Flora Annie Webster Steel

FRUIT TIME

1525 TO 1530

CHAPTER I

"The Long Years slide,
The Door of Life stands wide,
Ghosts creep inside,
With their dead fingers hide
Present from Past.
Dear God be kind!
Grant that I keep enshrined
Within my mind
The Love of Human-kind,
Until the Last"

Babar sat overlooking a KÂbul valley, a tall, straight, still athletic man of two-and-forty.

Twelve years had passed since, broken, crestfallen at his failure to keep the loyalty of Samarkand, he had shaken the dust of his kingly hopes in Transoiana from him for ever, returned to KÂbul and set himself another emprise--the conquest of India. Thus far he had not succeeded. Three or four attempts had been made, in themselves satisfactory, in result futile. On his last expedition he had got as far as Lahore; but he had had to return for reinforcements to KÂbul, leaving a doubtfully-loyal governor in the PunjÂb. So he was still no more, no less, than King-of-KÂbul; for those twelve years had brought a marked diminution in the vivid initiative of his younger years. He was up at dawn as usual, it is true; the wine he had drunk overnight had never been allowed to cloud his days; yet those twelve comparatively empty years remained, and remain, in mute testimony to the toxic power of the body over the mind. He felt this himself vaguely; for he was always sensitive to the touch of truth.

He had begun wine-bibbing of deliberate intent. He had told himself that he would only indulge for ten years, until he was forty. Indeed, wanting one year of that age he had drunk more copiously as a sort of send-off to virtue. But virtue had not come. As he sat overlooking the valley where his twelve thousand troops were encamped, the instinct to enhance his keen enjoyment of the beauty he saw found words in an order for a beaker of good ShirÂz wine, and an intimation that the Pavilion-of-Spirits was to be prepared, his friends and boon companions warned.

The royal cup-bearer brought a golden goblet filled to the brim, and he quaffed it down like mother's milk; so--the cup still in his hands that hung between his knees--sat drinking in that intoxicating beauty of the splendid world.

For it was still splendid to him; though for twelve years he had seldom gone to bed strictly sober. His face, however, showed no sign of his life, save in a certain premature haggardness of cheek. The eyes were clear as ever, and had gained in their falcon-like keenness by reason of his slight stoop, not from the shoulders, but the neck.

It was sunset. The crests of the surrounding hills showed softly violet against the clear, primrose sky. The girdle of the distant snow peaks were losing the last faint flush of day; the cold icy pallor that was Creeping over them, matched the low, level mist streaks which were beginning to stretch, like a winding sheet, over the darker purple shadow of the valley. A shadow that looked like the sky at night, all set as it was with constellations of camp fires ...

"Slave! Another goblet of wine!"

But, even as he gave the order, a twinge of conscience made him remember the Arabic verse: "The breach of a promise avenges itself on the promise breaker." But it was only a twinge. After all, most of the wine parties had been guileless and innocent. He could scarcely recollect being miserably drunk more than once or twice; and then he had always suffered horribly in the stomach for his sin. And but one or two parties had been disagreeable, as when one GedÂi, being troublesome-drunk had tried to recline on the royal pillow, and had had to be turned out neck and crop by royalty itself; such royalty having invariably a stronger head than the other carousers.

But even that had been rather funny; though not so funny as on the day when, drinking in the open, they had been apprised of the enemy's approach and Dost-Mahomed could not--despite skins full of water--be got on his horse; so Amni, being solemn-drunk, had suggested that rather than leave him in that condition to fall into the enemy's hands it would be better at once to cut off his head and take it away to some place of safety!

The very remembrance brought laughter. Babar tossed off the second beaker of wine, and stood up quoting NizÂmi's verses:

"Oh! bring the musky scented wine,
The key of mirth which must be mine,
The key which opens wide the door
Of rapture rich and varied store,
And o'er the temper casts a spell
Of kindness indescribable."

In those last words lay the secret of Babar's superiority to the debasing influence of his life.

His kindness was simply indescribable, and he stuck to his code of honour and morality with a certain fastidiousness. Men must carry their liquor like gentlemen, no man must be pressed to drink wine, no private house be unwillingly defiled with its use, even if the Emperor were the guest. Above all things, wine must not interfere with duty. He would follow the advice he had had cut on the side of the little, red granite cistern among the Judas trees in the Four-corner Garden of KÂbul--the little cistern that was so often filled with redder wine--he would sing with the singers and lutists:

"Sweet are the smiling Springs,
Sweet what each New Year brings,
Sweet is a cup of wine,
Sweeter is Love divine.
Oh, Babar! Seize them all.
They pass beyond recall."

He would seize all; but he would remain a kindly gentleman.

And so--if he were to send his letter to MahÂm, his dear wife, his ever-sweet guardian and friend, that night, he must finish it ere going up the Pavilion-of-Spirits!

They were constant correspondents, those two, and although they had only parted from each other at the Garden-of-Fidelity a day or two before, he had plenty to say to her, both as his moon, the woman who was the chief influence of his life, and also as the head of his family. For MahÂm's other children having died in infancy, leaving none but HumÂyon in direct descent, Babar, by her advice, had married again. The youngest of three sons thus born he had made over at birth to MahÂm who was bringing the little Hindal up as her own. At the tribunal of his own heart, this was ever an action to be slurred over. It had doubtless brought great grief to the real mother, a good woman who had done her duty by him in giving him children. Still it had all been settled by usual custom. The auguries had been consulted before the birth of the child, and MahÂm had taken the chance of its being a girl. Yet ... In good sooth that whole year, with its episode of the taking of Bajour, touched a lower level than any other in Babar's thoughts. He had been six and thirty, it was the first time he had used match-lock men or artillery, and somehow--possibly because he had begun to take drugs as well as wine--he had reverted to inherited instinct. He had been minded to emulate his ancestor Timur--he had done so ...

Three thousand infidels put to the sword!...

Babar escaped from the remembrance and palliated the action by telling himself that the AfghÂns were an impossible race, strangely foolish and senseless, possessed of little reflection and less foresight. What trouble had not the YusufzÂis given him until he had attached them by marrying the daughter of their chief.

That, anyhow, had not been sordid. Babar recalled the whole incident with pleasure. How he had gone, disguised as a wandering mendicant to the chief's fort, during a feast, in order to spy out the land. How the Lady MubÂrika--the Blessed-Damozel--had noticed the handsome beggar and sent him food from her own dish. How he had thanked her, found out she was not betrothed, and had wrapped the food she had given him in his handkerchief, hidden it in a hole in the wall, and gone back to claim her as his bride.

"I have no daughter," came back the proud answer.

"Ask her concerning a wandering mendicant," Babar replied, "and if more proof be wanted, find the food the gracious Lady gave wrapped in my handkerchief and hidden in a breach of thy fort. So let it be peace!"

And peace it had been; for the Lady MubÂrika...! Could he ever forget her grace and dignity as she stood before him for the first time as a bride? When she had let slip her veil and laid her pale hands on her pale bosom.

"My lord! Remember that the whole tribe of YusufzÂis sits enshrined in my heart!"

It had been fine!

No! Even though MahÂm had held his soul, that, and his passionate appreciation of it, had been a gleam in a dark year. And no one had ever had an unkind word for the Lady MubÂrika. Childless, reserved, quiet, she was yet a power in that household he had left behind him in KÂbul. So he wrote to his moon:

"Thou hast good friends with thee. That Dearest-One and the Blessed-Damozel are as sisters to thee, is ever a consolation to me. Also that our farewell was in that same garden where my first love died, and rose again in thee. In truth it was in its greatest glory; the flowers yellow, purple, red, springing everywhere, all mingled together as if they had been flung and scattered abroad from the full basket of God. The pomegranate trees so beautifully yellow, the fruit hanging red upon the boughs. The grass plots covered with the second crop of white and pink clover. The orange bushes so green and cheerful, laden with their golden globes. In good sooth, of all the gardens I have planted--God knows how many--this one is the crown; none could view it without acknowledging its charm. HumÂyon hath come to join me as arranged, though somewhat tardily, for which I spoke to him with considerable severity; nathless with difficulty, my moon, since he is thy son and the beauty, and vigour, and valiance of his seventeen years would disarm an ogre.

"Bid Ma'asuma be a good girl till my return and tell her I will keep her husband's life safe as my own; and greet little Rosebody from her father. Lo! is there aught in the wide world more captivating to a man's heart than his female children. Except perchance, my moon! his wife."

Ten minutes after despatching this, sealed and signed, by special runner, Babar was the centre of the merriment in the Palace-of-Spirits. In good sooth at that early hour, it was innocent and guileless enough. A party of men, chosen chiefly because they were of like temperament to himself, all of them distinguished by general bonhommie and not a few by wit and accomplishments, all met together to enjoy themselves, sometimes with the aid of aromatic confections, sometimes with wine or spirits.

To-night it was the latter, so the fun waxed fast.

The screens of the tent had been thrown back; they could see the valley beneath them studded with fire stars.

"Look! Most-Clement!" cried TÂrdi-Beg. "Yonder, I swear, is the Heft-Aurang."

Babar bent his keen eyes hastily on the flickering lights. Aye, the Heft-Aurang--the Seven thrones! The thought took him back with a rush to BaisanghÂr, dead these twenty years; from him, memory fled to GharÎb and the Crystal-Bowl-of-Life. He carried the copy MahÂm had given him in his bosom always, though he seldom used it. It was too small for wine! But some day--aye!--some day soon--he would keep his promise to himself and forswear drinking.

"Yea!" remarked Ali-JÂn, not to be outdone, "and yonder to the right are the Brothers."

"And look you to the left, the Warrior," stuttered Abul-MajÎd. "His sword is somewhat crooked."

"'Tis thine eyes are askew," laughed Shaikh-ZÎn. "Thou never hadst a head worth a spoonful of decent ShirÂz."

So in laughter, and quips, and cranks, the merriment waxed. They could most of them string verses after a fashion, and some of them began reciting their latest efforts. The climax being reached when Ali-JÂn gravely gave a well-known couplet as his own!

"When lovers think, their thoughts are not their own,
But each to each Love's communings have flown."

"Hold thy peace, pirate!" came Babar's full joyous voice. "That is Mahomed Shaikh. Thou couldst not write such an one for thy life."

Ali-JÂn, who was already far gone, waggled his head. "Lo!" he said with a hiccup, "I could do--doz-shens!"

"And I." "And I," chorused others militantly, for the spirits were rising fast.

"So be it!" cried Babar, as ever the most sober of the party. "Let us all try and parody it extempore! Now then, Ali-JÂn--'tis thy turn first. Rise and out with it instanter!"

Ali-JÂn rose gravely and stood swaying. "When--" he began solemnly. "When--"

Then he subsided, gravely and solemnly. The roar of consequent laughter was dominated by Babar's joyous shout, "I have it! I have it!"

"When Ali drinks, his legs are not his own,
Each seeks support and neither stands alone."

"ShÂbÂsh! WÂh! WÂh! Ha! Ha! Ha!" The uproarious mirth echoed out into the still night.

"The Emperor is merry," quoth the sentries in the valley, with a smile.

"Aye! but he looks ill for all that," said an orthodox old trooper. "I saw him shiver yestere'en when he swam the stream in his clothes, and the water was lukewarm. Time was, not so long ago, when he would have swum an ice torrent and felt no cold; now, he hath taken a chill."

Whether the man was right in the cause thereof, he was correct in the illness. The next morning found Babar down with so severe a defluxion, fever, and cough, that he spat blood. The court physician dosed him with narcissus flowers steeped in wine, and Ali-JÂn, TÂrdi-Beg and all the other boon companions sat with the monarch to cheer him up by laying the blame of the illness on the cold, or the heat, or what not. But Babar himself knew whence the indisposition proceeded, and what conduct had led to this chastisement. What business had he to laugh at folk in verse for his own amusement? Still less, no matter how mean or contemptible the doggerel, to take pride in it and write it down? It was regrettable that a tongue which could repeat the sublimest productions, should lend itself to unworthy rhymes; it was melancholy that a heart capable of nobler conceptions should stoop to meaner and despicable verses. From henceforth he would abstain religiously from vituperative poetry.

This excellent resolution--or something else--proved curative; and Babar was soon on the mend and was able to write the following:

"Oh! what can I do with you, flagrant tongue?
On your account I deserve to be hung.
How long will you utter bad parodies,
One half indecent, the other half lies?
If you wish to escape being damned--Up rein!
Ride off--nor venture near verse again."

To which he appended a quatrain in his best Arabic:

"Oh, God! Creator of the World! My soul
I broke upon the Wheel of Evil sore.
Cleanse me from sin, my God, and make me whole,
Else cursed shall I be for evermore."

He felt better after thus committing his penitence to writing. So with renewed vitality, and gathering his force together as he went along, he crossed the Sind river to find the moment ripe for his emprise. India was in a turmoil, divided by two rival claimants to its throne.

The whole country was over-run by armies, more or less independent; the whilom Governor of Lahore at the head of one, numbering over forty thousand men, chiefly AfghÂns.

It broke up, however, by sheer invertebrate disintegration, ere Babar could reach it, and he passed on, unopposed, by the lower Kashmir hills, by Bhimber and Jhelum till he arrived at Sialkot, keeping all the while close to the skirts of the mountains where retreat and safety might be found if needs be.

But now, before him, lay the wide plain of the PunjÂb. Here for the first time in his life, Babar faced a real galloping country where horsemen could, indeed, charge to some purpose. But with flat plain behind him it was necessary that the plain should be friendly. To ensure this needed delay, he had to negotiate, to threaten, to pacify. Half-a-dozen petty chiefs had to be brought to their senses, and those senses were so dull, so rude, so provokingly stupid. What for instance could be said to a man who actually claimed to be seated in the Presence, when nobles and princes of the blood-royal stood by in all humility?

Babar's language on such occasions was always frank, truthful, utterly unanswerable.

"The Most-Clement hath settled his hash," remarked the Prime-Minister with a smile, when the old ex-governor of Lahore, having been caught, was brought before the Emperor, with the two swords which the rebel had boastfully hung round his neck as sign of unyielding opposition, still dangling under his chin. This by Babar's own order, to emphasise the trouncing which sent the old sinner away unharmed, but sadder and wiser.

"Yea!" replied the Emperor quite gravely. "Yet I told him naught but what he deserved most truly, for I had done much for him. And, as thou sawest, he had no answer. He did, indeed, stammer out a few words, but not at all to the purpose, for what reply could he make to such confounding truths?"

"Of a surety, none," assented his hearers, still with a smile. Folk had to smile often over Babar's frank, outspoken clarity.

So, by slow degrees, and not without many a drinking-party, Sirhind was reached; and here the Emperor's soul was refreshed by the sight of a rivulet of running water! It was almost unbelievable; and no doubt he drank a libation of something stronger in its honour.

Then, but a few miles farther on, he came upon an extremely beautiful and delightful place with a charming climate, where, perforce, he had to halt a few days if only to explore the neighbouring country which promised well. Doubtless he was close to the southern spurs of the SewÂlik hills, and here, in one of the side valleys, he found himself on the bank of one of those oleander-set streams, where the butterflies get mixed up with strange sweet-scented flowering shrubs. One of those streams which in the dry season are beds of boulders with a half-hidden trickle of water amongst the stones; but which, in the rains, swell extremely and rush down in a perfect torrent to join that strange Gaggar river which rises forty feet in a night, and sweeps away, resistless, to a still stranger fate--to total disappearance in the sands of the RajputÂna desert. A fate which must have impressed the Emperor with his keen appreciation of the poetry in life.

And here, in early March, these same flowering shrubs must have been budding, the butterflies must have been fluttering over the new russet shoots of the maiden-hair fern; and in sheltered spots Babar's favourite Judas trees must have been in bloom.

The temptation was too great! He called another halt, and set to work, not to drink, but to make a garden; while, not to lose time, he sent out scouts and spies to bring him intelligence as to his enemy's movements. Doubtless as he laid out his favourite Four-cornered Garden, he drank success to it, and dreamt happy, if confused, dreams of stone-watercourses and bright fountains after the KÂbul pattern; for he wrote and told MahÂm all about it. And he told her also that her son HumÂyon was bearing himself like a hero and had gone out with a light force to reconnoitre and disperse some wandering bands of marauders; but that he would be back again of course, for his eighteenth birthday on the 6th, when there was to be a great festival on the occasion of the first beard-cutting; such a festival as would have delighted the heart of the old grandmother IsÂn-daulet--on whom be peace!

And his thoughts waxed soft and young again with the remembrance of that shaving of his own--on his eighteenth birthday--on the upland meadow close to the Roof-of-the-World when there was but one real tent in his encampment, and his following had consisted of more than one and less than two hundred tatterdemalions. Times had changed; and yet he was defying Fate to the full as much as in those far away days; for against his twelve thousand troops all told, the whole strength of Northern India was gathering itself upon the plain above Delhi. That fateful plain where hundreds of thousands of men had already given up their lives in battles which for their time had decided the fate of HindustÂn.

What would that fate be now?

He was not without thought; but he was without fear. He meant to win. Meanwhile till the fateful moment of fight arrived there was the Garden! When that was fairly started, news came that the enemy had begun to advance slowly. It was time therefore to be on the move. But the broad, calm stream of the Jumna river was not to be allowed to slip past without being pressed into the service of pleasure, so, while the army held down the bank for two marches Babar sailed down in an awning-covered boat and explored many a side stream where the bottle-nosed alligators lay on the sand banks like logs, and great flocks of flamingoes, white in the distance, rose startled into flaming red clouds. And in the still evenings so cool, so pleasant, Babar, who had a genius for the comfortable, ordered aromatic confections to be served, and the party floated down stream in dreamy content, trailing their hands in the refreshing water and singing low-toned songs in a whisper, until, suddenly the boat touched a sandbank, and ShÂh-Hussan went over on his back, laid hold of KÂli-GokultÂsh, who was cutting a melon, and both fell into the water, the latter leaving the knife he held, stuck point down in the deck! And what is more, he refused to regain the boat, but continued swimming in his best gown and dress of honour till the shore was reached!

But there--a fine figure of a young man, handsomer in face than his father ever was, taller in height, yet without the latter's inexpressible charm--stood HumÂyon to join in the laughter for a few moments, but then to give news which ended fooling.

The advance party of SultÂn-IbrahÎm's army was within touch.

Babar was ready on the instant. He was out of the boat before it was moored, giving orders, short, sharp, stern.

The time for play was over.

CHAPTER II

"It is the time of roses;
Green are the young wheat fields;
The onward march of the foes is
Hid by a dark night's shield.

Over the sand hills, sun-dried,
Thirsting for blood of men,
An hundred thousand on one side,
On the other only ten!

What will the Dawn be showing,
Fate of the Parched Mouth?
Will the Cup-of-Death be flowing
With blood of North or South?"

All that night the Emperor sat in his tent working out his plan of attack. Even his brief connection with the red-cap Persian Army had given him an insight into a new science of war; for though it was brutal in the details of its methods, these methods had been learnt from the Turks; who in their turn had learnt them still farther West. And Babar was a born general. He had that firm touch on the pulse of his army by which he knew its moments of weakness, and when to seize and utilise the fierce throb of fight-fever, that comes at times to the blood of the most peaceful.

So the Emperor made his plan first; and then, being wise, bowed to the wisdom of his ancestors by calling together a general council of all who had experience and knowledge; but not, be it noted, until every part of his scheme was in order and ready. Not until right and left wings, and centre, had been apportioned; not until the gun carriages--seven hundred in all--had been laagered together with twisted hide ropes as with chains; not till the tale of hurdle breast-works and sandbags was complete.

Then he laid his plan before the Council; and naturally, it was approved. Mindful, also, of the prejudices of the rank and file, he performed the old Turkhi ceremony of the "vim" or full dress review, at which, as General, he had to estimate the total number of men at his command.

"The most revered father was out by a good thousand or two, to-day," said HumÂyon, who, arrayed in gorgeous trappings, looked a hero after a woman's heart. "He was wont to be more accurate."

Babar smiled gaily. "A thousand or two to the good is better than to the bad, when men's hearts fail them," he replied. "And some, see you, are in great terror and alarm. For sure, trepidation and fear are always unbecoming, since what God Almighty has decreed, men cannot alter. Still I blame them not greatly. Of a truth they have reason. They have come a four-months' journey from their own country; they have to engage an enemy over an hundred thousand strong; and worse than all, a strange enemy, understanding not even their language, poor souls!"

He was full of commiseration; for all that he abated not one jot or tittle of his plan, and his very firmness brought a measure of confidence even to the timid.

The little town of PÂniput reached, Babar took up his position there, the city and suburbs protecting his right. The left he entrenched, leaving the centre free for his laager of guns and breastworks, behind which stood the matchlock men. But at every bow-shot distance apart, a space was left through which flanking parties of cavalry might issue forth to charge. When all was ready the army began to feel more secure, and more than one general ventured the opinion that with a position so well fortified, the enemy would think twice about attacking.

But Babar shook his head. "Consider not," he said, "of our present enemy as of our past ones. Judge not of IbrahÎm-SultÂn, as of our Princes and KhÂns in the north who knew what they were about, who could discriminate when to advance, when to retreat. This young man has shown himself of no experience. Already I find him negligent in movement. He marches without order, he halts without plan, and will doubtless engage in battle without forethought: therefore we must be prepared."

It was an anxious time, that wait of six days for assault, but, despite the skirmishing attempts made by small parties of cavalry to induce the enemy to engage, nothing happened. A night attack carried out against Babar's own judgment, fared no better; but, mercifully, it ended without the loss of a single man, though one bold soldier--a boon companion of the Emperor's--was wounded.

That day at sunset there was a false alarm, and the army was drawn up ready for action; only, however, to be drawn off again and led back to camp. Again about midnight, the call-to-arms uprose, and for half-an-hour all was confusion and dismay, many of the troops being new to the work, and unaccustomed to such alarms.

"Lo! it will steady their nerves," said Babar lightly, with another gay smile, "and by God who made me! even mine are somewhat agee this night. Go! saddle me RakÛsh, slave! I am for a ride round for an hour or so."

A minute or two later he was on his favourite charger pacing his way silently over what would be the battle-field. And as he passed on, his horse's feet sinking in the thirsty sand, or echoing on the hard lime-stone soil, his mind was busy over the chances of the future. He meant to win; but many a man whose bones lay buried beneath that useless waste--useless for all save battle--had had as high a hope as his, as steady a determination.

How many thousands--nay! hundreds of thousands of hopes had not that vast sterile plain of PÂniput ended for ever? The common folk told him that on dark nights you could hear, rising from the ground, the voices of the dead men below, the clash of arms, the noise of fight. Mayhap it was so. Mayhap all the sounds of life went on, and on, and on. Tears, love, peace, war, life, death; all were the same in the end. All were part of that Great Whole which somehow, always managed to escape before you could grip at it.

He reined up his horse to listen; but only the familiar sound of the night came to his ear. The distant and persistent baying of a dog, the booming whirr of some night insect as it flew unseen, the faint rustle of a dawn wind over the sand.

It was time he were going back to work; back to face what the day might bring forth.

It brought what he awaited. When the light was such that one object could just be distinguished from another, patrols galloped in; the enemy were advancing in order of battle.

There was no confusion this time. "Use doth breed a habit in a man," was wisdom known to the Emperor. So, swiftly, each fell to his proper place, the flanking parties on the left ready with instructions, so soon as the enemy was in touch, to make a circuit and take them in the rear. Babar himself took his post on a slight eminence. He knew that with such overwhelming odds against him all depended on the handling of his men, so there must be no fine fighting for him. That was not his work.

His keen eyes watched the oncoming line of the enemy. It was bent to the right and the order came immediately--"Reinforcements from the reserve in support." Had he been a modern-day Staff-College man, the martial phrase could not have come more correctly!

And he noticed another thing. The enemy had not expected to find such strong defences. They were coming along almost at the double; yet the front rank hesitated, almost halted. This was the psychical moment. Intensify this hesitation, and the ranks behind would be thrown into confusion. "Right and Left divisions charge! And bid the flanking parties use all possible speed," came the swift order. In a few minutes both Left and Right were engaged and the wheeling horsemen could be seen coming round to the rear. Those overwhelming numbers told, however; the Left, too impetuous, wavered visibly; but Babar's keen eye saw it. To send support from the main body needed but a few words. So, attacked on right and left, with the flanking parties harassing the rear, the huge army was driven in on itself, and, huddled together, fell into confusion, unable either to advance or retreat. Then came the final order to the Centre "Engage!" and the fight was virtually won. After all, the artillery had little to do beyond a few discharges in front of the line to good purpose.

The sun had mounted spear-high when the onset of battle began, but by midday the enemy was completely broken and routed, and Babar's troops victorious and exulting. The arduous undertaking had been made easy, and a mighty army in the space of half-a-day laid in the dust. It seemed incredible. Babar remaining behind while he despatched parties of pursuit, rode, somewhat sad-eyed, over the battle-field. Here had been a fine stand! Five or six thousand dead bodies piled one upon another. Well! those had been brave men, dying for some cause, some point of honour. It was not until late in the afternoon that the cause, the point of honour, was made apparent. IbrahÎm, their King's dead body was found in their midst. One Tahir found it, cut off the head, and brought it into the Headquarters' tent.

"Slave! Why didst do that? He was at least King to those poor souls. Take it back," said Babar sternly, then went on with his work. HumÂyon, KwÂjah-KilÂn and several more of the best officers, with a light body of troops were despatched in utmost haste to occupy Agra, ere it had time to hear of the victory, and a smaller force to march without halt to Delhi and seize the Fort and treasuries. For Babar, with his small army, could not afford to give time for rally. This done he and his staff rode through the enemy's deserted lines, and visited the dead leaders' pavilions and accommodations.

"They had best bring the dead fool's body here," said Babar briefly, "and bid the men not touch the tent. Stay! set a watch on it till his friends come, as they will, likely, at nightfall."

It was a kindly thought, but in a way it was unwise; for the Afghans of Delhi, seeing their cause lost, kept alive their hatred of the northern invader by raising miserable IbrahÎm to martyr rank, and making pilgrimages to his grave.

But Babar was never clear-sighted in this world's ways; he did most things by impulse and it was Heaven's grace that such impulses generally led him aright.

Three days after this Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar was proclaimed Emperor of India in the mosque of Delhi, but the conqueror himself did not go into the city. He preferred to remain with his army encamped by the Kutb-MinÂr among the relics of dead Kings, feasting his eyes on the strange new beauty of carven stone and straight architrave. He would not have thought it possible to get so majestic a building without the use of the arch.

But the Kutb-MinÂr! Babar found himself looking at it at all hours of the day and night. It fascinated him. That marvellous shaft of stone so deftly modulated in tint, from its purplish red base, through pale rose-pink to vivid orange, as, spurning the world, it shoots into the blue sky, filled him with glad amaze. How and why and in what quality did it surpass all other buildings he had ever seen? Was it because, as folks said, its proportions were correct, or was there in it the secret of all true art? Babar knew his history well; he knew it was but three hundred years since, by order of Eibuk the slave, that column had been built by the Hindu architects who had to work with the material of their own desecrated and destroyed temples.

The temptation to revenge, to follow the destruction of religion by that of art, must have been great; but these men had been true artists. To them Self was nothing. They chiselled, they cut, they planned, perfection before their eyes. And they had touched close upon it; so their work remained, almost as it had left their hands, undimmed by Time, a record of Selflessness.

Babar could feel this vaguely, could spend half the night circumambulating the tombs of the Saints; could climb the dizzy stair at dusk to see Canopus flicker into light on the purpling heavens, and bring memories of the past with it. He could even come down again, full of kindly thoughts for the womenkind at KÂbul and write long letters to his paternal aunts telling them how splendid their grand nephew looked at the head of his troops, and how the army had taken to calling him, Babar, "Kalendar^[3]-King," because he gave away all his own chances of plunder.

"Nathless," he wrote, "I am keeping certain presents for my aunts and cousins, which shall be sent when opportunity offers."

But, almost before the ink of such effusions was dry, he would be out on an awning-covered boat slipping down the sliding moonlit river, trailing his hand in the water while his brain grew dizzy with wine or drugs.

For danger was past at present; he could afford to get drunk.

And he did. The journey down to Agra, where HumÂyon had done his part well, and had, in addition, quelled a Rajput rebel to the West, was more like a pleasure-party than a march of war. Babar enjoyed it immensely, and his eyes were everywhere, noting each strange bird and beast, and flower. He even began to write down his impressions concerning his new kingdom.

Perhaps because by now--the end of April--the hot weather had begun to set in, his verdict was distinctly unfavourable. The whole country, and especially the towns, were in his opinion extremely ugly. The latter had a uniform ugliness which was dispiriting. Then the gardens were poor and without wells. The excessive levelness of the plain, also, was monotonous.

On the other hand the fruits were distinctly worthy of notice, though how anyone could eat a jack-fruit was beyond comprehension. It smelt horribly, it looked like a sheep's stomach stuffed and made into a haggis, and its taste was sickly sweet.

He was disappointed also in the mango, and could only damn it with faint praise by saying that "such mangoes as are good are excellent."

The Gazetteer, however, had to be finished another time, for Agra was reached, bringing more urgent work. His first view of the place he meant to make his capital was disappointing in the extreme. It was the 10th of May and a dust storm was raging. None who have not endured one in Northern India can have any idea of the discomfort these electrical disturbances bring with them. The air, hot and heavy, seems to parch the skin; a shimmer, bringing dizziness to the brain, lies between the eyes and all things. Then, suddenly, a puff, as of smoke, drifts past. The sky reddens, lowers. A low, moaning sound as of coming wind is heard; and then, with a furious gust, it is there. For an instant or two, the trees bending, shivering in the storm, show like spectres; the next all things are blotted out by the dancing, raging, stinging sand-atoms which leap into the air and positively fray the skin as they sweep past, driven helter-skelter by the gale. Then a drop or two of dry rain falls, perhaps a little more, and after half-an-hour or so, the weary traveller who has sought shelter behind the first bush, or in the first hollow, can go on his way.

Such a storm was at its height when Babar entered the palace of his predecessor. But he bore it with singular composure. India had been to him for years a Land-of-Dreams, and he meant to stay there, despite dust. But his nobles spat the sand out of their mouths and reviled all things Indian, until HumÂyon in full durbar, pulled out the great Moghul diamond which had been given him voluntarily by the RÂjah's people of Gwalior in gratitude for saving their lives and property from his soldiery; for HumÂyon, so long as he served his father, followed in his footsteps of humanity.

He laid it on a cushion of orange satin embroidered in silver, and handed it to his father. Not so brilliant doubtless then as it is now when it shines as the Koh-inoor, it was still a marvel, and the northern nobles crowded round it in wondering delight. In value it must have been equal to half the daily expense of the whole world; enough therefore to pay for many discomforts and disagreeables.

But Babar's eyes scarce brightened.

"Tis more suitable to the young than to the old, sonling," he said affectionately. "Take it back, HumÂyon, and give it to thy wife--when thou hast one! Thy mother--may her life be happy--cares not for jewels: nor in truth do I. A rose is better than a ruby."

And that night when he had settled some affairs of state, and pardoned a few HindustÂni nobles who had resisted his advance, he set to work upon a rubai on that fancy; but he was in too didactic a mood for poetry. He felt that he had done everything that had been required of him; so he wrote in his diary instead--

"In consideration of my confidence in Divine Aid, the Most-High did not suffer the distress and hardship of my life to be thrown away; but defeated my most formidable enemy and made me conqueror of the noble country of HindustÂn" (this adjective was the result of some thought, for Babar was nothing if not truthful)--"This success I do not ascribe to my own strength, nor did this good fortune flow from my own efforts, but from the fountain of the favour and mercy of the Most-High."

After which he took an aromatic opiate confection and went to bed.

CHAPTER III

"Give me back one hour of KÂbul!
Let me see it ere I die.
Ah! my heart is sick and heavy;
Southern gales are not for me,
Though the hills are white with winter;
Place me there and set me free."

So in anticipation of Prince Charles at Versailles might Babar have said as he stood disconsolate on the banks of the river Jumna at Agra. He had started at dawn, full of high hope to find some place where he could lay out an elegant and well-planned pleasure-garden, and lo! the whole country side was so ugly and detestable, that for the moment he felt inclined to fall in with his courtiers' advice to leave India to stew in its own juice. There was no denying that as a country it had few pleasures to recommend it. To begin with, the people were not handsome. Then they had no idea of the charms of friendly society, of frankly mixing together, or of familiar intercourse. They had little comprehension of mind, no politeness of manner, no fellow feeling. Then they had no good horses, no good flesh, no grapes or musk melons, no ice or cold water, no good food or bread in their bazaars, no baths, or colleges, no candles--not even a candlestick!

Why! Even if their Emperors or chief nobility had occasion for a light, they had to send for dirty, filthy men called "Lighters," who held an iron tripod--smelling horribly and dripping rancid oil--close under their masters' noses!

Pah! It was disgusting!

For a wonder Babar was in a real evil temper. He could scarcely remember having felt so irritable before; except that once, when he had been trying to mount a fidgety Biluch mare and had struck her in his impatience with his half-closed fist and had thereby dislocated his thumb, which had troubled him for months; a just punishment for losing his temper with a dumb animal which knew no better.

Besides, that time, he had been half-drunk. But now?...

He felt inclined to cry. A state of mind in which this man of the West and North has the sympathy of thousands upon thousands of others; since there is scarce an Anglo-Indian who has not felt the same on hot, breathless May mornings when the dull eyes, seeking for some object on which to rest, find none, save a wide waste of sand, an indeterminate kikar tree, and an aggressive crow bent on showing you that he is as black inside as he is outside.

"The Most-Clement will forget the unloveliness when he stands once more in the Garden-of-Fidelity," remarked KwÂjah-KilÂn with intent; and Babar actually scowled at him. Yet he had not the heart to say in so many words that he had no intention of returning to that Garden-of-Fidelity. The very thought of its beauty made him feel sick; but there was duty as well as beauty to be considered.

And here again he has the sympathy of how many thousand western workers in HindustÂn? In truth Babar should be the patron saint of the Indian Services!

But all things were against him that year. The very heat was uncommonly oppressive; men dropped down as if they had been affected by the simoon wind, and died upon the spot. Then there was always dislike and hostility between the new comers and the people, and it was difficult to find grain, or provender. The roads, too, became impassable, and the villagers, out of hatred and spite, took to thieving and robbery. Yet in such a furnace how was it possible to send out proper protection to the districts?

Still Babar set his teeth and stuck to the saddle.

"What! thou also?" he said reproachfully to KwÂjah-KilÂn when in the privacy of the small Audience-Chamber, the latter urged the wisdom of doing as all the past conquerors of India had done; that is leaving so soon as the treasures had been divided. "And I counted thee my best friend."

"The Most-Clement knows I am that," protested the KwÂjah, stoutly. "That is why I urge immediate departure. The men lose heart. The BadakhshÂnis never engage for more than three months' fighting, and they have stood sixteen. They were promised leave--"

Babar broke in impatiently. "Then let them go! They are but mercenaries; not gentlemen of honour."

KwÂjah-KilÂn flushed up. "I have ever been gallant man, sire; but I see no use in stopping to die of ghastly ailments. There is a black death they call cholera which I like not."

So he went on again, and again.

And this was but the beginning of many similar objections, not only by the older Begs and men of experience. Had that been so, there would have been no harm in it. But what sense or propriety was there in all the world eternally repeating the same tale, in different words, to one who himself saw the facts with his own eyes, and had formed a cool and fixed resolution in regard to the business in which he was engaged? For Babar meant not only to conquer India, but to be its Emperor. He meant, with all the strength of his vivid vitality, to found a dynasty; he meant that his son and his son's sons should inherit what he had won for them. What propriety, therefore, was there in the whole army, down to the very dregs, giving their stupid and unformed opinion on a matter which they were not capable of judging? It was bad enough that men whom he had raised from low rank to the dignity of nobles in the expectation that if he had chosen to go through fire or water they would follow him backward and forward without hesitation, should dare to arraign his measures, and show determined opposition to his plans and opinions!

He did not stand their disloyalty for many days. A Council was called of all nobles of whatever rank, and they came to it sheepishly yet stubbornly, full of admiration still for their chief, yet determined not to yield.

It was a grilling afternoon. The Audience-Hall literally throbbed with heat, and more than one man loosened the collar at his throat and gasped as they waited for the Emperor. They had expected him to enter in state; but there he was on the platform of the throne, a plain man like themselves. Despite the heat, he wore chain-mail and helmet, and his hand was on his sword. Plain soldier, indeed; but there was that in his face and mien which marked him out apart, though, as he stood, he shivered visibly and as he began to speak his teeth chattered. For Babar was in grips with his first taste of Indian fever, and the ague-fit was on him sharply. But even as he stood there shivering and shaking, it passed, and with a wild rush the hot stage sent an uncanny light to his eyes, and made the words leap to his blue lips.

"Gentlemen and Soldiers! Empire cannot be achieved without the materials and means of war. Royalty and nobility exist by subjection, and subjects by obedience. After long years, after great hardships, measuring many a toilsome journey, many a danger, after exposing ourselves to battle and bloodshed, our formidable enemy has been routed. We have achieved the end; we are masters of India. And now, without visible cause, after having worn out our very lives in this emprise, are we to abandon what we have gained? A mighty enemy has been overcome, a rich kingdom is at our feet. Are we, having won the game, to retreat to KÂbul, like men who have lost and are discomfited? No! I say! A thousand times no!--"

The fever, swift to flare up, had fair hold of him now and his words seemed to whip like scorpions--

"Let no man who calls himself Babar's friend ever dare to moot the very idea again. But if there be one amongst you who cannot summon up courage to stay--let him go. I want him not."

There was silence, but no one stirred. They had not the courage for that at any rate.

So Babar went back to his bed, his blood pulsing in every vein, his head bursting, until the hot stage passed into the sweating stage, and he sat up weakly, half-laughing, half-crying.

"Lo! I felt like a God," he said. "A God with a pain everywhere. Did I say enough?"

"Too much for me, Most-Clement," quoth Ali-JÂn with a smile. "I stop till death."

And most of the hearers had come to the same decision. Only KwÂjah-KilÂn, obstinate as a mule, refused to remain. So, as he had a fairly numerous retinue, it was arranged that he should return to KÂbul in charge of the presents Babar was sending home.

And this, with the necessary thought it entailed lest any should be disappointed, proved a welcome distraction for the Emperor, who in good sooth, what with recurring attacks of fever and general malaise due to the climate, needed something to keep up his spirits in the long, weary, hot days and nights, during which military operations were perforce at a standstill. And Babar was in his element choosing this and that, apportioning presents with all the fervour of a child at Christmas. No doubt his heart ached the while he wrote instructions for a regular gala to be held in the Four-corner Garden, and he must have felt life flat indeed when KwÂjah-KilÂn had set out northwards. A certain interest of anger, however, re-awoke, when a friend returning from escort-duty to the party as far as Delhi, told him, with ill concealed smiles, that ere leaving the Fort there KwÂjah-KilÂn had scribbled on one of its walls--

"If safe and sound I cross the Sind,
Damned if I ever wish for Hind."

Babar's cheek flushed dark red when he heard this jeu d'esprit.

"As his Emperor still remains in HindustÂn," he said with hurt pomp, "there is evident impropriety, first in composing, and then in publishing such vituperative verse; and so I will tell him."

Which he did, by sending after him post haste an urgent messenger with his reply--

"Babar thanks God who gave him Sind and Ind,
Heat of the plains, chill of the mountain cold.
Yea! let the scorch of India bring to his mind
Bitter bite of frost in Ghazni of old."

The touch about Ghazni was, he thought, peculiarly happy, since he had appointed KwÂjah-KilÂn Governor of that province! And ere the excitement of this passage of wits had died down to dulness, another touch had come to set the Wheel-of-Life spinning once more at full speed. One of MahÂm's charming, cheery letters brought most unexpected news. After some years, on the very verge in fact of her woman's life, she was again expecting to be a mother. "And I pray it may be a boy," she wrote, "for though Hindal, the son whom my lord gave so generously to my empty arms, is very, very dear to me, my heart leaps at the very thought of one who shall be my lord's and mine also."

Babar was overwhelmed with delight and anxiety. Even by special runner it took weeks for a letter to reach KÂbul, so MahÂm, he knew, must be near her time ere his warnings, his happy hopes, his loving affection could reach her. But he wrote off in hot haste, begging her to rely on Dearest-One for all things, entreating her to behave in all ways as if he were at hand. "And thou knowest, dear heart," he said, "what I would be like were I in KÂbul now. Verily, my moon, who hast so often chidden me for fretting wide-eyed the livelong night because HumÂyon or Gulbadan or one of the others had a stomach-ache, I should be past bearing. But when I think of what has happened and what might happen, I would mount RakÛsh and ride KÂbul-wards, were it not for some small good sense, and these pitiful folk who would deem me traitor to myself.

"Lo, we will call him FarÛk, wife, since distance separates us."

After this he set to work upon his abandoned plan of a pleasure garden. Beggars, he said to Ali-JÂn, must not be choosers. If there was no better spot than the plain over the river, he must e'en make the best of it. And the first thing to do was to sink a well; the next to plant roses and narcissus in corresponding beds.

The third thing was to hold a drinking party upon the spot close to the river, and make the place as pretty as it could be made with coloured lights and illuminations, garlands of flowers and palms cut off wholesale and planted in the ground. It seemed a pity to destroy the trees; but that was HindustÂn fashion. Everything for show at the moment; no thought for the future. Still it was well done, and the Indian jugglers performed some fine feats.

The rains had by this time set in and the air was singularly delightful, though rather moist and damp. It was, for instance, impossible to shoot with the KÂbul bow which is pieced with glue; and everything, coats-of-mail, clothes, furniture, became mildewed. Even books--and Babar was avid concerning books--suffered, and the flat mud roofs leaked. Still, life was more enjoyable than it had been, and jolly Ali-JÂn when in his cups, said gravely--

"The chief excellency of India is that it is large, and that it holds plenty of gold and silver."

They were a fairly merry party, these northerners in the Fort at Agra; merry, good-natured, insouciant, and they began to win golden opinions for themselves amongst the people, thanks to the Emperor's strict discipline. Here were no robbers, but gallant men ready to drink, or love, and pay for both like honest folk.

And their leader was a friendly soul, who sent assurances of safety and protection to all who voluntarily entered into his service. Then he was a fine fellow to look at, with kindly eyes and a ready smile; active, vivacious. Absolutely unlike, therefore, the solid, solemn, stony-eyed, lazy voluptuary which for hundreds of years had been India's conception of a king. Here, honours and rewards were for ever being bestowed, and the small native Princes invariably received back their lands, after they had made their obeisance. So whatever the northern conqueror's object might be, it was clearly not gold.

That in itself was a relief.

Thus the long months sped on, bringing, to one man at least, continued effort. Fever had laid hold of Babar; without his dear women-kind he felt lost and he had had to send his son and his best friend out with small forces to settle the country. Still he held on dutifully, giving feasts to his people, despite the rain which more than once drenched them through to the skin. As well it might, seeing that it rained thirteen times on one feast day! But in early October a special messenger arrived from KÂbul with the joyful news of little FarÛk's birth. And the same post brought a budget of letters written before the event, by MahÂm and by the paternal aunts and cousins to the fifth degree, describing the marvellous festival which had been held according to order in the Four-corner Garden. Everything had been done exactly as His Majesty had directed. Every Begum had had her own tent and screen set up with all due luxury in the garden; it had been lit and beautifully illuminated at night and all the best singers and dancers of KÂbul had been assembled to give music. Never had been such a merry making! Never such a circle of happy faces and sparkling jewels in the sunshine; for the day had been brilliantly fine.

"Then," wrote MahÂm, who was out and away the best scribe, "we made KwÂjah-KilÂn read out the instructions given him so that we might hear and rejoice in our lord's thought for us. So he read in a sonorous tone not so sweet as my lord's, but passable--'To each Begum is to be delivered as follows: one special dancing-girl of the dancing girls of SultÂn-IbrahÎm, with one gold plate full of jewels, ruby, and pearl, cornelian and diamonds, emerald and turquoise, topaz and cat's eyes, besides two small mother-of-pearl trays full of golden coins. Two brazen trays shall be piled with silver coins and three with rich stuffs of sorts, so that there be nine in each. Another dancing-girl, a plate of jewels, and one each of gold and silver coins, must be presented to each of my elder relations. And have a care that each and all get the very dancing-girl and the very plates of jewels that I have chosen myself for them. So let jewels, and gold coins, and silver coins, be presented to all the ladies and kinsmen and foster-brethren, while one silver coin is to be given (as an incentive to emulation) to every man, woman and child in KÂbul, to make them remember me, and pray for me.'

"And even so, my lord, 'twas done, though it needed not money to make KÂbul remember its beloved King During those three happy days, every soul was uplifted with pride, and recited the first chapter of the Blessed-Book for the benediction and prosperity of his Majesty, as they joyfully made the prostration of thanks for his victories. But how can this dust-like one convey her thanks for the special gifts so graciously given in private to me and others. Let the others speak for themselves. I sit with a heart full of gratitude before that heaped-up tray, knowing not where to set my first stone of thanks. For, lo! the superstructure will be so heavy that it must have good foundation. Lo! there be two things amid the many quaint conceits of HindustÂn, the many rare and beautiful gifts, on which I will rest my load of loving gratitude. First--(or is it second? I know not) the dearest little dresses fashioned after the manner of Indian princelings for your son, so soon to be born. Believe me, my lord, I wept happy tears over them. And yet methinks the book in my lord's own hand--it hath not lost its cunning--giving me the verses he hath composed during the last year is sweeter, more dear. The father comes, see you, before the child. Hindal is beside himself with delight at the wooden toys; so neat, so quaint, so clever! Truly they must be good workmen in HindustÂn. So slight they are, yet do they please the little ones more than gold. And Gulbadan--truly she is a rosebud now--hugs her doll and hath taught it already to make the respectful salutation to Majesty she herself hath lately learnt. So we are all smiles. Nay! it was more than smiles when poor, dear, fat Astonishing Beauty Princess sat, the tears streaming down her face, nodding her head over the recitations, while the tassel of the head-ornament my lord sent her, dangled over her nose like a yak's tail on a camel!

"And the trick on old AsÂs came off beautifully, even as my lord arranged it. For when the faithful thing asked KwÂjah-KilÂn, 'What has my lord sent me?' he replied with truth, 'One gold coin.' So the old man was amazed, and disappointed, and fretted about it and we said nothing. So then at last, as my lord had commanded, the old man was blindfolded and he was led into our apartments to receive his gift. A hole had been bored (as ordered) in the gold coin--(it weighed nigh six pounds) and a string put to it. So it was hung round his neck. My lord should have seen him! He was quite helpless with surprise at its weight, and delighted, and very, very happy. He took it in both hands, and wondered over it and said, 'No one shall get it--no one! No one!' Then we all laughed too and gave him more money, so he was fine and pleased.

"Thus all went well, save for the absence of my lord--"

Babar read so far, stopping at times for a laugh, for a pause of sheer delight. Now he let slip the letter and sat awhile staring out at the ugliness, the fremdness of India.

What would he not have given to be there? To see them all! To see the blaze of July blossom, to hear the water trickling through the stone runnels, to watch the white flocks of clouds on the vast meadows of sapphire overhead ...

The thought was too much for him. His eyes filled with tears; then he brushed them aside with the order:

"Slave! A cup of wine!"

That night over the water, where strange new buildings were fast rising and where new-planted flowers and shrubs were thriving so fast in the kindly rains that already the townspeople, marvelling at the growing beauty, called the place KÂbul, the revels were fast and furious, and Babar, before he got miserably drunk, gained loud applause for a song he had just translated from the Hindi. It ran as follows:

"Oh! Watchman of night, awake!
For the dawning is nigh;
The black bees hum as their way they take
Through the lightening sky.
Oh! far away in the jasmine bowers,
The robbers will rifle the honey-flowers.
Watchman! Awake! Awake!

Oh, watch of the night, arise!
For the windows unclose;
A blue gown hung with pearl-fringing lies
On a bosom of rose.
Oh! close at hand in the old man's tower
The lovers will wanton a happy hour.
Watchman! Arise! Arise!

Oh, rouse thee, watchman, rouse!
Lo! the rain of night is past!
Her veil is dank, 'neath her level brows
The heavy tears fall fast.
Oh, far away lies her lovers part
And close at hand lies her broken heart.
Oh! Watchman, rouse thee, rouse!"

"Tis a rare song," hiccupped JÂn-Ali, "but devil take me if I can tell what it means."

"Tis the tale of a wanton," quoth TÂrdi-Beg gravely, "and see you, she wore a blue gown fringed with pearl."

Babar looked at them both with irritation.

"Before the Lord!" he said almost sharply, "I know not which is best; understanding, or the lack of it."

Then he burst into a roar of laughter.

"They be merry devils over in KÂbul," quoth a surly-faced cook in the royal kitchen. "Mayhap they may laugh the wrong side of their mouths ere long."

CHAPTER IV

Fate knocked at the Door of Death,
My soul in her hollow hand.
Angels opened it. Lo! God saith,
To whom gave He this command?
Take him back to the Gates of Life
And set his feet in the way
So he and his children and his wife
Will praise my mercy alway.

Babar.

The oncoming of cooler weather brought renewed activity once more. So far Agra was almost the southern limit of Babar's Empire. Below it, and to east and west, the Pagans--as these northern Mahomedans called the Hindus collectively--still held undisturbed sway. In truth they had never been touched by invasion from the north; the marauders had generally turned tail and fled before the scorch of the hot weather ere they had time to reach and harry so far south. And of all the Pagans the one most to be feared was RÂna Sanka, the RÂjput chief of Udaipur. Sooner or later Babar knew there must be a trial of strength between them; but he meant to put it off as long as he could. Meanwhile there were menaces to Agra closer at hand; notably the strong fort of BiÂna which had lately gone over to the RÂjput side. That was not to be endured, and HumÂyon, who was an excellent second-in-command, set out to reduce the renegades to order, Babar meanwhile remaining in Agra and making preparations for the big fight that was bound to come.

One of these was the casting of a big siege cannon for the purpose of battering BiÂna, which was sure to be recalcitrant to the last. The task was entrusted to Master-gunsmith Ali-Kool, than whom no better craftsman lived in all Asia. He had learnt his art away in the far West, and called himself ever Ali-Kool of Turkey. A small, spare bit of a man with sparse whiskers and a faint pitting of small-pox--or gun-powder--over a puffy face. But an excellent artificer, staking his reputation on a big gun that should throw a fifty-pound shot over four miles! It was a big order, and Babar's imagination caught fire. He was down at the furnaces every day watching the preparations. Eight furnaces in a circle, centring the huge clay mould. But it was at night that he loved to see the roaring flames with the naked, black figures of the stokers dancing about them, and the lurid glow of the half-molten metal lighting up the very heavens above. The heat was intense. None of his courtiers could stand it for long, but he, his eyes keen with curiosity, doffed raiment and went about naked as he was born, save for a waist-cloth.

"The Most-Clement prepares himself for Paradise," remarked the most caustic wit of the party; and Babar laughed gaily. "I prefer Hell in time rather than in eternity, friend," he replied; and as usual began an extempore versicle on the idea.

"Will it be at dawn to-morrow, master?" he asked of Ali-Kool late one evening.

"At dawn to-morrow," replied the master-gunsmith boastfully, "the largest cannon in Asia will be found in the armoury of Babar PadishÂh!"

He was nearly beside himself with excitement; but at dawn next day he stood, pale to ashen-greyness, still as a stone.

Everything was ready. It only needed the word to open the sluices and let the molten metal run into the mould. And that word was the name the gun was to bear in the future.

"Now! Most-Clement!" palpitated Ali-Kool.

"Deg GhÂzi!" came Babar's full voice; the which being interpreted means Holy-Victorious-Pot. A yell of clamouring voices, a clash of implements half-drowned the christening.

Then like streaks of light the molten metal crept with slow swiftness, gathering speed as it flowed, bringing with it fierce, almost unbearable heat. The mould filled--half-full--three-quarters--

And then? Then the metal ceased to run. There was no more in the furnaces...!

Ali-Kool was like one demented.

"Hold the man," shouted Babar, whose eyes were ever alert for other people as well as himself, "or he will do himself a mischief!"

And indeed it was time! Poor Ali-Kool was on the edge of the mould as if about to throw himself into the molten metal, waving his arms about wildly, and calling High Heaven to witness that it ought not, it could not, have occurred. And Babar's kindly touch on his shoulder, his kindly words--"Nay, Master-jee, such things do happen at times to the best of us," only brought grief and shame to strengthen anger. He was disgraced--he had disgraced the Emperor ...

"Not one whit!" laughed Babar. "And as for thee--here! Slaves! Bring quick a robe of honour--the best! and here, where the misadventure--they are sent by God, remember, O Ali-Kool!--occurred will I invest thee and make thee noble!"

It was a fine group. The kingly figure so full of human sympathy, the broken-hearted artificer smiling perforce a watery smile, the crowding workmen, the insouciant courtiers, both full of approval. And tuning all to the perfect harmony of true Life, the appeal to that which lies beyond chance and misadventure.

"Lo! His Majesty hath the touch of consolation to perfection," said TÂrdi-Beg.

"Yea!" assented Ali-JÂn, "but I would he had as fine a sense of danger. Dost know that he hath put on four HindustÂni cooks to his Royal Kitchen, because forsooth, he hath never tasted the dishes of this accursed country and must needs try them?"

"Aye!" said Mahomed Bakshi, who was Superintendent-of-the-Household, "and what is worse, they be the Royal cooks of the late King! Heard you ever such fool-hardiness? Lo! I have put on two new tasters; but what is that? These idolaters have strange ways and strange poisons."

"And strange dishes!" put in TÂrdi-Beg. "Lo! I eat none at the Emperor's supper parties."

"Nor I," chorused several.

"Gentlemen!" said Mahomed Bakshi. "You speak without thought for the interior of a kitchen. Poison may go into any pot. 'Twere better to eat nothing. Then would my labours be less."

"Thy percentages also," laughed a recognised wit. "Heed him not, gentlemen. 'Tis but his way of keeping our stomachs empty, so that more profit fills his pocket."

So the subject was dismissed with a joke; though in truth it was far from being one. For Babar's somewhat reckless appointment of these four HindustÂni cooks, had set in train one of those fine-drawn female plots to poison which seem inseparable from the seclusion of women. It is as if the concentrated, confined vitality, denied outlet in natural ways, seeks expression in pure venom. The late SultÂn-IbrahÎm's mother lived, by Babar's generosity, in comparative State. He had assigned lands to her, treated her with the utmost respect, and when he addressed her, did so as "mother." But the mere chance of having a HindustÂni cook in the royal kitchen was too much for gratitude.

The result Babar wrote to MahÂm when, considerably the worse for the incident, he was still living on water-lily flowers brayed in milk.

"The ill-fated lady, having heard of my appointment of cooks, delivered no less than a quarter of an ounce of poison to a female slave and sent it to Ahmed, her taster, wrapped up in a folded paper. He, seducing the man by promise of vast lands, handed it to one of the cooks, desiring him by some means or another to throw it into my food. The man did not throw it into the pot, because I had strictly enjoined my tasters ever to watch the HindustÂnis; fortunately, therefore, he only threw it into the tray. In this fashion. When they were dishing the meat, my graceless tasters must have been inattentive, for he managed to throw about one-half of the poison on a plate which held some thin slices of bread. These he covered with meat fried in butter. The better half in his haste he spilt in the fireplace.

"It was fried hare. I am very fond of hare, so I ate a good deal and also fried carrot. I was not, however, sensible of any disagreeable taste. But while I was eating some smoked-dried meat I felt nausea. Now the day before while eating this smoke-dried flesh I had detected an unpleasant taste in a part of it. I therefore ascribed my nausea to that incident. But it was not so. I was very ill. Now I have never been ill in that way even after drinking wine. Suspicion therefore crossed my mind immediately. I desired the cooks to be taken into custody, and directed the rest of the meat to be given to a dog, and that it be shut up. The dog became sick, his belly swelled, he could not be induced to rise until noon next day when he rose and recovered. Two young menials in the kitchen who had partaken of the food also suffered. One indeed, was extremely ill, but in the end both escaped.

"And so did I.

"Next morning I held a court, and the miscreants being questioned, detailed the whole circumstances of the plot in all its particulars. The master-taster was ordered to be cut in pieces; the cook flayed alive; the female slave to be shot by a matchlock. The ill-fated lady I condemned to be thrown into custody for life: one day, pursued by her guilt she will meet with due retribution in penitence.

"Since then I have lived chiefly on antidotes and lily-flowers, and thanks be to God! there are now no remains of illness. But I did not fully comprehend before how sweet a thing life is. As the poet says:

"'He who comes to the Gate of Death knows the value of Life.' Truly when this awful occurrence passes before my memory, I feel myself involuntarily turn faint; but having overcome my repugnance even to think of it, I write, so that no undue alarm or uneasiness might find its way to you. God has, indeed, given me a new life. Other days await me, and how can my tongue express my gratitude. The ill-fated lady's grandson IbrahÎm had previously been guarded with the greatest respect and delicacy; but when an attempt of so heinous a nature was discovered to have been made by the family, I do not think it prudent to have a son of the late King in this country. So I am sending him to my son Kamran, away from HindustÂn. I am now quite recovered."

This was true, but the nervous shock remained. Babar had been close to death in its most sordid form. To die like a poisoned rat was to him, with his breezy, open-hearted love of frankness in all things, a horrible fate. His repugnance even to think of it was real; but he hovered between two methods of forgetfulness--the drowning of thought in the wine-cup, and the anodyne of repentance and forgiveness. Deep down in his heart, he felt himself foresworn in not having kept to his promise of reform when he was forty; but he could not make up his mind to take the plunge and give up wine. It was, he told himself, the only comfort in that cursed country, the one thing that made life possible. With its help, even fever and ague were bearable.

It was, therefore, in the midst of drinking bouts, that news came which roused him to other activities. It had never needed much to change the habitual toper into a clear-sighted man of arms. And never, in all his life, had news of such significance brought Babar up with a round turn.

RÂna Sanka of Udaipur was on the move. The quarrel could no longer be put off. The fight for final supremacy was nigh at hand.

The news came when the Christmas rain was just over, and Babar, exhilarated as he always was by the freshened verdure of trees, the sudden start into growth of the wide wheat fields, was heightening his enjoyment by a feast over the river in "KÂbul," which day by day under his fostering care, showed more and more likeness to the sponsor country. HumÂyon was back from a successful expedition and was of the party; no kill-joy, his father thought fondly, though he drank no wine; not from scruples but from lack of liking.

It was, of course, a wonderfully innocent and guileless party. No coarse jokes, no scurvy tricks. But the most of them were incontestably drunk, and even Babar's strong head was fast becoming fuddled when the special messenger arrived. Canopus was shining away like a moon in the South, and Babar looked at it gravely, yet truculently.

"Gentlemen!" he said solemnly, and it was all he could do not to hiccup. "Draw your s-s-words, gentlemen. We have to fight a--a--dam-ned--p-pagan--to--to-morrow. Meanwhile I'll sing you a song:

"Account as wind or dust
The world's pleasures and pain.
Be not raised up or crushed
By its good or its bane.

As a mere throw of dice
Is the life of a man.
Fortune goes in a trice,
Just a flash in the pan.

Take then a cup of wine,
Drink it down to the dregs,
And don't grumble or whine,
'Tis but the fool who begs."

His voice failed him when he had got so far. He sat solemn-drunk gazing at Canopus, wondering how many years ago it was since he had first seen it from the top of the Pass.

How clear, how cold the night-air had been. How the star had sparkled! How the glad life in him had answered to the thrill of that distant, heaven-sent, throbbing light ...

Well! The night was as clear, as cold now. The stars?--how they sparkled and shone, all colours like jewels ...

Yes! all things were the same except himself ...

"Gentlemen!" he said suddenly, rising unsteadily to his feet, "I give you leave. I--I go to my bed."

But he was up before dawn next day to see Ali-Kool put the final touches to the great gun he had been making. For, after all, the casting had been a success, needing only a little alteration to make it perfect. In the afternoon it was tested, and threw one-thousand-six-hundred good paces, which was not so bad.

And all Agra was in a turmoil of preparation for the coming march; but there was so much to be done that a few days passed before Babar, at the head of all his available troops, moved out in battle array to occupy the rising ground at Sikri, where the huge tank promised abundance of water. He had been in a fever of impatience to get there, lest the Pagans, also seeing its many advantages as a camping ground, might forestall him. But the 17th of February found him preparing for the biggest battle of his life in the very place where his grandson Akbar was, in after years, to build his Town-of-Victory.

It was just a year since Babar had entered India. Now he was faced by the strongest man in it, and the fight must be to the bitter end.

Yet he could not resist the seduction of an aromatic comfit before he threw himself, outwearied, on his camp bed. But he said his prayers before he took it, and tried to forget that long-made promise that forty should see him sober.

CHAPTER V

"Like to a thunder cloud that rears itself
In towering mass across the peaceful sky,
Equal in threat, until the vivid snake
Of lightning, shot--God knows from East or West!
Flashes fierce war between the blended foes,
So stood those warriors, each to each a twin
In honour, courage, indivisible."

The camp at Sikri looked West. With the ridge of red rock behind it, the wide tank to the left of it, nothing more could be desired in position. And Babar had fortified it, in addition, after his usual custom. The swivel guns, united every fifteen feet by heavy chains and backed by a deep ditch, gave security to the front, while tripods of wood similarly linked, protected the right flank. Mustapha the Ottoman had done signal service in disposing the remaining artillery according to the Turkish fashion. An exceedingly active, intelligent, and skilful gunner was Mustapha; but unfortunately Master-gunner Ali-Kool and he were at deadly enmity; so they had to be kept apart. Babar, a trifle weary, kept them so with consummate tact. He had, so to speak, lived on diplomacy for the last year. He had pursued his policy of magnanimity without one swerve, and little by little the tide of popularity had set his way.

One by one insurgent chiefs had sent in their submission, so that in this camp at Sikri were many who but a year before had been sworn foes to the Northmen.

So far he had succeeded. Alone, unaided--at any rate in thought--he had won half HindustÂn, not so much by the sword as by statesmanship.

And yet on the 24th February as he stood watching the KhorasÂn pioneers and spademen throwing up further earthworks, he felt for the first time in his life forlorn. Perhaps the darkness of the day depressed him. It was late afternoon, and for days rain had been brewing; the heavy rain which sometimes falls in March to bring bumper crops to the wide fields.

Purple clouds hung like a pall under the sky and brought a weird, vivid glint as of steel to the stretches of green wheat. Far away on the south-western horizon this glint shimmered into a broad band of light that told where, before long, the hidden sun must set.

There, in that light, the spear-points of the advancing foe would glisten. Did they glisten now? Or was that only the shimmer of countless millions of wheat blades going forth to war against starvation?

The fanciful idea came to Babar's brain, as such quaint thoughts did come often, while he was looking over the wide, ominous plains, recognising, also, that it was not an encouraging landscape to the ordinary eye.

But nothing was encouraging. The long waiting had told upon the temper of his troops, it had given time for desertions. Then a trifling defeat to a skirmishing party had intensified the growing alarm; a well-deserved defeat, due to gross lack of judgment on the commander's part; but the rank and file could not be expected to give weight to arguments. A disaster spelt disaster to them, nothing more nor less, especially if they were afraid ...

And they were afraid.

Small blame to them! Babar himself did not view his adversary with equanimity. He admitted it. For RÂna Sanka of Udaipur was true man; a fitting representative of RÂjput valour. There was no need to say more. Aye! true man, though he lacked an eye, lost in a broil with his brother, an arm lost in pitched battle, and was crippled in one leg broken by a cannonball! True man, undoubtedly, though but a fragment of a warrior scarred by eighty lance and sword wounds! Babar thought of his own good luck in many a battle, almost with regret. Aye! Pagan, RÂna Sanka might be--it was best anyhow to call him so to the troops--but he was worthy foe for all that, and he could bring two-hundred-thousand horsemen into the field, if need be.

Two-hundred-thousand!

No wonder the troops were timorous; no wonder their nerve was going fast. Babar, tall, lean, with clear, anxious eyes thanked God for the distraction which had come to the camp but yesterday. About five hundred persons attendant on a grandson of his dead uncle of KhorasÂn had arrived in the environs of the camp, and with quick insight Babar had seized the occasion to send out a numerous escort to hide the smallness of the newly-arrived force, which thereinafter figured in the order book as "important re-inforcement from KÂbul"; since by fair means or foul, the men's courage must be kept up.

And the butler who had been sent to KÂbul for wine had returned too with fifteen camel-loads of choice Ghazni!

But this was no time for drunkenness, though a goblet or two might be--must be--permissible; for of one thing there was no doubt. Never in all his life had Babar stood nearer to habitual toping. He had had a hard time of it; he had been cut off from the domestic life which had ever been his safeguard, he had had to fight fever and poison. Briefly he was overwrought. That was noticeable in the nervous restlessness of his hand upon his sword hilt as he strode about his camp moodily watchful for every sign of discontent or depression. And there were many. It seemed almost as if no one could utter a manly word, or give a courageous opinion. Save his own son HumÂyon, his son-in-law MÂhdi (husband to the little Ma'asuma to whom Babar had given her mother's name) and one general, not a soul spoke bravely as became men of honour and firmness. Not one.

Going his rounds that evening a new factor for discouragement cropped up. He was passing the tents of some of his best KÂbul troops, when a voice bombastic, prophetic, met his ear.

"Lo! the stars cannot lie!" it said; "and Mars being in the ascendant to the West, it follows of a certainty that any force coming from the East will suffer disastrous defeat. Be warned, oh! warriors! The heavens cannot lie!"

Before the last words had well ended, Babar stood before the speaker literally blazing with wrath and recognising in him Mahomed Shereef, a well-known KÂbul astrologer. He was seated before a chart of the stars, and swayed backwards and forwards rhythmically, whilst before him, filling the close tent with scented smoke, burnt a brazier. Its blue salt-fed flame flared on the fearful faces of a dozen or more soldiers.

"God send thee to hell!" burst out Babar. "How camest thou hither, infamous fool?--Why didst not stay in KÂbul?"

The man--he had a pompous, self-satisfied face--was shrewd. He knew his power, and held his own.

"I came hither, Most-Clement, with the wine camels, being minded to give the benefit of my science to His Majesty and His Majesty's soldiers."

"Science!" echoed Babar hotly; "thou meanest lies."

"The stars cannot lie," began the soothsayer, but Babar in a perfect passion of wrath had him by the throat.

"Here! guards! seize this rascally fellow," he cried, then hesitated. "No!" he went on, loosing his hold and flinging the man from him in contempt. "Let him go! Punishment would but invite credence. But mark my words, villainous soothsayer! if any more be heard of this opposition of Mars--" He paused again and this time burst into bitter laughter. "No! Let these men sup their fill of horrors if they wish it--but they shall hear me first."

He turned to his soldiers and stretched out his right hand in appeal.

"Men! I have led you all these years. Have I led you into more danger than brave men dare face? Aye, once! for thou, O Shumshir--" his quick eye had seized on an old veteran--"wert with me even then! Aye! once at Samarkand when Babar got the worst beating of his life--when Babar fled like a rat to his hole, starved for six months and escaped with bare life--but--but not with honour--No! with dishonour!" His voice had risen and almost broke over the last word from sheer stress of emotion. "And wherefore was I beaten?" he went on more calmly; "because I fought on star-craft, because the stars lied to me. They said I would win and I was beat! So! set the snivelling sayings of that silly worm against the experience of Babar, your leader, if you will. But you will not! You will leave jugglery and devils'-craft to your foes the Pagans; for the trust of the true Moslem is in the Most High God--Allah-hu-Akbar!"

He gave the cry of faith from full lungs and it was echoed by the men. For the time he had scotched fear; but only for a time. The astrologer was at worst a diversion in the long weariness of waiting, and round the camp fires the soldiers talked of nothing else.

"Lo! he is good prophet," said one; "he told my wife's sister her son would die and he did."

"And 'tis all well enough to call it devils'-craft," put in another, "but who made the stars, save God?"

"And to what use were they made?" asked a third argumentatively, "save to guide men aright? There is no other good in them."

This proposition was so palpably true to the knowledge of those days that even Babar himself had no weapon against the argument. Nor could any deny that Mars was in the ascendant in the West!

The Emperor as he sat wearied out with anger and irritation could see it for himself shining red; steadily, placidly red.

"Oh! for God's sake, gentlemen!" he said captiously when he had exhausted every argument he could think of to allay the evident alarm even of his highest nobles, "let us leave it hanging in the heavens and get to Paradise ourselves. Cup-bearer! the new Ghazni wine. That may help us to forget foolery. Mayhap it would have been better to have brained the knave on the spot--but a man can but do his best."

He drained his cup to the lees, held it out for more, and called for a song.

"Thank God for wine!" he muttered under his breath as he felt the fumes rising to his brain.

Never had merriment been more fast and furious; never had Babar drunk more recklessly.

Song after song rent the night air, mingled with outcries and loud laughter; but there was sufficient decorum left for comparative silence when the Emperor himself lifted up his voice in "The Buss"; a favourite TurkhomÂn ditty. It had rather a quaint, plaintive tune, and a catching refrain which was duly bellowed by the others.

"He (his moustache twirled) called to her aloud,
'Give me a buss, lass! Lo! your lips are red.'
She (her bright hair curled) spoke him back full proud,
'Give me a gold piece, merry sir,' she said.

'Merry sir,' she said, etc.

'Lass! I would give thee golden fee galore,
But my purse, alas! is in wallet tan
Of the saddle bag my swift camel bore,
And, see you, my dear, that's still at KaruwÂn,

Still at KaruwÂn,' etc.

'Lad! I would buss you, were my lips but free,
Only, as you see, they won't ope a span,
Mother locked my teeth! Mother keeps the key,
Mother (like thy camel) 's still at KaruwÂn,

Still at KaruwÂn.

Mother (like thy camel) 's still at KaruwÂn.'"

The endless refrain went on and on sillily, mingled with the twanging of the cithÂras and boisterous laughter.

It was a roaring night, and Babar, for once blind-drunk, fell asleep at last among his cushions. The others had been carried back to their several tents, so, when he roused to the crow of a cock he was alone save for drowsy servants.

But half-sober, he sat up and listened gravely.

"Oh, Cock!" he quoted with a hiccup. "Oh, Cock...!

"Cock, flutter not thy wings,
It is not nearly day.
Why with shrill utterings
Drivest thou sleep away?
Lo! in the Land of Nod,
To perfect peace I'd come.
Oh, Cock! there is a God
Will surely strike thee dumb,
Surely--strike thee--dumb--"

He stood up, stretched with a lurch, passed unsteadily to the doorway of the tent, raised the curtain, and looked out.

Far in the east a great drift of spent rose-leaf clouds lay softly between the lightening sky and the lightening earth.

And see! already their curled petals were catching the underglow of the hidden sun.

Babar stood still and held his breath hard, sobered in every fibre of his being, yet elate with something new that fled to heart and brain like molten fire.

A new day! A new day! A new day!

The words surged, not through him only, they echoed to the very sky. It is not given to all, this sudden exaltation, this sudden absorption of the self into something beyond self, and Babar, the fumes of last night's wine still hanging between him and clear thought, could only realise that something had come to him; that something was irrevocably settled for ever.

"My charger, slave!" he said hoarsely. "It--it is time I went my rounds."

It stood ready at the door; he mounted, and, after his wont, rode off alone.

The fresh cool air of a North-Indian winter dawn bit softly at his cheek and brought him knowledge of his own conversion.

Wherefore he could not tell, but he was going to drink no more. He had done with wine, for ever. All these last four or five years since he was forty, he had been cheating himself--aye! and his God too,--with lies. Now there was to be truth.

There was no special reason for this resolution; it was, indeed, hardly a resolution of his own. It had come to him with those dawn-red, rose-leaf clouds flung from some Garden of Paradise. Wherefore it had come, he could not say. He had often seen dawn-clouds before; he had often--ah! how often--made resolutions. These were different. This resolution was not his.

"Bid a general parade be commanded at the second watch," he said on his return from his survey of the posts; then passed into his office tents, and began his daily work of supervision.

"'Twill be to harangue us all," grumbled a fine-weather soldier sullenly, "but, King or no King, I fight not with one who wars against the fiat of the stars."

"Nor I!" answered another; and though few were so outspoken, a certain dour opposition, sat on almost every face in the great concourse of men who, in the full glare of the noonday sun, massed themselves round the great Audience-Tent in obedience to their leader's command.

He came out from the shadow of the tent, clad in his loose white tunic, jewelless, swordless, a simple man in the prime of life; a man with a kindly, human face, but with a clear eye that seemed to see right to the heart of things. He held a crystal cup in his right hand, full to the brim with red wine.

"Noblemen! Gentlemen! and Soldiers!" rang out the strong mellow voice. "All who sit down to the Feast of Life, must end by drinking the Cup of Death. Therefore it behooves all to be ready for that last Draught by repenting him of the evil he has done. Lo! I repent me of my sin. I repent me of my broken promise. Now! with the salvation of a righteous death before me, I cast away my great temptation!"

As he spoke, the crystal cup he held flew from his hand and the red wine scattered from it as it fell shivered to atoms, soaked into the dry sand leaving a stain as of blood.

"Lo! I repent," he repeated, his face afire; "who follows me?"

"I do, sire!" said one AsÂs, the heaviest drinker in the camp, and Babar turned on him a face radiant with friendly thanks.

"That makes it less hard," he said joyously. "Thou hast more to renounce than I!"

"And I also, Most-Clement!" put in a soft grave voice. "I follow fair where Babar goes." It was TÂrdi-Beg, quaint, frolicsome soul, on whom the Emperor vented much of his boyish fun, and who was satisfied with one kindly glance of perfect sympathy.

"And I!"--"And I!"--"And I!" came here, there, everywhere.

Then followed a memorable, an almost unbelievable scene. From the tent behind Babar came slaves bearing great trays of silver and gold goblets, ewers, measures; strong men bearing casks and skins of wine, a smith or two with his anvil.

"Break up the gold and silver and give it to the poor, and pour the wine back to the storehouse of God!" came Babar's voice. "Where it falls shall be built a well whence travellers may quench their thirst."

For a minute or two the army watched the hammers falling, watched the red wine sinking into the sand; then it caught fire at the sight and men crowded round in hundreds to cast their wine-cups on to the pile and take the oath of abstinence. But the Emperor himself stood silent. He was thinking how glad MahÂm would be; MahÂm who had so often striven to wean him from his sin.

But after the stir and excitement of the morning, the evening closed in dark and gloomy. A few spots of rain fell, and Babar, made restless probably by the lack of his usual stimulant, decided on moving forwards to meet the enemy. Anything seemed better than inaction. This was done; but even the bustle of marching failed to rouse the men's spirits. The warnings of the old astrologer returned in greater force, a general consternation and alarm prevailed amongst great and small. Something more must be done; so once again Babar called a grand parade; but this time he held the Holy KorÂn in his right hand. It was many days now since wine had crossed his lips; he had felt no desire to drink, no temptation to break his oath, and yet that abstinence had told upon him physically. He was more high-strung than ever; more exalted. And so he struck even a higher note.

"How much better is it to die with honour than to live with infamy," he cried. "Lo! The Most-High is merciful to us. If we fall, we die the death of martyrs since we fight the Pagan. If we live, we live the victorious avengers of the Faith. Let us then swear on God's holy word that none of us will turn his face from Death or Victory till his soul is separated from his body. 'With fame, even if I die, I am content. Fame shall be mine! though my body be Death's.'"

The Persian verse came to him unsought, echo from his far youthful days when Firdusis' Shah-namah had been the delight of his boyhood.

But it came to him Godsent. Familiar to almost all, it, and this declaration of Holy War stirred the whole army to its heart. The effect was instantly visible; far and near men plucked up courage.

None too soon. That very evening a patrol brought in the news that the enemy was within touch.

All was bustle, for Babar was too experienced a general to engage an overwhelming foe without having some entrenched position upon which to fall back.

A day or two was occupied in throwing up earthworks a mile or two ahead, so it was not till the 16th of March, 1527, that the guns and the troops moved on to take up their position, Babar himself galloping along the line, animating the various divisions, giving to each special instructions how to act; giving almost to every man orders how he was to behave, in what manner he was to engage.

It was the last opportunity he was to have of bringing the personal equation to bear upon his force, since ere they had settled into camp, the great moment, awaited for six long weeks was on them. Without loss of time the Emperor sent every man to his post, the lines of chained guns and waggons was linked up, the reserves withdrawn from the front--their great strength was ever a special feature of Babar's generalship--and there was nothing more to be done save await the onset.

HumÂyon commanded the right. MÂhdi KwÂja, Ma'asuma's husband, the left, Babar reserving the centre for himself. Once again, his plan was to force in the enemy's wings and so create confusion. But ere this could be done, his own wings had to withstand attack.

At half-past nine in the morning, a furious charge of the flower of RÂjput chivalry almost shook HumÂyon's force. His father was on the watch, however; reserves came up speedily, and Mustapha's guns from the right centre were brought into action. Despite their deadly fire, fresh and fresh bodies of the enemy poured on undauntedly, and Babar saw his reserves dwindling; for the attack had been equally fierce on the left. Now, therefore, was the moment of effort. Now something must be done or nothing. The battle had raged for hours; now it must be decided one way or the other.

"Flanking columns right and left, wheel and charge!" came the order. "Guns in the centre advance! Cavalry charge to right and left of matchlock men! Wings to follow suit if they can! Now then! Master-Gunner Ali-Kool! let us see if thou canst whip Mustapha!"

"The Most-Clement shall see!" yelled the old man; and, uncovered by the charging cavalry the big guns with their huge stone balls began on their task. The battle was now universal and the unexpected movements, made all at the same moment, had the desired effect upon the enemy. His centre was thrown into slight confusion.

Babar set his teeth. "Reserves to the flanking columns! And steady, steady, in front!--no rushing--close in--close in."

But this was no battle of an hour or two as at PÂniput.

Step by step the gallant RÂjputs disputed the way of that steady boring. They made repeated and desperate attacks on the Emperor's centre in the hopes of recovering the day: but all were received bravely, steadily, without one waver. How could there be one with that marvellous general behind, sitting his horse like an oriental Napoleon, cool, collected, unarmed, ready of resource, of reserve?

By this time one of the flanking columns had got round to the enemy's rear; the RÂjputs were forced into their centre. Briefly, Babar had won the battle on his own settled lines. By sunset, the brave defeated, still numerous, had nothing left to them, but to cut their way as best they could through those encircling, suffocating arms and so effect what retreat they could.

But the victory was final, it was complete. When the moon rose that night it shone upon multitudes of gallant dead. RÂna Sanka had himself escaped, though severely wounded; but never again was he or any other of his family to take the field against the Moghul power. They had learnt to fear the Northmen.

The enemy being thus defeated, parties were sent after the fugitives to prevent their reforming. Babar felt, vaguely, that he was guilty of neglect in not going himself, but he was thoroughly spent and weary of bloodshed. He had gained his point; he had proved himself the better man of the two, and for the present that was enough for him. So, after riding a few miles in pursuit, he turned to reach his own camp about bedtime prayers.

At the door of his tent a dim figure showed, and profuse gratulations on victory rose out of the darkness in a well-remembered and bombastic voice.

It was Mahomed Shereef the astrologer. This was too much! Babar, wearied as he was, poured forth a perfect torrent of abuse. No word was too bad for the miserable fool. But when he had thus relieved his heart, he suddenly began to laugh.

"Lo!" he said, "thou art heathenishly inclined, perverse, extremely self-conceited and an insufferable evil-speaker. Yet art thou also an old servant. Therefore, see here!--the Treasurer shall give thee a whole lakh of rupees, so that thou go to the devil out of my dominions. Never, my friend, let me see thy ill-omened face again! All's well that ends well."

Indeed as Babar laid his head on the pillow that night as undoubted master of India, his one regret was that he could not have had a personal tussle with his brave and honourable adversary.

He had been worth beating.

And he had been beaten--effectually.

CHAPTER VI

Distraught am I, since that I gave up wine,
Confused, to nothing doth my soul incline
Regret did once my penitence beget;
Now penitence induces worse regret.

Babar.

Babar wrote these verses from a full heart; for he found much difficulty in reconciling himself to the desert of abstinence.

And it was a desert indeed! After the storm of war had come peace--at least comparative peace--and a flat calm was never to his taste even in youth. And here it was aggravated almost beyond bearing by a thousand-and-one minor troubles. To begin with, ere he had commenced the Holy War against that honourable Pagan, RÂna Sanka, he had told his soldiers that if successful, as many of them as wanted it should have leave to return home. And this promise had to be fulfilled. Then HumÂyon's division had consisted almost entirely of levies from BadakhshÂn where the young Prince had been governor, and these were seized with a great longing for home. As KÂbul was imperfectly defended, it seemed best therefore to send both the division and its leader back; indeed HumÂyon himself needed a rest. He had worked magnificently and now a young wife was awaiting his return; so, in God's name let him go. And little Ma'asuma should have her husband back also; a good sort, though he need not have shown his discomfort quite so openly. Still, let him go also, to return when the approaching hot weather was past, as governor of Etawah.

Then TÂrdi-Beg! Babar's heart sank as he thought of life without the man who for years and years had been more of a charge than a help in manners mundane; but in all things super-mundane what a joy! Thoughtless, profuse, a lover of the glass, how often had he not turned a frown to a laugh--a merry, innocent laugh? Truly, ever since he, Babar, had come across him, an irresponsible lovable darvish, and had prevailed upon him to give up religion in favour of fighting, he had been a perpetual stand-by to that side of Babar's nature which was not even perceived by the mass of his entourage. And now to have none ready with quip and crank that held just the salt of life wherewith it must be salted!

Yet TÂrdi-Beg must go too. That renunciation of his had re-aroused religion in his heart, and it must be allowed free course. He also would see the gardens of KÂbul, would feel its fresh breezes, drink its ice-cold water.... Truly! if one did not drink wine, the water should at least be cold!

Babar gulped down a tepid draught disgustedly, and worked away at the verses he meant to send by his friend to those other friends who had deserted him last year. They were in Turkhi and ran as follows:

Hesht-Bishist or the Eighth-Paradise being the name of his favourite garden in Agra.

In fact verses and gardens were his greatest amusement that hot weather, much of which he spent at Dholpur where he was busy laying out pleasure-grounds and building palaces. He had disbanded most of his troops until the rainy season was over, and sent his nobles to the several districts assigned to them. Thus he was left alone to fight out the temperance battle by himself. It did not agree with him evidently, for twice he nearly succumbed to sudden illness; but he brought religion to bear on the question with a grave simplicity all his own, and kept feasts and fasts with the strictest orthodoxy.

Even here, however, he could not be quite conventional; for, never since he was eleven, having held the Festival of RamzÄn two years running in the same place--a fact which gives testimony to his unsettled life--he could not make up his mind to break through the usage. So he ordered a fine camp to be pitched at Sikri, and deserted his capital.

Thus the months sped by bringing disappointments and minor pleasures. The news which came to him that HumÂyon--HumÂyon the magnificent, the darling of his heart--had on his way through Delhi broken open the treasure-houses there and marched off KÂbul-wards with their contents, hurt him extremely. He had never expected such conduct from him, so he wrote him a letter containing the severest reprehensions, and thereinafter fell ill for seventeen days. It was not so bad a fever, however, as that which seized on him in October after he swam the Ganges at Sambal, in order to ride alone (having separated from his people by a finesse--for no reason at all) to Agra. He lay half-delirious then for nigh four weeks, his brain busy all the time with versifications.

He only recollected one of them, however, when at last, a mere skeleton of a man, he rose from his bed. He set it down, however, to show how bad he had been.

He laughed over the doggerel, as he sat joyously eating fruit once more, and reading a letter which told him that in a month's time two of his paternal aunts would actually pay him a visit. They had come south with little Ma'asuma whom her husband was taking to Etawah.

He was full on the instant of preparations. An architect was sent for and orders given for a special palace to be decorated for their reception. He himself, passing rapidly through convalescence went out to meet them in a boat above Secunderabad. It was a most joyful meeting, and Babar hugged the old ladies as they had never been hugged before. It was almost unbelievable, this delight of family life once more. To hear their shrill voices, with the beloved Turkhi accent, prattling away about the dear loved ones in KÂbul was almost too much for him. But they bewailed his looks and chattered of old ChagatÂi recipes for deer's broth and mares'-milk cheeses till he shut his eyes and tried to believe they were his dearest mother and his revered grandmother at AndijÂn and that he was still King of the valley at the extreme limit of the habitable world, and not Emperor of all India.

Then he opened them and took in and loved the quaint old-fashioned dresses and everything about them that was unlike the gorgeously ugly East which in his heart he loathed. But it was his, and it would be his son's and his son's son's; so there was no more to be said.

Nevertheless the meeting accentuated his dislike to India and he found it necessary to put something into life to make up for its lack of real interest. He had taken the title of GhÂzi or "Defender of the Faith" after his victory over RÂna Sanka. Now he felt that another Holy War against the heathen might bring the lacking zest to life. It might, anyhow. But he failed to see it clearly in the Crystal Bowl which MahÂm had given him. He used it chiefly as a divining cup now; or rather as a sort of scrying crystal into which he would look, and dream dreams.

But he never saw anything in it save his own thoughts. He could not, however, after his illness, summon up sufficient energy to start this Holy War that winter, and so another hot weather found him still at Agra. It was his third spent alone in a country he disliked fervently. But the gardens he had planted were growing up, the flowers he had gathered from far and near were blossoming. KÂbul, over the river, now bore some faint resemblance to its namesake. Here he held a grand festival for his veteran soldiers. There were not many now who had been with him since as a boy he had wandered over the upland alps at IlÂk; and it was fitting they should be singled out for distinction.

It was a fine feast indeed. Babar sat in a small octagonal pavilion on the river bank, and before the repast was served, sports and games were displayed on an island just opposite. Here, there were fights between furious camels and elephants, ram fights and wrestling matches. Meanwhile the presents were being given. Vests and rich dresses of honour, besides gifts of other value were bestowed, while Babar, always at his best as bountiful entrepreneur, had many a smile and jest, many a kindly remembrance of past days to give with the other presents. Then came food, HindustÂn jugglers and acrobats who did surprising tricks; besides many dancing-girls who performed outlandish dances. Finally, towards evening prayer time, a great quantity of gold and silver and copper money was scattered amongst the crowd and there was a precious hubbub and uproar.

Altogether it was like the light-hearted old KÂbul days and Babar felt the better for it. So, the cool setting in once more, he started on his Holy War against the Pagan; but, though he tried hard to take an interest in it, somehow it fell rather flat. He was more struck with the beauty of RÂjputana than with the virtue of exterminating the idolaters who lived there. A country where there was abundance of running water, small pretty lakes, where little spots of rising ground afforded beautiful sites for houses, and where the houses in existence were beautiful and capacious, of hewn stone wrought with great skill and labour, was not a country to devastate. So he came back again, to work on annexation with the pen instead of by the sword, and to receive three more paternal aunts who came crowding to claim his boundless hospitality.

They, however, brought sad news from KÂbul. Little FarÛk, the son he had never seen, was dead. There was a piteous letter from MahÂm all blistered with tears. The child had never been strong--surely God's judgment must be on her that all her children died--but he had gone to play with his little brothers and sisters in Paradise. So there was none left now but HumÂyon, whom God preserve; HumÂyon who was looking these days for a child of his own. God send it were a son. Not that it would matter much to heartbroken MahÂm. And scribbled underneath the flourish of a signature were these words: "If my lord desireth another son let him take another wife. I am accursed."

Babar wept over this postscript more than over the rest of the letter. He was very sorry, of course; but the Child was but an abstraction to him, while the thought of his Dearest-dear's grief was bitter indeed.

He wrote her the most loving of letters, begging her not to hurt him by such words. Even had he not had, by her forethought and kindness, other sons, HumÂyon would have satisfied him. HumÂyon was a son of whom anyone might be proud; so handsome, so courtly, so brave.

And by the same messenger he sent congratulations to the new-made father; for by this time the news of the birth of a grandson had been brought by special runner.

"To HumÂyon," he began, "whom I remember with such longing to see him again, health."

It, also, was the most loving of letters. "Thanks be to God," he wrote, "for giving to you a child, to me a comfort and an object of love. You have called him AlamÂn--the Protected of God--May God protect him and bestow on thee and on me many years made happy by the name and fame of AlamÂn."

He went on to tell his son gently but firmly that indolence and ease suit but ill with royalty. Did not the poet say:

And then, with a certain pathetic bitterness, he told him that for two years he had had no direct news of his son, though in the last letter the latter had complained of separation from his friends.

"It is but ill manners in a prince," he wrote, "to complain of this, seeing that if one is fettered by situation, 'tis ever most dignified to submit to circumstance. Truly there is no greater bondage than that in which a King is placed, and it ill becomes him to grumble at inevitable separations."

So, with perhaps a vague sense of injury, he remarked that though HumÂyon had certainly written him letters and that with his own hand, he could never have read them over, "for had you attempted to do so," he wrote--and the letter is still extant, "you must have found it absolutely impossible. I did, indeed, contrive to decipher your last, but with great difficulty. It was excessively crabbed and confused; a real riddle in prose! Then, in consequence of the far-fetched words you employed, the meaning is by no means very intelligible. You do not excel, I know, in letter writing, but if in future you would write unaffectedly, with clearness, using plain words, it would cost less trouble both to the writer and the reader."

Babar himself was at the time in a distinctly literary mood, for as a demonstration of joy on the birth of HumÂyon's child and the marriage of Kamran, one of Babar's other sons, he sent--in addition to other lavish presents--two copies written in his own Babari hand of all the translations and original poems he had composed since coming to India.

And this was no small task, for in his last attack of serious illness he had set himself to translating into verse a religious tract, as a curative measure. It had not, however, proved very successful, though in his ardour he had composed on an average, fifty-two couplets a day.

For he still suffered continually from fever and often from dysentery. In fact, though he could still swim over the Ganges in three and thirty strokes, take breath and swim back again in like number, he was beginning to realise that life was passing. Surely, by now, he had set his foot with sufficient security upon the throne of India to warrant his sending for those dear ones who were never very far from his thoughts and resuming the happy, simple family life which suited him best.

He pondered over this question for some months. It meant, of course, a delay in his own return to KÂbul. But that was inevitable. HindustÂn was not yet sufficiently settled to allow of his absence. Divided in his mind between intense longing to see his native country again, and his ideal of kingly self-denial, he hesitated; until news of discord in the Royal clan decided him, and he wrote to KwÂjah-KilÂn, the Governor at KÂbul, to take instant steps to start the Royal Family for HindustÂn. His letter told his old friend that the affairs of the country had been reduced to a certain degree of order; ere long he hoped to see them completely settled. Then without losing an instant of time he would set out, God willing, for his western dominions. "My solicitude to visit KÂbul again is boundless and great beyond expression. How is it possible indeed that its delights could ever be erased from the heart? How is it possible for one like me, who have made a vow of abstinence from wine, to forget the delicious melons and grapes of that pleasant region? Very recently some one brought me a single musk-melon. While cutting it up I felt myself affected by so strong a sense of loneliness, and of exile from my beloved country that I could not help shedding tears even as I ate it."

So, after giving minute instructions on various subjects, especially as to the planting of trees at a place called the Prospect, and the sowing of beautiful and sweet-smelling flowers and shrubs, he went on to detail his own experiences in reconciling himself to the desert of penitence. "Last year my desire and longing for wine and social parties were beyond measure excessive; to such an extent, indeed, that I have caught myself shedding absolute tears of vexation and disappointment. (For God's sake do not think amiss of me for this.) In the present year, praise be, these troubles are over. This I ascribe (in part) to the occupation of my mind in the poetical translation of a tract; of which no more at present. Let me advise you, too, to adopt a life of abstinence. Social parties and wine are doubtless pleasant, in company with our jolly friends and old boon companions. But with whom can you enjoy the social cup? Truly if you have only ShÎr-Ahmed and HindÂi for the companions of your gay hours and the jovial goblet, you cannot find any difficulty in abstinence."

This, Babar felt, was unanswerable. So far as he was concerned he knew that drunkenness in the company of blockheads had been no better than sobriety. And he was not born to suffer fools gladly.

After he had taken the irrevocable step and sent for his Dearest-dear, he went out and looked at the stars before settling himself to sleep, telling himself that he felt years younger at the very thoughts of seeing them all again.

After four years! four long years. They would not have changed, of course; to him at least they could never change. But how about himself? He had grown gaunt and grey. Still at heart he was young--Aye! as young as when he had first bidden the Crystal Bowl bring him the whole, not the half of Life.

Well! he had had his share. And there was Canopus hanging in the south!

"All hail Soheil!"

CHAPTER VII

There was no question as to the youth of the man who on Midsummer Eve A. D. 1529 was riding post haste from Kalpi to Agra, a distance of close on a hundred miles, to meet his wife and children. He sat his horses, laid out along the sandy sun-bitten roads, as only a ChagatÂi Turkh could do, and when he flung himself from his last mount at midnight in the Garden-of-the-Eighth-Paradise, he had indeed passed beyond the Seventh-Heaven-of-Happiness.

It seemed simply incredible that before many hours were over he should see MahÂm again. MahÂm, his moon, his more than wife!

It was no joyous festival to him, this Eve of St. John; but surely in some occult fashion, the youth of all Christendom as it rejoiced with garlands and merry shoutings and dances, must have reached him in far India. Perhaps--since there is no limit to such unconscious influences--the immemorial festival of summer that has been held since the world began, added its quota of perennial life to the vitality that was still ready to leap up at any stimulus.

Certain it is that in this, the commencement of this St. Martin's summer of his life, Babar needed no pity for spent power.

He had been delayed by storm and wind and rain. Only a few days before he had had an awkward experience which might have resulted in serious injury. He had been sitting, writing, in his tent at past midnight when the clouds of the rainy season broke, and there was suddenly such a tempest, and the wind rose so high that it blew down the pavilion, with the screen which surrounded it, on his head. He had had no time even to gather up his papers and the loose sheets that were written; so they all got drenched. However, with much trouble they were picked up here, there, everywhere, and set to dry in a woollen cloth over which carpets were thrown. But he had had to put a jesting postcript to MahÂm's letter to say the blisters were not tears. They wrote to each other constantly, these two, and letters from MahÂm made ever a red-letter day in the Diary which Babar kept.

But now this was over! There would be no more need for writing, since she was within a few miles of Alighur where, God willing, he meant to meet her so soon as he had seen that all things were in order for her reception at Agra.

Never was there such a fussy host as he showed himself.

"Truly, nephew Babar," snorted KhadÎjah, his chief paternal aunt, when he cavilled at some domestic arrangement in MahÂm's private apartment, "I am woman and I ought to know. If men, and especially Kings, were to do their own work and leave such things to those who understand, 'twould be better."

He looked quite crestfallen, so that the Fair-Princess, filled with pity, nudged him to say that if he sent her the flowers she would see to their being properly placed.

Whereat he was grateful and went off to his beloved gardens to choose what he wanted. Not roses or marigolds. Those were familiar. He must show his Dearest-dear, and little Gulbadan too, who was to come with this advance party, the beauties of HindustÂn. They must be shown that there were some beauties! So he picked the red oleander he had found in the old gardens at Gwalior and the snowy gardenia. Then for scent there was the sweet pandanus. But his favourite of all, the scarlet hibiscus, could not be gathered till the very last, as it withered so soon. In a single hour its beauty would have gone; and MahÂm must see how cunningly the thing like a heart showed in the very middle of the broad flower. She must see the marvellous colour, deeper, richer, more beautiful than the pomegranate.

Then there were endless orders to give about fountains, and fireworks, and food. For everything of good in HindustÂn must be laid at MahÂm's feet the moment she arrived.

After this there were papers to be signed, and letters to be sent out to various governors; for Babar had been many months away from his capital on a campaign in Bengal. Still, if MahÂm kept to her programme, he would have plenty of time for the fifty odd miles to Alighar if he rode fast; and she could hardly be due there for another twenty-four hours.

But he had reckoned without the loving heart on the other side. MahÂm, as eager as he for the joyful meeting, had pushed on, and reaching Alighar, had left little eight-year-old Gulbadan to follow at leisure in charge of her nurse, and had come on straight post-haste to Agra.

"Your Majesty!" faltered a breathless messenger, rushing into the Presence unceremoniously--all Agra was on the qui vive, and this was no time for the delay of etiquette--"Her Highness is on the road--four miles out--I have just passed Her--"

Babar stood up dazed. MahÂm! To fling his pen aside and start was instant. No time for a horse, not even for shoes. As he was, bareheaded, in his slipper shoon, he was out. In the dust under the stars he ran, and with God only knows what star-drift and dust-atoms in his brain. Earth there might have been, but of a surety there was heaven also.

Canopus of Victory shone to the South; the Warrior, perchance, showed to the North. But he saw neither. Venus shone like a young moon but cast no shadow on his path. And down the straight dusty road came a litter jingling as it jolted. He laughed aloud in his joy as he sprinted the last few yards.

"MahÂm! MahÂm!"

For the rest, what does it matter? Let those two keep it to themselves for all time and eternity.

"My lord! let me descend and walk, too," faltered MahÂm after a bit, but he shook his head lightly.

"Nay, my moon--that would delay us and thou must get home--home?--God! what delight! Now then, ye bearers, a good foot first, or the King will do gangleader and make the pace!"

His joyous threat roused instant laugh, and with a will, the tired men set off at an amble, chanting in time to their steps. At every minute nobles, apprised of the unexpected arrival, came galloping up, to fall into the tail of the little procession after vain efforts to make the Emperor take their horses. But Babar would none of them. He wanted to hold his wife's hand as he strode beside her and hear her sweet familiar voice saying "Yea" and "Nay" to the torrent of his words.

They crossed the river, and were in Hesht-Bishist. That is all there is to say; that is all we know.

Except that ere the blessed night was over Babar wrote in his diary:

"Sunday. At midnight I met MahÂm again. It was an odd coincidence that she and I left to meet each other on the very same day."

After all there is no need for more. One can imagine Babar translucently, boyishly, content. One can imagine how fear at his altered looks gripped at his more than wife's heart, bringing with it a passionate determination to stand between him and needless worry.

There was no chance of that for the present anyhow; all was pleasure and delight. Early in the morning little Gulbadan arrived in charge of the Wazir and his wife, who had been sent out to meet her. They came across her close to the Little-Garden, and, the child being hungry, they spread a carpet and gave her a hasty breakfast.

"There are many dishes," remarked the little lady superbly, and afterwards described the meal as having been drawn out to "fifty roast sheep, bread, sherbet and much fruit." For the dainty child of eight had inherited much of her father's gift of words. She was rather small for her age and extraordinarily self-possessed. With a vast discrimination in etiquette also, as befitted a Royal, or rather Imperial Princess.

"There is no need to rise for her," said the Wazir hastily, when his wife entered and little Gulbadan would have saluted her. "She is but your old serving woman."

This, however, did not suit the little lady who had also her father's gracious manners. And all the while she was bursting with impatience to see the man who her little life long had been held up to her as a model of all that was good, and kind, and brave. Five years is a long time when one can but count eight in all; and the child's recollection only carried her back vaguely to someone very tall and straight who used to hold her close so that she could feel something beating inside. Was it her father's heart or her own? That was not likely any more; for she was quite a big girl and her hair was plaited in virginal fashion.

Besides she had all her little bowings and genuflections ready. She rehearsed them gravely in the litter as she went along to pay her respectful duty to royalty.

But after all they did not come into the meeting. She had not even time to fall at the Emperor's feet, for, in an instant, he had her in his arms.

"And then," as she told MahÂm afterwards in the seclusion of the women's apartments, "this little insignificant personage felt such happiness that greater could not be imagined."

MahÂm laughed. "Truly thou art a quaint little marionette, Gulbadan! And what dost think of thy father?"

The little maiden pursed up her lips and sat quiet for a minute. Then she said firmly: "I think he is too beautiful to put into words."

Her father, however, did not share her opinion in regard to her looks. He was never weary of praising them, and it was a pretty sight to see him holding her by the hand as he took her round to inspect all his new buildings and gardens. And nothing would serve him but that they must go out, both of them, and see Dholpur, which, in a vague way, might remind them of beloved KÂbul. And from Dholpur they went to Sikri where they spent a happy month rowing about in the big tank. Here little Gulbadan used to sit for hours at her father's feet while he wrote up his memoirs in the summer house of the great garden.

"Lo! little mouse," he would say, looking round to lay a kindly hand on her smooth head, "mayhap thou mayest write a book thyself some day; thou hast more brains than thy brothers." And he sighed; for of late HumÂyon had not been very satisfactory; nor, for the matter of that, were Kamran and Askari, his other two grown-up sons, exactly after his own heart.

Gulbadan shook her head gravely. "The Emperor speaks in ignorance of my brother Alwar," she said, not without hauteur, "but when my mother, Her Highness, Dildar-Begum arrives next week the Emperor will admit that his son is a rarity of the world, and a unique of the age."

Her dignity was supreme, and Babar laughed. "Nicer than Hindal, Gullu?" he asked, knowing her preference for the boy who had been brought up with her under MahÂm's care.

The child flushed up visibly, and tears stood in her eyes. "Lo!" she said, "Hindal is indeed my brother. Mayhap he is not clever; but I love him, I love him!"

The Emperor caught her in his arms and kissed her tears.

"So do I, sweetheart, so does everybody. Lo! I dare swear it! we all love each other, do we not?"

In truth it seemed like it. Babar's three wives were there after a time and yet none of them quarrelled; perhaps because no one in the wide world could have quarrelled with childless MubÂrika, the Blessed-Damozel, and Dildar was too much occupied with little Alwar to think of anything else. He was, indeed, a marvellous child, of extraordinary beauty and brains. One of those children over whom old folk shake their heads and say: "He is not long for this world." Though barely six he was, as his little sister had said, a unique of the age, and Babar, who had not seen him since he was a baby in arms, was almost pathetically proud of him.

His devotion, indeed, raised a suspicion of jealousy even in MahÂm's generous heart for her own son HumÂyon--and one evening as the husband and wife were sitting together in the open balcony of the Palace, she hinted that HumÂyon might have to play second fiddle in his father's graces.

Babar came over to her and laid his head--it was fast grizzling--on her lap in the old affectionate Turkhi fashion.

"Little mother!" he said, and there was a break in his voice, "say not stupidities. Lo! thou knowest, as I do, that life became doubly dear to me, when thou didst lay my first-born son in my arms. Thou knowest that I have done all these things--these many things for him--my heir."

There was a faint stir at the door, and Babar turned to look. Then with a bound he was on his feet.

"HumÂyon!" he cried joyously; "HumÂyon himself! Look! little mother! thy son! thy son!"

And HumÂyon it was, unsent for, unexpected, but welcome as roses in May. The Emperor had not the heart to chide him for leaving his governorship, since his presence made the loving hearts of those two open like rosebuds, their eyes shine like torches.

Never was such merry-making as they had that night. It was Babar's rule to keep open table every day, but on this occasion he gave a spread feast, and heaped every kind of distinction upon his handsome son. And in truth he deserved it, for his manners and his conversation had an inexpressible charm, he realised absolutely the ideal of perfect manhood.

So at least his parents agreed, as, after the state dinner was over, they sat, a family party, in the Gold-Scattering-Garden. There was a little tank there, cut out of solid red rock, which in his unregenerate days Babar had intended to fill with red wine. It was now brimming, in honour of this happy meeting of so many, with lemonade, and they sat and quaffed it by gobletfuls contentedly. And Alwar recited his set pieces, and Gulbadan did a stately Turkhi measure, and nothing would serve MahÂm but that my lord should sing her his latest love-song. She had not heard him sing for years, and though he had sent her and his sons plenty of didactic and pious songs of his composition and translation, he had included no love-songs. And he had had such an excellent touch with them in the old, old days.

Whereat Dildar giggled faintly, till Dearest-One, who, tall, pale, a childless widow now, had also come to see her brother, said softly:

"Aye! it was given him by the Good God who sends Love as His best gift to the World. Yea! Sing to us of Love--brotherling."

So he took the lute and sang sweetly enough, though his voice had lost its youthful ring.

"'Tis only a translation," he said thoughtfully, "but I like it--'tis so simple."

And then his mind drifted away to that spring morning among the flowers on the high alps at IlÂk when he had wondered at the look in Dearest-One's eyes. And his hand went out to seek hers and found it. So they sat there hand in hand like children for a space, and a great weariness of the uselessness of life came to Babar.

"Lo!" he said suddenly, "I will make over my kingdom to thee, HumÂyon. Thou art young. I grow old and I am tired of ruling and reigning. A garden and those I love--what more can any man desire?" He spoke half in earnest, half in jest.

MahÂm turned pale; Dildar and the paternal aunts and khÂnums--by this time there were ninety-six in all!--cracked their thumbs, and even Dearest-One shook her head and said quickly: "May God keep you in His Peace upon the throne for many, many years."

But the Blessed-Damozel who always sat a little apart only smiled. "My lord means the Garden of the Eighth Heaven," she put in quickly. "Yea! there is peace there, and rest for everybody."

"My lady says sooth," acquiesced Babar and their grave eyes met.

But little Gulbadan was agog because it was time the fireworks began or Nanacha would be sending her to bed, so the idea of abdication ended in Babar's catching her up in his arms and carrying her off to see how the wheels turned round. Then Alwar, while Dildar gave little shrieks of horror (in which she was joined in louder echo by the Astonishingly Beautiful Princess who invariably wept and laughed to order) actually set fire himself to a bomb and when it exploded clapped his hands with glee.

"When I am a big man like my father, the Emperor," he said boastfully, "I will fire ten guns at a time."

"'Tis silly to say such things," retorted Madam Gulbadan superbly.

But the child's keen little face was not in the least abashed.

"Lo! sister, 'tis silly of thee to say no when thou canst not tell where I shall be as grown man. Likely in some bigger place than this." And he waved his hand contemptuously towards Babar's great palaces.

Whereat they all laughed; for they were a merry, happy party. So they feasted and enjoyed themselves. As little Gulbadan wrote in after years: "It was like the day of Resurrection."

CHAPTER VIII

HumÂyon remained with his father for a week or two. Handsome, insouciant, always agreeable and of a curious dignity of carriage he seemed cut out to be a King. Wherever he went, no matter in what society he might be--even his father's--the eye rested on him with pleasure. And yet Babar's eyes, fond as they were, failed to see something he fain would have seen. There seemed no sense of responsibility, such as he, Babar, had had at his years. Yet it was hardly fair to judge the lad by the standard of one who had perforce been thrust into power at eleven years of age. And, after all, HumÂyon was barely two and twenty; still quite a lad. There was time yet.

So, weary as he was, Babar said no more about abdicating; he even tried to think no more about a plan he had cherished of going back for the next hot weather to KÂbul and leaving HumÂyon in charge of HindustÂn.

"My KÂbul," as he ever called it; saying to his sons in jesting earnest--"Let none of you covet it for I will not give it! It is mine own, my very own. The only thing in God's earth I care to keep, for there He gave me happiness."

Still he was happy enough as it was in HindustÂn, and, thanks to MahÂm's good care, felt more himself. But, like all women, she was a trifle fussy.

"Lo! my lord," she said, one extremely hot Friday when a dust-storm was blowing, and Babar, despite this, was preparing for his weekly visit to his paternal aunts; a duty he had never once neglected when in Agra for three whole years. "How would it be if you did not go this one Friday? The Begums could not be vexed seeing how good you are to them."

Goodness, she thought privately, was a mild word, considering that each and all of the ninety-six female relations had palaces and gardens assigned to them and that the Court architect had standing orders to give precedence to whatever work, even if it were on a great scale, the ladies desired to have done, and to carry it through with all might and main.

But the bare suggestion hurt the Emperor's affectionate heart.

"MahÂm," he said in pained astonishment, "it is not like you to say such thoughtless things. Think a moment. They are the daughters of my fathers, deprived by God of their parents. Therefore, being female, they are helpless. I am the head of the family; if I do not cheer them, who will?"

MahÂm could not forbear a smile. No one, in truth; but Babar, beloved, kindly Babar, would think twice about a pack of old women; and she would not change him for worlds. So, despite her anxiety for his health, she said no more.

All that winter they were an extraordinarily happy family party. HumÂyon had been sent as Governor to an up-country province, and not back to BadakhshÂn where he and his half-brother Kamran had almost come to blows. And family quarrels were, in the Emperor's opinion, positively indecent, besides being so unnecessary; since there were always plenty of outsiders with whom to have a fine fight. Then the news from Bengal, where the success of his arms was being assured, was satisfactory. Babar did not mind beating the down-country Pagans; it was different in RÂjputana where you had to kill real men. But, even there, peace was coming fast; for few brave soldiers could withstand Babar's frankly outstretched hand of friendship. And he asked for so little in return. He took no money, no land. He only claimed suzerainty; and it was much to have a strong man as final referee.

Then Babar's friend TÂrdi-Beg came back to him, not as soldier, but in the darvesh's peaked cap and white blanket frock. However he came he was welcome, especially to Mistress Gulbadan who appropriated him wholesale. They were a quaint pair, as hand in hand they inspected the gardens, and the stables, and all the ins and outs of the Royal household; for the little lady had great ideas of management.

And Babar would follow, as often as not with Alwar, who was but a weakling in body, perched on his broad shoulder.

The "four children," as MahÂm would call them as they played at ball together in the marble alleys; TÂrdi-Beg with his cap off, his shaven head glittering to match little Gulbadam's tinsel and jewellery; Alwar, a miniature of the Emperor even to the tiny heron's plume in his bonnet; Babar, his haggard face beaming. The men enjoyed themselves quite as much as the children, and if Babar accused his friend of chucking easy ones to Gulbadan, TÂrdi-Beg asserted that Alwar never got a hard one; whereat the little lad wept; but his sister stamped her foot and said she wouldn't play any more unless they played fair. A remark that, of course, brought the immediate capitulation of TÂrdi-Beg and Babar.

p340
"THE FOUR CHILDREN, AS MAHÂM WOULD CALL THEM"

Yes! they were very happy, very guileless, very innocent, as Babar himself had written so often over less commendable amusements.

And then suddenly came a bolt out of the blue. Alwar, little Alwar, to whom every day seemed to bring some new charm of unbelievable intellect beyond his years, fell sick. From the very first he lay quiet, exhausted, spent; but smiling. It was a trick he learnt of his father.

So, after two or three days he died, his hot, thin, little hand in that father's. It was as if the sun had gone out of the sky to the whole household. Even the Blessed-Damozel shed slow tears as she wreathed the dead darling in drifts of scented gardenias and put a scarlet slipper blossom with its quaint "something like a heart" upon the breast.

Babar, placing the light corpse in the niche cut for it in the flower-filled grave, felt as if it were his own heart he were burying; but it was Darvesh TÂrdi-Beg who recited the committal prayer, and that gave him comfort.

Besides he was a man, and the women had to be sustained. The poor mother, Dildar-Begum, was literally frantic with grief. Doubtless, she said, the child had been poisoned, because its father loved it so; doubtless, in her mad despair, she accused MahÂm of doing the deed. Polygamy is a fair-weather craft; it is apt to fail in a storm.

But the poor soul was mad. Everyone saw that; and the women took it more quietly than the man. Even blur-eyed, half-silly Astonishingly Beautiful Princess nodded her head and remarked sagely: "They say that sort of thing always in grief-time, nephew; so why fuss about it. She will forget it after a time."

And Ak-Begum came with her bright squirrel eyes all soft with tears to Babar, and whispered: "We all know it is not true, nephew. Our lady is God's kindness itself; so why fret."

But it did fret the man and added a bitterness to his grief, which even MahÂm could not sweeten.

"If my lord will listen to this slave," said the Blessed-Damozel at last, "it will be better to beguile the poor distraught one by change of scene. Lo! the lotus must be out in the Dholpur lakes. Why not go there for awhile? Good rain has fallen; it is cooler now."

So they all went, sailing down the river Jumna in tented boats. Far and near the wide level plain was tinted green with fresh spring grass. The parch of an Indian summer was over. This was the Indian spring. With magical, marvellous quickness the flowering trees burst into blossom, the Persian roses budded in a single night, and down amongst their grey-green, velvet leaves you could positively hear the calyx burst as the scented petals struggled to the sun. The climbing gardenias hung like white scarves round the dark cypresses, the hedges of Babar's favourite slipper flower were ablaze with their great flat scarlet circles.

Yes! it was spring! So as they journeyed, the sad little party became more cheerful. The women, especially, had begun to talk of their departed darling as one of God's angels; even his mother had sobered down to copious tears, and pathetic requests that she might be given back her other son Hindal--whom MahÂm certainly had taken from her as a baby.

"Let her have the boy, my lord," said MahÂm pitifully. "Lo! it is but fair she should have one son; and I have HumÂyon."

So Babar blessed her for her kind heart, and sent off a special messenger to KÂbul for Hindal, a boy of nigh ten years old who had been left behind with his tutor to complete his education.

The Emperor felt happier when this was done; perhaps because in his kind heart of hearts he had never been quite sure of the righteousness of giving Hindal over to another woman. It was the only action of his in regard to his womenkind which he could not have conscientiously upheld against all comers at the bar of his own judgment.

It was great gain, therefore, to find his Dearest-dear of a mind with himself. For all that he felt--as strong men so often do when limited by feminine outlook--rather battered and worn.

In no fit state therefore for the bad news which came to him by special runner as he sat by the Water-lily tank at Dholpur.

HumÂyon, wrote the Court Physician, in Delhi, was very ill of fever. It would be best if his mother were to come at once, as the Prince was much prostrated.

HumÂyon! First, Alwar, his youngest; then his eldest son! Was he to lose them both? Babar was in his essence very man. Trouble came to him overwhelmingly. He might face it bravely; but he always faced the worst. It was HumÂyon, bested in his fight for life that he saw; whereas MahÂm with the eternal hopefulness of woman, which springs from her eternal motherhood, would not let herself even think of defeat. Upset as she was by the dreadful news, she yet spoke quietly of how she would bring her invalid son back, and how his father had best return to Agra and have everything ready to receive their darling.

"I would fain come, too, dear-heart," said Babar pitifully.

But MahÂm would not hear of it. Even so much would be to admit danger, and there was none--there could be none. Nathless, let urgent orders be sent along the route so that there should not be an instant's delay.

She was quite calm and collected to him; but she broke down a little to the Blessed-Damozel who somehow or another--why, folk never knew--was ever the recipient of confidences.

"Thou wilt look after him, lady," she said quite tearfully, "and see that he wearies himself not with over-anxiety?"

"All shall be as if thou wast here, sister, so far as in me lies," was the quiet reply, and MahÂm was satisfied. What MubÂrika-Begum said she would do, would be done. MahÂm knew that; for she knew (what Babar did not) that MubÂrika's life had been one long self-denial.

Years and years younger than her husband, she had left a young lover behind her in her father's palace when she had come as a bride to make peace between her clan and the King of KÂbul. She had chosen her part, she had respected and admired, in a way she had loved Babar; but passionate romance had never clouded her eyes.

"Yea! I will guard him as thou wouldst," she said again, "and mayhap in thy absence, and with this common grief and anxiety to soften memory, Dildar also will learn how good, how kind thou art, thou Star-of-the-Emperor's life."

But even MubÂrika, so calm, so gracious, so tactful, could not prevent the mental strain from telling on Babar's bodily health. Prolonged anxiety, great grief had always prostrated him for a time, even as a young man; and now illness and hard work had aged him before his years.

"Would to God he could but drink a bit--he need not get drunk," wailed TÂrdi-Beg who, being tainted with Sufi doctrines, would orate for hours concerning cups divine, and ruby wines. But Babar had never broken a promise in his life, and was not going to begin now.

Besides, MahÂm had been right. HumÂyon was brought to Agra alive. That was much. In the first fulness of his joy at seeing his son once more, Babar almost forgot anxiety.

"He will soon be well, dear-heart," he said cheerfully; "he does not look so very bad. When the fever leaves him--"

But it was MahÂm's turn to be despondent. "It does not leave him," she said.

That was true; as yet the crisis had not come, and it was long in coming. Day after day he grew weaker; day after day the brain, weary of fighting at long-odds for life, grew more and more drowsy.

"My sisters! I want to see my sisters!" would come the low muttering voice, reft of almost all its youth, its tone. And those three, Gulchihra, Gulrang, and Gulbadan, Rose-face, Rose-blush, Rose-body, Babar's three rose-named daughters, would creep in with tears and kiss him. A pathetic little picture. The girlish faces all blurred with tears, the tinkling of bracelets, jewelled earrings, head ornaments, what not, the rustling of scent-sodden silks and satins, and that poor head on the pillow turning from side to side, rhythmically restless.

Even Babar himself, had to see after a while that the Shadow-of-Death lay on his son.

"MahÂm!" he said pitifully,--"the boy, the boy--"

Poor mother! For nigh on four-and-twenty years she had been this man's stay and stand-by. He had come to her consoling arms as a child comes to its mother. She had given him in passionate devotion more than he perhaps realised, for they had been faithful friends always, and the friendship had overlaid the love; but she failed him now, for she was at the end of her tether. So she stood dry-eyed, almost cold.

"Why should my lord grieve," she said, "because of my son? There is no necessity. He is King. He has other sons--I have but this one!--therefore I grieve."

For a second Babar stood as if turned to stone, then he answered almost sternly: "MahÂm! Thou knowest that I love HumÂyon as I love no other son of mine, because he is son of the woman I love best. Thou knowest that I have sought and laboured for kingship for him and for him only. Thou knowest--" softness had crept back to his voice--"Nay! what need to tell thee, since thou knowest that there is nothing in the wide world I would not do for HumÂyon?"

"Thou canst do nothing! There is naught to be done," she muttered, still tearless, calm; and something in her pitiful despair roused instant response in his ever-ready vitality, and he threw back his head with a gesture of negation.

"There is naught I would not dare, anyhow," he said, "and what is dared is often done. Take heart! my moon! All is not lost. Defeat comes not till Death--who was it said that long years ago--Aye! Defeat comes not till Death--And even then--God knows--He knows...! He knows...!"

CHAPTER IX

"Death makes no Conquest of this Conqueror,
For now he lives in Fame."