Читать книгу A Prince of Dreamers - Flora Annie Webster Steel - Страница 12

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The world-revealing cup of the King Jamsheed Counselled the King in his pleasures and in his need.

--Firdusi.

The Prince Salîm, despite all efforts of his friends, accepted his father's reprimand in dutiful fashion. Truly Akbar--may he be accursed!--hath a very devil of persuasion in him for those he loves."--The scribe's hand paused in its swift swooping over the Persian curves, and he looked up for an instant with all the evil of his handsome face concentrated into an expression of bitterest antagonism. Then he turned his head, listening ere he went on with his news-letter.

"So far little has been gained. Yet the poison works. The prince, grown older, than his brothers--who are themselves coming on for rebellion--resents this leading, as of a young colt, and will ere long assert himself. Already he is fit for intrigue; by and by it may be for murder. And Akbar once gone--by what means God knows!--Salîm will be our tool. Thus the dead to-day brings forth another to-day, and so we (more especially this Mote-speck-in-the-Light, Dalîl, of the Kingly House, Tarkhân, who waits in unmerited exile for his Lord's service expectant of his Lord's recall) hope, knowing that all God's strength dwells not in one man's body. Meanwhile the King's action in this matter hath stirred up the whole city. Ere noon Jamâl-ud-din left, accompanied by a goodly gathering of his clan all incensed at the sentence of exile passed on their captain. He hath gone to his relatives of Bârha and will doubtless rouse them to resistance. But the jade Siyah Yamin hath done more for our cause than any, since I have but now returned from seeing her leave-taking; for the baggage hath elected to follow her lawful spouse. Truly 'tis said 'A torn ear clamours for more earring!' Half the town were at the heels of her palanquin wherein she sate veiled like any cupola of chastity, but full of an evil tongue. Truly it was a sight to set pumpkins a-sinking and mill-stones a-floating, since none knew what to make of it, with the light men gathering up the flowers she flung, and the light women praising her in jest for her fidelity. But it hath done our cause good service, and the King may repent him of his virtue ere long. Thus remaineth matters at this present. Whilst I, Dalîl, knowing that straight fingers hold naught, crook mine in the service of the Head of my House, Mirza Jâni Beg, looking for reward. This goes by the hand of Sufardâr, envoy, whom I await this day past, but----"

In the act of writing the words "who comes not" the scribe paused again. This time there was no doubt of a sound presaging interruption, and the writer, thrusting the papers under a fold of his embroidered shawl took up a lute which lay beside him, and leaning back amongst the scented cushions began to strum a love song and sing in a high tenor voice:

Oh! Love! I am caught in the snare

Of the scented net of her hair

Oh! Love! I am stricken dead

With hunger for her, and with drouth

Her foot is upon my head

Would my kisses were on her mouth.

"A merchant selling essence of rose by my Lord's orders," said an obsequious dwarf extravagantly dressed; one of the smartest deformities in fact to be found in the service of the young nobility of the court. His cunning face, full of almost malignant comprehension, had been overlaid with servile admiration as he had waited for the song to end.

"Let him enter," came the yawning reply, "and, Yahéd, close the doors on us. The lamp flickers in the evening wind!"

The song went on lazily--

Oh! Love! I am held by the power

Of her bare brown bosom-flower

Oh! Lo/ve! I am lost in the mesh!

In the very thought of a sip

At the nectar of soft warm flesh

And the touch of her lip.

Then the door closed, and he turned swiftly on the figure which had entered.

"So, at last! I have been awaiting thee these four-and-twenty hours. And wherefore was there no due notice of arrival? Lo! my liver dissolved when the arch-heretic, Abul, spoke at the King's audience of an envoy from Sinde. For aught I knew Jâni Beg might have failed to secure the crown. It was a relief to see thy face--but how came all this Sufardâr?"

He spoke as one having authority, but the supposed merchant answered sulkily as he unwound his close-draped shawl, so disclosing, in truth, the slender spareness and the high pallid features of the envoy from Sinde.

"If thou canst tell me how it came about, Oh! Dalîl Tarkhân of the House of Kings," he said, "thou knowest more than I, the companion of thy youth; since I know naught. A blank as of death lies behind me from the time we encamped at noon yesterday, five miles beyond the city."

The whilom scribe looked cynically at the dull opium-drugged eyes.

"A blank!" he echoed. "How much of the Dream-compeller goes to make that for thee now a days, Oh! Sufar?"

Those dulled eyes lit up with sudden fire. "No more, I swear to God, than the noon-day pellet of twelve years agone. Thou knowest the old Tuglak tombs about Biggâya's Serai? The tents were late and it was hot, so I slept in one of them----"

"Curse thee! Sleep where thou willst," interrupted his companion impatiently, "but give me the packet. I must answer it, if answer be required." He held out his hand, scented, manicured, be-ringed like any modern lady's.

The envoy's face showed uneasiness. "If thou wouldst listen, thou wouldst learn," he said vexedly. "I slept and dreamed. Then I woke; but it was to to-day, not to yesterday."

"But thou wast at the Audience--for I saw thee! Aye! and I wondered what Birbal, the heretic pig, had to say to thee as he kept the King waiting."

The envoy shook his head slowly. "It is a blank; and hearken, Mirza sahib, the packet hath gone!"

"Gone!" echoed the other again, his face paling at the thought of Akbar's ever-swift punishment for treason. "Thou hast lost the letter; and this tale of forgetfulness----"

The envoy from Sinde leant forward and laid one warning finger, slender, almost emaciated, on his companion's well-kept hand. "'Tis no tale, but a mystery. The packet was ever in my girdle cloth, and left not my side day nor night. None knew of it. And I remember nothing of my sleep, except my dream." He shivered and looked round apprehensively. "It was a dream of nigh thirteen years ago--of--of a rose-garden, Mirza Dalîl! Oh! thou mayst laugh, but I curse the day that ever I took a part in that damned work of thine. It comes between me and my prayers."

Mirza Dalîl laughed airily. "It comes not between me and mine; but then I am Tarkhân. There must be nine deadly sins ere even earthly punishment be thought of, and I am but at my seventh; or stay, is it eighth? Truly I know not and it matters not. But this tale of thine--What says thy retinue?"

The envoy's face fell.

"They say I woke as ever, and gave the orders for the audience but I remember naught, save----"

"Turn thy forgetfulness toward rose-gardens, opium-eater!" interrupted the man he called Dalîl sternly. "Have I not ever told thee thou wert but as a beast to give up the heavenly dreams of hemp for the clogging sleep of the poppy. Thou wert drunk, that is all--or hast been since. So remembrance is left with the drug. As for the packet--thou hast lost--or sold it. Lucky for me, no names come from Sinde, and none here know me save as Khodadâd--Khodadâd, the gift of God, the companion of princes, the chamberlain of pleasures to the Heir-Apparent! Khodadâd adventurer, made Tarkhân on the battlefield by the King's brother, the rebel of Kabul, because, being above myself with hemp, I saved his life! Made Tarkhân, thou prophet of God! and I a Tarkhân by birth. Still," he continued, checking himself in his reckless mirth, "thou art in luck. But mark me, if by this loss suspicion comes--aye! even a suspicion that Khodadâd is of the Kingly House (younger brother, aye! even though he be a bastard, of the fool Payandâr who went mad over the rose-garden) thy life is not worth much. Go therefore. Here is thy packet." He drew out the paper he had written, set the seal he wore on his first finger to it, folded it neatly, then continued with an evil smile, "Mind I say naught in it against thee. Thou mightest lose the letter if I did. But I will see thou comest not with messages again."

"Lo! that will I not," muttered the envoy, wrapping his shawl round him as before. "This very sight of thee recalls the rose-garden--I seem to hear her piteous cries----"

Khodadâd lay back amongst his cushions and laughed.

"Thou art far gone in opium, Sufardâr!" he said chuckling. "Ere long thou wilt see the devil clutching thee, for sure! God's prophet, man, hadst heard as many maidens' screechings as I!" He was silent but smiling, evidently in pursuit of memory, and when the envoy had gone he lay back among those scented cushions and allowed himself a certain latitude of remembrance. At five-and-thirty there were few experiences of which he had no cognizance; but it needed many experiences to leave a mark on a Tarkhân! As he lounged lazily the soft night air fanning his perfumed hair, his smooth yellow skin oily with unguents, every atom of his body and soul surcharged with sensuality, there yet came to him an uprush of almost wild pride in his race, in the honours, the privileges which distinguished it even from the common herd of princedom. A Bârlâs Tarkhân! Bârlâs the brave! Master of seven distinctions in procession or audience. Free of every part of a king's palace by night and day! Aye and more! Having the right to drink with the King! So that when the Royal cup was handed from the right, the Tarkhân's cup was handed from the left. And still more. With the right to set his seal to all royal orders, above the King's seal! Unpunishable too--until the uttermost. And then? If Mirza Dalîl's face grew gray as he thought of that uttermost assize, it was not altogether in fear, since there are some things pertaining to race which bring with them an almost passionate acquiescence even in terror; and this thought of the final verdict of his peers, to be carried out by those peers with many ceremonials, had in it an element of pride.

Besides, here, in a far country away from those peers, there was small danger of the Silent Session being held.

So he looked out over the vast shadows of the town, wondering vaguely how he should fill up the night with iniquities. He would have an excellent companion--which was half the battle--since he had been asked to sup with Mirza Ibrahîm, the Lord Chamberlain. There would be business first, no doubt, due to the Heir-Apparent's childish knuckling under, since some new intrigue must be set on foot to weaken Akbar's authority; but once that was over Ibrahîm might be counted on to make the hours hum. So he clapped his hands for the tiremen and fresh dressing, and shaving, and scenting; then, after due dallying with cosmetics and dyes, set off--the very pink of fashion--in his gilded litter in which he lay lazily fanned with a peacock's feather fan by a tiny boy who sate at his feet dressed in a girl's tinsel-set garments, his hair braided on his forehead in the virginal plaits.

As he was borne through the silent streets with running torches beside the ambling porters, a host of pipe-bearers, toothpick holders, keepers of aphrodisaical pills, and general panderers trotting behind him, he was Eastern vice personified; soft, perfumed, relentless.

So he disappeared into the Palace and the star-lit world was quit of him for a time; for the night was spangled beyond belief. Spangled with myriads of stars, not white as in northern climes, but holding in their shine faint hints of rose, and green, and blue, and amber.

Against the clear obscure, the terraced town showed like some vast fort, turreted, battlemented, from which one by one the twinkling lights disappeared as the hours of the night wore on; until at last only a few lay sparsely about its feet circling the outcast colony of Satanstown where, by Akbar's orders, vice dwelt and turned darkness into day. Above, all was shadow, save for one light high up on the palace whose outline struck firm against the velvet of the sky. It shone from Akbar's balcony; Akbar who after his usual habit watched while his subjects slept. To-night, however, something more than mere meditation absorbed him, as he sate, girt about the middle of his loose, white, woollen garment like some Franciscan monk. His face dark, aquiline, not so much ascetic as strenuous, was bent on William Leedes, the English jeweller, as he weighed in his balance the great uncut diamond from the King's turban.

The gold and gemmed setting from which it had been removed lay on the floor, and the irregularly ovoid stone itself gave out flickering brightnesses as it oscillated gently under the light of the seven branched golden cresset-stand in the alcove. Beneath this stand, backed partly by the tendril-inlaid curves of agate and chalcedony, lapis-lazuli and cornelian upon the marble wall, and partly by the pearl embroidered yellow satin cushions amongst which the King reclined, was a beautifully embossed silver clepsydre, or water clock, in which the floating bowl was fashioned in enamel like a sacred lotus; and beside this stood the marvellous censer, a triumph of goldsmith's and jeweller's art from which day and night arose the scented smoke which Akbar loved. Beyond, through the arches of the balcony, lay the night, velvety dark.

"Five hundred and sixty carats," murmured William Leedes to himself, "the largest known diamond in this world!--and of a most elegant water; but----" He looked up, his face full of denial. "It would mayhap lose half its weight in the cutting, great King," he said sharply, "and--God knows in His grace but we might cut out the King's Luck thereby."

He looked as if for support to the two men who stood behind him. They were Râjah Birbal and Shaik Abulfazl. The latter, seeing his master frown, interrupted the jeweller in hasty excuse.

"I but told him, Most Exalted, that the populace hold the stone a talisman; and sure at all times the luck of the Most Excellent has been stupendous. Still, we of the enlightened give praise where praise is due and not to stocks and stones."

Birbal shrugged his shoulders. "Say, rather, Shaikjee," he remarked urbanely, "that the wise see an Eternal cause even in stocks and stones."

The eyes of those two counsellors of the King were on each other in rivalry; but the King himself bent forward to touch the diamond with one pliant finger, and a faint fear showed in his face. Then he leant back once more.

"Luck is of God," he said, "and this stone----" he paused beset by recollections of the years he had worn it--ever since as a boy of three he had made his way safely through the great Snow-land.

"The stone, sire," put in William Leedes, firmly, "is as God made it. 'Tis well to remember that----"

He was looking at the King and the King's eyes were on his; for the time the whole of the rest of the world was empty for them both.

"Aye! But what of that He wishes it to be? What of that, sir jeweller?" came the swift answer, "therein lies kingcraft, to see what His will needs--and give it."

William Leedes bowed silently and there was a pause; then bluntly, suddenly, he said, "Yet, Great King, would I rather have naught to do with the cutting thereof."

In an instant Akbar's eyes flashed fire.

"Thou hast not, slave! 'Tis I who order it. Birbal! to thy charge the arrangements. The room next Diswunt the painter's, in the Court of Labour, is vacant. See it prepared. Double the guards if necessary--to thee I leave--the King's Luck."

A faint smile came to his face, but Birbal and Abulfazl looked at each other, and finally the latter spoke.

"This dust-like one," he said tentatively and yet with firmness, "presumes not to offer wisdom to its fount; but to the minds of the Most Exalted's devoted slaves it seems as if to the populace, there might be danger in Royalty appearing without the talisman to which all have looked as security for the King's success in all ways. Therefore if Majesty will ordain the cutting of the Eastern gem in Western fashion, let it at least condescend to wear in its place--until the gem return--a veritable Mountain of Light doubtless a substitute. Pooroo, the false jewel maker, who can deceive all but a diamond itself, hath the cast of the King's Luck, made when the Most Exalted changed the setting thereof. Let him fashion a double to deceive----"

"Deceive?" came Akbar's voice with a note of affectionate reproach in it, "deceive whom? Fate or the people? Lo! Abulfazl! to what end? Since if the tale be not true that luck lies in the stone, what need to regard it? And if it be true, how shall the false gem hoodwink God?"

He raised himself as he spoke, holding the diamond in his palm as an orb.

"Luck!" he said dreamily, "thou art mine to-night; and to-morrow is Fate's! Go!"

He gave the Eastern wave of dismissal and sank back amongst his cushions; sank back with more than usual lassitude, for the day had left him weary. It was no small thing to one of his temperament to quarrel with his son, his heir. It was a still greater thing to forgive him causelessly.

Therein lay the sting. The causelessness of the forgiveness, the lack of any security against a recurrence of the offence. So, as he thought of this, with a rush came back the memory of many a similar scene, and his fingers clasped in upon themselves as the disappointment ate into his very soul. Surely he had a right to expect more of Fate?--he who had waited so long, so patiently for an heir--since in those long years of waiting the very thought of mere sonship had been forgotten in the heirship. Yes, even now, Love seemed too trivial to count against Empire! Yet it was Love which had prompted forgiveness. Love of what?--what? Of himself surely--the love which claimed to live in his son--to live on. …

"Shall I bid the Reader of Wisdom to the Wise resume his task," came Birbal's voice. Noting the King's weariness he had lingered behind the others.

The King started, then looked round cheerfully. "Not to-night, friend; I have food for thought, and if I lack more--it waits below," he said, and leaning forward, rested his arm on the marble balustrade of the balcony, so pointed downward into the void darkness of the night. Through it like a little line of light fading into nothingness, ran the signal string attached to the quaint contrivance by which the King could secure, when the mood seized him, the presence of an opponent for some midnight argument. One touch at the cord and through the darkness the disputant waiting below, would by an ingenious system of counterpoise rise in a domed dhooli to the level of the balcony. Akbar laid his finger on the tense string, then once more looked back suddenly into Birbal's face.

"Ah! friend!" he said bitterly. "Could we but sound the Great Darkness as I can sound this little night, certain that my need will bring some sage, or fool, or knave, to keep Jalâl-ud-din Mahomed Akbar, Defender of the Faith, from wearying for sleep! But from the great Depths there comes no answer. The mystery is unfathomable--man's reason wanders bewildered in the streets of the City of God."

His voice sank in silence; then yet once again, he roused himself.

"Farewell, friend, for the night--the night that will bring to-morrow--Ye Gods! How will it be when the Night of Death closes in--on one of us?"

Birbal sank to his knees and touched his master's feet with his forehead. He had no other answer; so silently he passed through the great wadded curtains of gold tissue which separated the alcove from the rest of the room, leaving the King alone, lost in thought.

The problem of a future life had pressed on him all his days, and yet, he told himself as he sate thinking, the fact had not interfered with his enjoyment of the present one. Verily he had drunk of the cup of life to the dregs. His vitality had spared neither himself nor his world.

The memory of man is curiously creative. Out of the welter of remembrance it chooses this and that in obedience to no law, but arbitrarily, whimsically. It passes by unseen the peaks of past passion, and makes mountains of the merest mole-hill of caprice.

So, as Akbar looked back over his life, he found many a triviality standing out as clear, as untouched by Time, as many a tragedy, many a palpable turning point in his career.

The first snow he ever saw? The sight came back to him as if he had seen it yesterday, though five-and-forty years had passed since that perilous journey from Kandahar to Kabul in charge of his foster-nurse Anagâh. Dear Anagâh! How he had loved her! More, in a way, than he had loved his absent, stately mother; but he had vague recollections of that quaint meeting with the latter after three long years of separation, when his father, as a joke, had brought him--a little lad-ling of six--into a great circle of unveiled women and bidden him to choose a mother for himself.

He had chosen right, but the very recollection of his choice had gone. All he remembered was quick clasping arms and a kiss--surely the sweetest kiss of his life.

The sweetest? No!

That (even after five-and-twenty years the horror, the despair of it seemed to overwhelm him again) had been the last passion-fraught kiss he had given to--to a murderer--to Adham! Adham his foster brother--his playmate Adham, whom he loved, whom he trusted.

Oh! God! the tragedy of it! Why did such things come into this little trivial life?

Yet it was inevitable. If Adham were to come to him now as he had done that day; reckless, defiant, presuming on his position, boasting of the foul murder of an old man whom he conceived to be his enemy, the same swift justice must follow.

The beads of sweat started to Akbar's brow as he remembered the sudden grip of his own strong young arms, the relentless forcing backward to the parapet's edge, and then--before the final fling--that kiss!

And thereinafter silence. No! not silence--tears! Anagâh--dear Anagâh's tears. She had died of a broken heart because of her son's death--died without one word of forgiveness for the doer of justice.

Yet he did not regret the deed, though he had always, even as a boy, been tender of life.

"I will fight a whole enemy, I will not slay a wounded one."

The very words of his refusal when his tutor had bidden him whet his maiden sword on the rebel Hemu came back to him, and led him on to remembrance of the day when this feeling for the sanctity of life had risen in him not toward man only but toward all creatures. That was a later memory, and the scene reproduced itself before his mind's eye complete in every detail.

The long laborious encircling of game drawing to its close--the opposing ends of the great arc of thousands upon thousands of men who for two days had been sweeping across the country driving all wild things before them, were narrowing, closing in--and he, the man called King, was watching, luxuriously posted, his court about him, for his first shot.

And then? Then close beside him a chinkara fawn, looking at him with great soft dim eyes, startled, but not afraid!

"His Majesty was seized suddenly with an extraordinary access of rage such as none had ever seen the like in him before, and the battue was given up; nor has he since, so pursued game, but prefers to go out alone and spend hours in arduous chase."

That is how his quick, almost despairing remorse, regret, pity, anger with himself had appeared to the outside multitude. To him it had been a crisis in his life; one of the few things which had left an indelible mark on his mind.

Aye! few things. For love had not touched him as, for instance, it had touched his grandfather.

"To-night at midnight after three long years, I met Mâham again."

Babar had set that down in his memoirs, after--according to Aunt Rosebody's tale--he had run out on foot from the palace on hearing of the near approach of the long expected caravan from Kabul and met his dearest dear six miles out along the road. Even his father's more passionate love for the fourteen year old Hamida, seen when Humâyon was five and thirty, had not been his. If it had been, perhaps his sons might have been different!

And so in an instant, overwhelmingly, Akbar was back in the old dreary disappointment; the old defiance of fate following fast on its heels.

The boy would do well enough! Even if some things passed, even if ideals had to go, what then? The dynasty would remain. He and his and the City of Victory he had built with such high hopes should endure for ever, even if churlish Nature denied them a cup of cold water.

For ever! For ever! With the words came back the old puzzle. Oh! If he could only see, only know!

He sate staring fixedly, abstractedly, at the clear translucence of the diamond which he still held in the palm of his left hand, while his right rested on the marble balustrade close to the summoning string which dived into the depths below.

So after a while he seemed to sleep, for his muscles relaxed and the right hand slipped, to hang over into the darkness, whence a faint sound as of metal on metal rose waveringly, followed almost immediately by the monotonous burr of a rope passing over pulleys.

It did not rouse the King, though it sent Birbal, who was lingering beyond the wadded curtain, to peer through it stealthily, curious to see what antagonist in argument the King had summoned.

Beyond the arched openings of the balcony, the domed roof of the swinging dhooli rose into sight, and a moment afterward its occupant laid a thin hand on the balustrade steadying himself to arrest.

Despite the high-peaked, white, woollen cap, the white, woollen robe of a Sufi ecstatic which the figure wore, Birbal's recognition of the face was instant, complete.

"Smagdarite!" he exclaimed.

The newcomer held his finger to his lip, but his eyes were on the King. "Hush!" he whispered, "See, he dreams. The diamond hath found him, and he knows himself."

Something in the man's tone sent a thrill through his hearer, and his eyes followed the lead given them swiftly.

Akbar did not move. He leant amongst the cushions, gazing at the diamond, but seeing it not; for the veil had fallen from the Unknown and lay hiding the Known.

"What doest thou mean--mountebank!" whispered Birbal in return, his own voice sounding strange to his ears as he stepped closer, bending over the King. "He doth but doze. Wake, my liege, wake!"

The other's fine fingers were on his wrist, gripping it hard.

"At thy peril! though, mayhap, thou couldst not wake him if thou wouldst. Lo! Birbal! Philosopher! learned beyond most! seest thou not that the man sleeps indeed! Hast thou not heard, hast thou not read of the death in life whereby the soul, set free, wanders at will, not in Time, but in Eternity? So wanders Akbar now! He is not here--he is in the future."

Birbal paled despite his disbelief.

"Who art thou, man of many faces," he gasped, "and how earnest thou here?"

"He summoned me," replied the Sufi solemnly. "Wherefore God knows. As for me, I am the Wayfarer of Life. What I have learned I have learned. And this"--he pointed to the dreaming figure--"I know, that if my lord desires to hear the future he has but to ask this sleeping soul. The Self which lurks ever behind these trivial selves of ours will tell him."

For an instant Birbal hesitated. Beset by curiosity as he was, something in him cried aloud not to know; for, agnostic at heart, doubter to the very core, he knew already. Knew that all his master's dreams were but dreams; that like all other things in heaven and earth they must pass. Then came the thought that the forewarned are forearmed, and he knelt at that master's feet.

"Great King," he whispered, "tell us what is seen?"

There was no answer, and on the silence the Sufi's voice rose quiet, but compelling.

"Oh! Self-behind-the-Self, speak! What of the future? Is Jalâl-ud-din Mahomed Akbar there, as King?"

There was no pause; the reply rang immediate, resonant.

"He is not there and yet his work remains, to run, a glittering warp among the woof. See! how the westering sun turns all to gold--gilt that is pinchbeck of all baser metals.

"The land is thick with little crooked lines, but Akbar's roads were measured straight to give an evening rest to tired travellers. He is not there, but I--who lived in him--I linger still in Justice, Mercy, Truth. Sons of his soul are these, sons of his love, not of his mortal body--Oh! Salîm! Salîm----!"

The pause was eloquent of sudden personal distress, the clear dreaming eyes clouded and there was silence. Then hurriedly, disconnectedly, the voice took up its tale.

"What was the thought which racked me to the soul? Something I have forgotten utterly."

So once more came silence while those two watchers waited.

"Hush!" whispered the Wayfarer, signing back the fresh questioning which trembled on Birbal's lips, "he speaks again!"

The King's head had drooped as if to deeper sleep, for his voice lost its resonance and seemed to come from very far away.

"And they too--in the years they shall forget. Their dream of empire shall die as mine; and so we Twain, soul-welded into soul, shall pass, shall live forgetting, unforgotten ('the dreaming of a King can never die'). And all their faults shall fall from them. Ah God! The cry of little children, the wail of murdered women in my palace walls--do ye not hear them, aliens! Lo! I swear, such were not raised while Akbar reigned as King. Yet even this shall pass to peace, to rest--to greater ease--more gold--more luxury.

"Oh! subjects of Akbar! arouse ye! Wake! Life is not comfort! there is that beyond which India always sought, for which she seeks. This is no land of golden sunsetting--it is the land of coming dawn, of light in which to search for Truth unceasingly.

"What do they say arousing me from sleep? 'They wait me in the House of Argument?'

"Ah! well! I go, though it avails us not! India is Akbar's to the end of Time--like him it knows not and it fain would know, the secret of its birth and of its death. What are the words thou soughtest for in the years--Akbar? His son? I see them not! I only see the Self that knows, that sees, that hears, the everlasting Truth behind Life's lie.

"The rest I have forgotten."

The voice sank in silence, the head to deeper sleep, and the left hand slacking its grip dropped nerveless on the knee, so that the shining orb it had held rolled from it like a giant dewdrop until it found a resting place at Akbar's feet.

Birbal with a little cry caught at the King's Luck.

"Take it back! Oh, Master, take it back!" he whispered, laying it once more softly in the King's empty palm. "Hold fast to thyself. Lo! the whole world equals not Jalâl-ud-din Mahomed Akbar."

Then in a perfect passion of resentment he turned to the Wayfarer. But in those few seconds the latter's hold upon the balustrade had been withdrawn, the counterpoise had reasserted itself, and Birbal peering out over the balcony could see the dome of the dhooli disappearing in its downward course of darkness.

To slip through the wadded curtain and make his way to the swinging station at the foot of the wall was but the work of a minute or so. Yet he was too late. The newly arrived Sufi from Ispahân, the yawning attendants declared, had had his interview and gone--none knew whither.

The east was all flushed with rose-leaf clouds when Akbar awoke and smiled to find Birbal wrapped in his shawl watching him with curious, doubtful eyes.

Would the King remember? That was the question.

"Lo! friend," he said affectionately. "So may I wake in Paradise after a dreamless sleep and find thee there."