of Samarkand had always in the past acknowledged a suzerain lordship. It had given stability to the dynasty; and it was of late years only, since this dependence had been removed, that Samarkand had been bandied from one ruler to another. When a man is set on a thing, arguments for it grow in the very hedgerows; and Babar with the tempting bait of his sister's safe return before his eyes, was too full of real gratitude to hesitate an instant. But it was not for a month or more that he was to enter Samarkand victorious. It was a perfect autumn day when, after dismissing the Persian contingent, Babar made his triumphant entry. All along the route, high and low, nobles and poor men, grandees and artisans, princes and peasants, alike testified their joy at the advent of one who had already twice before come to them as King, and who had endeared himself to them by his kindness and generosity. The streets were all draped with cloth and gold brocades; pictures, drawings, wreaths, were hung up on every side. Such pomp and splendour no one has ever seen or heard of before or since. He was received at the Gate by the great men of the city, who assured him that the inhabitants had for years been longing that the shadow of his protection might be cast upon them. Babar, who was dressed, rather to their regret, in the uniform of a kissilbÂsh General (which smacked of heresy, almost of unbelief) responded heartily, and all eyes followed his splendid figure as he rode through the streets saluting the crowd right and left. He was in the highest spirits, for he knew that in the very Palace where she had been left ten long years before, his dearest sister was awaiting him. Dearest-One! It seemed almost too good to be true.--God save the man who had brought this happiness into his life! Impatient, headstrong in all his emotions, he would gladly have cut short his reception and gone straight to her; but the people would not be denied a sight of their hero. If the angels were crying aloud "Enter in peace!" and the populace was shouting "God save the Emperor!" the least he could do was to listen to them patiently. So it was nigh dusk before he found himself, trembling with sheer joy, in the Garden-Palace and saw before him a tall, slender figure in white-- "Dearest-One! Dearest-One!" he cried and was kissing her feet, her hands, her thin, worn face. "Brotherling! Brotherling!" That was all they said. And then they held back to see each other. She saw strength, and health, and manhood such as she had scarce dreamed of, even for him; a man of past thirty in the very prime of all things. And he saw a woman of nigh forty with streaks of silver in her dark hair, upright, tall, but with a weariness even in her joy. "I am sorry, Dearest-One," he said humbly as he had said to her many a time when as a child he had grieved her. "And I am glad," she replied softly. That night the city seemed on fire. Flares blazed from every house, the flickering lines of countless lights seemed to interlock one street with another. Vast crowds surged through them, and far and wide rose Babar's praise. But at the door of a mosque an old white-bearded mullah sat and spat calmly. "He wore the accursed red-cap of the schismatic--Wherefore?" And the folk who heard him looked at each other and echoed: "Wherefore?" That was the question. Asked by one to-day, it was asked by half-a-dozen the next, by a hundred the week after, when Babar, faithful as ever to his promises, had the Kutba, the Royal Proclamation, read in the name of ShÂh-Ismael as over-lord. A thousand asked it when the first gold coin was struck bearing the hated Shiah legends. The Emperor, the man they had welcomed, was a heretic. He and his army wore the red-cap. Samarkand, head centre of orthodoxy, became alarmed, began to whisper. "I am no heretic, but a keeper of promises," said Babar grimly, and went on his way. He had become a trifle arrogant, and inclined to resent any interference. The Samarkand folk were rude, ignorant, bigoted; he would not even try to pacify them. So the winter passed and spring set in--(the plentiful drops of her rain having clothed the earth in green raiment)--and with the warmer weather the Usbeks once more appeared like locusts on the edge of the TurkhestÂn desert and the fight for Samarkand began all over again. And this time Babar with not a wish ungratified, Babar in the plenitude of his pride and strength, was forced to flight; for religious bigotry is the hardest of all foes to fight. A horde of kizzilbÂshes, it is true, was sent by his over-lord to help him; but they only made matters worse. First by their confirmation of heresy; next by their brutality in murdering high and low, the sucklings and the decrepit. Sick at heart, Babar found himself once more a wanderer; once more a prey to the treachery of Moghul troops, from which he escaped one night with bare life and in his night clothes. His one consolation was that MahÂm, Dearest-One and his children, were safe with relatives in Khost. No! he had another consolation; for the man who had set aside wine as an enhancement of pleasure, now took to it as a lessener of care. The Cup-of-Life for him was filled again and again with the Wine-of-Death, and he laughed as he quaffed at its bubbles on the rim. Vaguely, too, came to him a sort of disgust at dogmatic creeds. He would sit and sing Sufic odes with fervour, and praise. Perhaps with a man of his temperament, it was only to be expected. "The wine, the lamp which night and day |
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