initial commit of ebook 39794HEADmain

16 files changed, 37055 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/39794-8.txt b/39794-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bc1f01c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39794-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,12288 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of King-Errant, by Flora Annie Steel
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: King-Errant
+
+Author: Flora Annie Steel
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2012 [EBook #39794]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING-ERRANT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
+Google Books (Harvard University)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+
+  1. Page scan source:
+     http://books.google.com/books?id=wNIMAAAAYAAJ
+     (Harvard University)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            KING-ERRANT
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "I would the court painter were not a fool," she said
+regretfully.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            KING-ERRANT
+
+
+
+
+                                 BY
+
+
+                         FLORA ANNIE STEEL
+
+
+           _Author of "On the Face of the Waters," etc_.
+
+
+
+
+                _WITH FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR AND TWO
+
+                  ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK-AND-WHITE
+
+                           BY THE AUTHOR_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                              NEW YORK
+
+
+                    FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
+
+
+                             PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       _Copyright, 1912, by_
+
+                    Frederick A. Stokes Company
+
+                             *   *   *
+
+  _All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
+
+              languages, including the Scandinavian_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                              PREFACE
+
+This is not a novel, neither is it a history. It is the life-story of
+a man, taken from his own memoirs.
+
+"_Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, gentleman, apothecary, ploughboy,
+thief_."
+
+So runs the jingle.
+
+The hero of this book might have claimed as many personalities in
+himself, for Zahir-ud-din Mahomed commonly called Babar, Emperor of
+India, the first of the dynasty which we mis-name the Great Moghuls,
+was at one and the same time poet, painter, soldier, athlete,
+gentleman, musician, beggar and King.
+
+He lived the most adventurous life a man ever lived, in the end of the
+fifteenth, the beginning of the sixteenth centuries; and he kept a
+record of it.
+
+On this record I have worked. Reading between the lines often, at
+times supplying details that must have occurred, doing my best to
+present, without flaw, the lovable, versatile, volatile soul which
+wrote down its virtues and its vices, its successes and its failures
+with equally unsparing truth, and equally invariable sense of honour
+and humour.
+
+The incident of the crystal bowl, and the details of Babar's
+subsequent marriage to Mahâm (the woman who was to be to him what
+Ayesha was to Mahomed), are purely imaginary. I found it necessary to
+supply some explanation of the curious coincidence in time of this
+undoubted marriage with the pitifully brief romance of little Cousin
+Ma'asuma; for Babar was above all things affectionate. I trust my
+imagining fits in with the general tone of my hero's life.
+
+If not, he will forgive me, I am sure. He forgave so many in life that
+he will not grudge forgiveness in death, to his most ardent admirer.
+
+                                                 F. A. Steel.
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS
+
+
+                                BOOK I
+
+Seed Time--1493 to 1504.
+
+                               BOOK II
+
+Blossom Time--1504 to 1511.
+
+                               BOOK III
+
+Fruit Time--1525 to 1530.
+
+
+
+                                BOOK I
+
+                              SEED TIME
+
+                             1493 to 1504
+
+
+
+
+                             KING-ERRANT
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+                                       ".... for I know
+              How far high failure overleaps the bounds
+              Of low successes--"
+                                         _Lewis Morris_.
+
+
+The fortified town of Andijân lay hot in the spring sunshine. Outside
+the citadel, in the clover meadows which stretched from its gate to
+the Black-river (a tributary to the swift Jaxartes which flows through
+the kingdom of Ferghâna) a group of boys and men were playing leap-frog.
+
+"An _ushruffi_ he falls," cried one watching the leaper.
+
+"A _dirrhm_ he doesn't!" retorted another who had a broad, frank,
+good-natured face.
+
+"There! He's done! I said so," continued the first not without
+satisfaction, for he was rival for championship.
+
+"Not he!" asserted the second gleefully as the stumble was overborne
+by an extra effort. "Trust him and his luck! He wins! Babar wins!"
+
+And Nevian foster-brother's voice was the loudest in acclaim as
+the frog-like figure with wide-spread legs, after successfully
+backing the long row of bent slaves arranged--with due regard to
+difficulty--adown the meadow-path, finally overtopped the last and
+with a "_hull-lul-la la!_" of triumph subsided incontinently into the
+white clover. And there it lay on its back gazing at the blue sky
+cheerfully.
+
+It was that of rather a lanky boy; to western eyes a well-grown one of
+at least fifteen, with a promise of six feet and more of manhood in
+its long, loose-jointed limbs. But Babar, heir-apparent to this little
+kingdom of Ferghâna was only in his twelfth year. His face,
+nevertheless, was extraordinarily intent, with an intentness beyond
+his years, as he lay silent among the clover; for something had come
+between him and his game, between him and the work-a-day world.
+Something that came to him often with the sight of a wide stretch of
+blue sky, a narrow stretch of blue river, or even with the sight of a
+flower upon that river's brim.
+
+How glorious! How splendid it was--this world in which he, forsooth,
+played leap-frog! The clover on which he lay, how sweet it smelt, how
+soft it was! It was just like a mantle of lambskin, covered as it was,
+till you could hardly see a speck of green, with its white, furry
+blobs of blossom.
+
+A lambskin mantle!--that was a good description!
+
+And the sky was like the turquoises that folk brought down from the
+higher hills in the summer when they were not weaving the purple
+cloth, which somehow always got mixed up in his mind with the pale
+blue. Why both recalled the multi-coloured tulips on the mountain
+slopes was a puzzle, except that one beauty recalled another. At that
+rate, however, memory in Ferghâna would be unending, for though it
+was, as everyone knew, situated on the extreme boundary of the
+habitable world, it was abundantly pleasant!
+
+The lad's amber-tinted hazel eyes darkened as he ran over in his mind
+the excellencies of his native valley hidden away at the back of the
+Pamirs.
+
+Its snow-clad hills clipping it on all sides save the west; its
+running streams; its violets--so sweet, but not piercing-sweet like a
+rose;--its profusion of fruits! Truly, that way they had over in the
+township of Marghinân of removing apricot stones and putting in
+chopped almonds instead was excellent indeed--
+
+"Most Mighty!" came a voice breaking in on his thoughts. "There is
+news--bad news!"
+
+The voice was breathless, yet full of concern, and Babar sprang to his
+feet, alert in a second. A messenger stood before him; one who had
+come far and fast. And in his hand was a blue kerchief; therefore he
+was a messenger of death.
+
+Death? Incredible in this splendid joyful world! A sudden surge of
+resentful life-blood seemed to stop the boyish heart with its
+tumultuous claim for free passage.
+
+"Well?" he asked thickly.
+
+The answer came like a blow; dully, yet with stunning force.
+
+"Your father, O King!"
+
+His father! And he, Babar, was King! In the rush of realisation
+incredulity came uppermost.
+
+"But how--?"
+
+He stood there bare-headed, unbelieving, while the others crowded
+round to listen.
+
+It was a simple enough tragedy. Omar-Shaikh, his father had been
+feeding his tumbler pigeons on the scarp of a precipice which overhung
+the steep ravine below the fort at Âkhsi. He had been watching them
+against the blue void, throwing golden grain to make them play their
+antics, when the ground had given way beneath his feet and he had been
+precipitated on to the river rocks beneath. That was all. The little
+group of listeners showed shocked faces, but Babar, even as he heard
+the tale with dismayed grief, seemed to see the fluttering white wings
+of the startled pigeons, to see the startled soul amongst them, taking
+its flight--
+
+Whitherwards?--Gone!... Never to be seen again! Yet how clearly he saw
+him now ... short, stout, a bushy beard hiding a humorous mouth ...
+the turban without folds and with such long ends ... the tunic all
+over tight ... how often the strings had burst and how angry he had
+been at consequent childish gigglings ...
+
+A sudden spasm of remorse for idle thoughts sent the son's memory back
+to his father's kindness ... a good sportsman too, though but a poor
+shot with the bow ... still with uncommon force in his fists--everyone
+he had ever hit had gone down before father's....
+
+The last word brought memory of a still dearer tie.
+
+"My mother?" asked the boy swiftly, "my mother? How--"
+
+Then the real meaning of what he had heard came to him. He gave a
+little short, sharp cry and cast himself face downwards on the
+sweet-smelling white clover.
+
+And all the joy of splendid life passed from him.
+
+Nevian foster-brother who worshipped him, went over to him and
+crouched beside him.
+
+"It is God's will, sire," he mumbled mechanically. "Kwâja Kâzi says
+so, and Kwâja Kâzi is a saint."
+
+But saintship did not interest that young human heart, face to face
+for the first time with the deprivation of death.
+
+Meanwhile those others, the bearded nobles and broad-faced courtiers
+who had crowded out at the news, looked at each other in doubt.
+
+What had best be done? The times were troublous. Their new King was
+over-young. The King of Samarkand, the King of Tashkend, his paternal
+uncles, were already on the war-path. The former almost within
+striking distance; and this news of death would hasten, not retard.
+
+In such case, might not refuge in the hills be wise? At any rate till
+Kâsim-Beg, most faithful of Governors, and Hassan-Yakoob, wiliest of
+advisers, could be recalled from the front?
+
+But, while they still cogitated, Babar, who even at that age was not
+to be handled, rose suddenly, the tear-stains still on his sun-tanned
+cheeks. His voice, however, was firm.
+
+"To horse, gentlemen!" he cried. "I go to secure my kingdom!"
+
+He was on his lean-necked, goose-rumped Turkhestan mare Zulaikha
+almost before the words passed his lips, and ere two minutes had sped
+the low arched gateway of the city echoed and re-echoed to the hoofs
+of horses, as--the riders low bowed upon their saddles--they swept
+through in a stream of tails and tassels. So had it echoed many a time
+to the wild Turkhoman cavalry, since life in those days was one long
+war and rumour of war.
+
+"My King!" said Shirâm-Taghâi spurring close as Barbar drew rein on
+the citadel terrace, and laying a detaining hand on his bridle. "That
+way lies death! Thine uncles mean evil! Come with us to the hills."
+
+For an instant the boy hesitated and his eyes sought the distant blue
+of the mountains.
+
+There, doubtless, lay safety--but what of that unknown
+quantity--kingship?
+
+He had no ideals of it. He had not even been brought up to expect the
+chiefship. In those days succession was too uncertain for
+anticipation. But it was something now within his grasp. What if he
+lost it?
+
+Still the faces around him were anxious and their owners were old;
+they had experience. And he was so young! How young none knew but
+himself. As this thought came he felt inclined to cry out-loud for his
+mother as in his heart he was crying for her loving care.
+
+Then from the citadel came a running messenger to bid him enter
+without fear.
+
+"It is a trick, Sire," protested Shirâm-Taghâi. "Safety lies with us."
+
+And others echoed his words; so the lad wavered, uncertain, till an
+old man seated in the sunshine mumbling to himself, his long white
+beard wagging the while, spoke chance words that gave him the clue.
+
+"Whatever happens is God's will, as the saints say."
+
+Five minutes afterwards the young King knelt before Khwâja Kâzi, the
+saint of his family, for his decision. He was a thin ascetic-looking
+man whose sunken eyes, hollowed by many fasts, hardened by much
+thought, but softened by the unshed tears of a lonely life, dipped
+critically into the clear, shadowless youth of the hazel ones and
+appraised the character of the young face with its fine-lipped mouth
+that tempered the strong square of the chin. And Khwâja Kâzi knew the
+inside of the boy as well. He had watched him from birth; and lawyer
+and judge by profession, had accurately gauged the volatile, versatile
+vitality which would carry him triumphantly over all the obstacles in
+the leap-frog race of life. But he saw the dangers ahead also, and he
+loved the lad as his own soul; as indeed, despite all his faults, most
+people did love Babar in fortune and misfortune, in sickness and in
+health.
+
+And the keen observer noticed how firmly the young hand closed over
+his scimitar-hilt. It was enough for one accustomed to weigh evidence
+and give verdicts.
+
+"Draw thy sword, my son! and stand firm!"
+
+The decree fell on glad ears. The boy was on his feet in a second and
+the war-shout of his race rang through the smoke-grimed old hall.
+Kingship lay before him.
+
+As yet, however, the tragedy of death clouded his outlook. His dead
+father awaited burial at Âkshi, thirty miles distant; but ere he could
+start thitherwards many arrangements and new appointments had to be
+made. The novelty of power carried him far from thought. It was
+dream-like to be giving orders when but an hour before he had existed
+solely by the pleasure and permission of his father; as every other
+son in Moghulistân lived in those quaint old days.
+
+It was dark, therefore, ere he and his galloping party stumbled over
+the stone causeways leading up to the high-perched citadel at Âkshi.
+Too late to disturb the women-folk, who, outworn by wailing, had gone
+to rest. But a little knot of long-robed physicians showed him the
+dead body of his father, lying ready for the funeral on an open bier
+in the Audience Hall. Babar had often seen death before, but never in
+this guise, with watchers and flaring torches and all the insignia of
+chiefship discarded, before the poor deserted shell of power.
+
+It impressed his emotional nature vividly, and the mystery and the
+pity of it went with him to the dim royal room--so rough in its
+ancient royalty--where his father had been wont to sleep, and where
+the very touch of the royal quilts, surcharged with the personality of
+the cold dead in whose place he lived, seemed to burn in upon his
+young body and keep it awake. Not with concern or regret for things
+past, but with keen curiosity as to what was going to happen in the
+future to one Zahir-ud-din Mahomed commonly called Babar.
+
+Lineal descendant of Timur the Earth Trembler; also of the Great
+Barbarian Ghengis Khan, was he to follow in their footsteps of
+conquest? Or would he be snuffed out at once by Uncle Ahmed of
+Samarkand? Wherefore, God knew, since he, Babar, had never done his
+uncle any harm. On the contrary; if he lived, he would have to marry
+that uncle's daughter Ayesha.... Here his vagrant thoughts wandered to
+remembrance of how sick he had been from overeating himself on sweets
+at the betrothal ceremonies;--that was his very earliest _real_
+recollection--when he was five years old.
+
+Then there was Uncle Mahmud of Tashkend. Even in the dark the boy's
+cheek flushed at the mere remembrance of him; equally devoid of
+courage and modesty, of unbelieving disposition, keeping buffoons and
+scoundrels about him who enacted their scurvy and disgraceful tricks
+in the very face of the court, and even at public audiences!--of no
+outward appearance either, but all rough-hewn and speaking very
+ill ...
+
+The lad, always unsparing of epithet, painted the portrait with
+remorseless hand. So his thoughts passed to Mahmûd's sons, his first
+cousins. He knew them well, but Masaud the eldest was a nincompoop,
+and as for Baisanghâr? What was there that jarred at times in
+Baisanghâr? Baisanghâr who was so charming, so elegant, so clever, so
+sweet-tempered?
+
+Here the lad's mind passed swiftly, without conscious cause, to his
+own sister, Dearest-One as he always called her; for he was given to
+caressing nicknames for those he loved. And he loved none better than
+the tall, straight girl, five years his senior, who hectored him and
+petted him by turns. But she ought really to get married; it was
+nonsense to say you preferred being a sainted Canoness!
+
+Baisanghâr did not say that, though, he, too, refused to marry. He
+said women were unnecessary evils. Was that true? Not that it
+mattered, since he, Babar, would have to marry, because he was
+King ...
+
+King! Would it make him happier, he wondered? Could anyone be happier
+than he had been in this splendid world? Supposing it was to make him
+unhappy? Supposing it took the charm from life ...
+
+The idle thoughts went on and on. He felt sleepy, yet he could not
+sleep. And by and by the glimmering oblong of the unglazed window kept
+him watching the slow growth of light.
+
+Out on the hills, the still dawn must be stepping softly so as not to
+waken the world too soon ... soft, sandalled feet among the snow-set
+flowers....
+
+The mere thought of it was sufficient to rouse him thoroughly. He
+rose, passed to the window, and thrust his young body into the chill
+air of dawn. All shadow! A deeper shadow in the valley, a lighter
+shadow in the encircling hills, and above it all the clear, grey,
+pellucid shadow of the sky.
+
+Hark! That was the dawn cry of the wild fowl on the marsh and he held
+his breath to listen like the young Narcissus, while the whole joy of
+splendid life seemed to fill his world once more. He did not
+realise--few humans do--that he was but listening for the echo of
+himself; the self which came back to him from sights and sounds, that
+many a better man might have seen and heard unmoved.
+
+So he waited and watched till the eastern sky showed pale primrose,
+and the unseen sun encarnadined the distant snows, and separated the
+white morning mists from the blue shadows of the hills.
+
+It was a new day, and yonder over the brow of the road were pennons
+and lance-points. The tribesmen were coming to bury the dead, to do
+homage to the living.
+
+It was a busy day, filled up with long-drawn, intricate ceremonial.
+Bare time for more than one tight clasp of tearless mother and
+tearless son, while that Dearest-One, his sister, stood by silent, the
+tear-stains still on her cheeks. But that did not matter; those three
+understood each other.
+
+And old Isân-daulet, his maternal grandmother, had set emotion aside
+also, and, stern old disciplinarian as she was, had bidden him--in
+high staccato phrases which betrayed her effort to keep calm--take his
+father's place as bravely as he could.
+
+And he did what he could, though it was a strain upon his twelve young
+years, for the long night had left him feverish and the long day with
+its need for initiative had outwearied him. So that when at last the
+ordeal was over, and he was free to seek the women's apartments for
+rest, his nerves were all a-rack, his pulse fast and irregular.
+
+He found his grandmother alone by the big coal fire. Mother and
+sister, outwearied also, had gone to bed; the best place, the old lady
+said oracularly, for sore eyes and broken hearts. And Babar felt it
+was better so. The company of the stern-featured, soft-hearted old
+woman of whose sagacity and clear-sightedness he stood somewhat in
+awe, would be more bracing than the tears which must come sooner or
+later.
+
+People said he was like his grandmother. Was he, he wondered, as he
+lay prone on the sheepskin rug watching the firelight on her fine old
+face.
+
+"Tell me!" he said suddenly, "the tale of thy youth--of Jaimal and the
+lover who was slain."
+
+But Isân-daulet, though she smiled, shook her wise old head.
+
+"Nay, child! Such tales do to stir phlegm. They are not meet when the
+humours are already disturbed."
+
+The boy leaned over on his elbows and looked up at her.
+
+"Like cures like by comparison! 'Twould steady my pulse to know others
+throbbed. Feel mine, Grandam--how it beats!"
+
+She took the thin, muscular wrist held out to her and appraised it
+judicially.
+
+"I will give thee a purge the morrow's morn," she said shortly. "That
+will keep thy head cooler than idle tales; there is nothing for hot
+boy's blood like a purge."
+
+Babar's face showed obstinate yet whimsical. "I will not take it,
+_nanni_, if thou wilt not tell--so there! And Kings are not to be
+coerced, see you, by black draughts, as mere boys are. And 'tis the
+first boon I have asked from thee--_as I am_."
+
+The ring of almost apprehension in the last words was too much for the
+old woman, who loved the lad as the apple of her eye. She laid her
+hand caressingly on the boy's hair. It was cut, Florentine fashion, to
+the ears, and the ends, outsweeping in a gentle curve were sun-burned
+browner than the rest of the dark head.
+
+"It is little to tell, sweetheart, save that it shows how even
+womanhood may confound strength by being resolute. It was not many
+years after my lord, your grandfather, married me in my father the
+Khân's tents upon the Steppes. He was a bold, brave man, was my lord,
+and like all bold, brave ones, he fought sometimes and won, and
+sometimes he fought and lost. 'No battle is ended save by Death,'
+remember that, O! Zahir-ud-din Mahomed! And once when he lost, his
+women--I was one--fell into the hands of Jaimal Shaikh, his enemy.
+And he--low-bred hound who knew not the first principles of
+politeness!--did not even keep me for himself!--I was not ill-looking
+in those days, my child--but sent me to his officer. I, the wife of
+Yunus Khân, Chagatâi, of the house of Timur the Earth Trembler! Well!
+the fool came decked as for a bridal with blandishments and perfumes,
+and I welcomed him. Wherefore not? for the supper was good and he
+played on the lute passably. But when that was over, and we withdrew
+smiling to the inner room, my maids locked the door by my orders,
+stabbed the silly rake to death and flung his be-scented body through
+the window to the gutter. 'Twas its proper place."
+
+The old voice which had gained strength and fire in the recital,
+dropped to cold, hard finality.
+
+"And Jaimal Shaikh?" queried Babar unwilling to lose a word.
+
+"He sent for me and I went. 'Why hast thou done this evil thing?' he
+asked. 'Because thou didst worse,' I answered. 'Because thou sentest
+me, the wife of a living man, to another's embrace. Therefore I slew
+him. Slay me also, if so it pleases thee.'
+
+"But it did not please him. 'Take her to her husband's prison,' he
+said, 'and leave her there. They are one flesh indeed.' So I stopped
+with thy grandfather and comforted him until his star rose again. Now,
+get thee to thy bed, child, and see thou take the draught without
+demur. Remember 'God is no maker of the promise breaker.' 'Twill make
+thee feel sick, doubtless; but what matter if the result be good."
+
+Babar made a wry face and laughed. "Thou hast done me more good with
+thy tale, revered one! Lo! I can see thy would-be lover in the gutter
+and my esteemed grandmother, all beautiful as a bride, peeking through
+the lattice for a glimpse of his corpse--"
+
+"Go to thy bed, child," put in the old lady, delighted. "There be more
+than pictures for thy sight now; so may the Great Maker of Kings guard
+thee, his creature."
+
+And that night Zahir-ud-din Mahomed commonly called Babar, forgot that
+he was King in sound, dreamless, boyish sleep.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II
+
+   "There's a sweet little cherub who sits up aloft  To keep
+    watch for the life of Poor Jack!"
+
+
+In truth, Babar needed such a cherub in the first days of his
+King-ship, for Kâsim and Hussan, his two advisers, fell foul of one
+another. The former, bluff, honest, facetious, a pious, faithful,
+religious Moslem who carefully abstained from forbidden meats and
+drinks, and whose judgment and talents were uncommonly good though he
+could neither read nor write, was for the forward policy. Hussan,
+polished, active, a man of courage who wrote excellent verses and was
+remarkable for his skill in playing polo and leap-frog, was for
+diplomacy. And against these latter qualifications even honest Kâsim's
+ingenuous and elegant vein of wit could not stand.
+
+At least in young Babar's judgment. Old Isân-daulet his grandmother
+was, however, of a different opinion, and even Dearest-One, his
+sister, ventured to rally him gently on his choice of Prime-minister.
+
+"What," asked Babar hotly in reply, "is Hussan the worse for playing
+games? Is a man the worse for doing all things well?"
+
+"Nay! but rather the better--so be it that they be men's things," she
+replied, going on imperturbably with the embroidery of a new pennon
+for her brother. It was green and violet, his favourite colours, and
+she was scrolling a text on it in crinkled gold. As she sat in the
+sunshine on the flat roof of the citadel, her bare head gleaming brown
+in the glare of light, her mourning garment of dark blue short in the
+sleeves and low at the neck showing her wheat-coloured skin, she was a
+pretty creature, though her nose was too long, her chin too short for
+real beauty: that lay in her eyes, amber-tinted like her brother's.
+
+"Man's things! What be man's things?" argued Babar irritably. "Is
+cousin Baisanghâr no man because he could help thee embroider two
+years agone?"
+
+The princess held her head very high. It was not nice of her brother
+to import strange young men into the conversation, and distinctly mean
+of him to mention that old breach of etiquette. Had she not heard
+enough of it from her mother, ever since? Luckily grandam Isân-daulet,
+being desert-born, had not been so shocked, or life would have been
+unendurable. And as for Baisanghâr! Everyone knew he was not at all a
+proper young man, though he was so charming, so sweet-tempered, so ...
+
+"Lo! brother!" she said with asperity, checking her vagrant thoughts,
+"if one fool shook a baby's rattle better than another, he would be
+wise man to thee. But 'tis not I only who find leap-frog Hussan a
+smooth-tongued hypocrite. Grandmother has her eye on him."
+
+"Then can no harm happen," said the boy-King cheerfully, rising,
+however, with suspicious alacrity as if to escape from the subject. In
+truth he was somewhat afraid of old Isân-daulet though he tried to
+minimise his awe by asserting that very few of her sex could equal her
+in sagacity!
+
+Events, however, had marched with great rapidity, and Sultan Ahmed,
+his uncle, was now with his army but sixteen miles from Andijân.
+
+So something must be settled. Kâsim was for defiance and defence,
+Hussan for diplomatic and dutiful submission; since the King of
+Samarkand was, ever, indubitably suzerain-lord of Ferghâna.
+
+"Words against works," quoth honest Kâsim, who loved to be
+epigrammatic. His experience told him that if you fought fair you
+failed at times, but in the end you came out top dog in the general
+scrimmage of claims and clans.
+
+"Nay!" retorted Hussan, "I desire diplomacy, not dare-devil disregard
+of common precautions."
+
+Babar, however, frowned at both as he sat listening to the council of
+war or peace. He favoured neither pugnacity nor deceit.
+
+"Look you, gentlemen," he said, frowning. "All admit my Uncle Ahmed to
+be a fool whom fools lead by the nose; but is that cause why I should
+treat him foolishly, and so disgrace myself? I will neither fight nor
+yield till I have made him understand how the matter lies. So, let a
+scribe be brought and I will indite him a letter."
+
+"No letter ever did any good," grumbled illiterate Kâsim.
+
+"Especially if it be not received nor read," suggested Hussan
+sardonically. "The King of Samarkand is supreme and may refuse aught
+but a personal interview."
+
+Kâsim shot furious glances: such talk savoured to him of treason; but
+Babar only looked gravely from one adviser to the other.
+
+"So be it," he said cheerfully. "If he refuse reception or
+understanding, then--if so it pleases God--I can defeat him at my
+leisure. Meanwhile write thus, O scribe!--with all proper titles,
+compliments and reverences--'I, Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar, rightful
+heir, and _by acclaim_ (underline that, scribe!) of this Kingdom of
+Ferghâna, do with courtesy and reasonableness point out that it is
+plain that if you take this country you must place one of your
+servants in charge of it, since you reign at Samarkand. Now I am at
+once your servant and your son. Also I have a hereditary right to the
+government. If therefore you entrust me with this employment, your
+purpose will be attained in a far more easy and satisfactory way than
+by fighting and killing a number of people (and horses) needlessly.
+Wherefore I remain your loyal feudatory Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar.'"
+
+He beamed round on the council for approval of this logical argument,
+then added hastily, "And, scrivener! put 'Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar'
+large; and 'King of Ferghâna' larger still at the very end. That will
+show him my intentions."
+
+If it did, the effect was poor: for though the letter was duly
+engrossed on silk paper sprinkled with rose-essence and gold-dust,
+enclosed in a brocade bag, and sent to the invading camp at Kâba,
+the only answer to its irrefutable logic was a further advance of
+spear-points and pennons to within four miles of the citadel.
+
+Kâsim was jubilant. Jocose and bellicose he routed out armouries for
+catapults, and kept long files of men busy in passing up stones from
+the river bed, while forage parties raided the bazaars for provisions.
+
+If there was to be a defence it must be the longest on record, even if
+it were unsuccessful in the end.
+
+Babar himself donned mail and corselet for the first time. But he
+discarded the latter soon; it made him, he said, feel like a trussed
+pheasant, and he preferred the wadded coatee which would turn most
+scimitar cuts. It made him look burly as he strode round the ramparts,
+so that the sentries smiled to themselves and felt a glow at the heart
+remembering how young he was.
+
+The stoutness, resolution, and unanimity of his soldiers and subjects
+to fight to the last drop of their blood, the last gasp of their life,
+without yielding, filled the boy with unmixed admiration. It was part
+of the general splendidness of things which almost dazzled him.
+
+"My younger troops display distinguished courage," he said gravely,
+and Kâsim hid a smile with difficulty as he replied, "They have youth
+in their favour, Most Excellent. It is a great gift."
+
+Then he went out and roared over the joke on the ramparts to the
+sentries' huge delight. When next the young King went his rounds,
+smiles greeted him everywhere. He was a King to be proud of, and his
+family was worth fighting for--all of them! Especially the tall, slim
+figure with close-drawn veil which would often accompany the King at
+dusk. For Dearest-One was keenly interested in things militant, and
+was free to come and go, as the Turkhi women were, with due
+restrictions. And these were few in Babar's clan, which, as
+Grandmother Isân-daulet would boast, was "desert born."
+
+But, after all, the preparations were unnecessary. The little cherub
+intervened, rather to the boy's chagrin, though he admitted piously
+that Providence in its perfect power and wisdom had brought certain
+events to pass which frustrated the enemies' designs, and made them
+return whence they came without success, and heartily repenting them
+of their attempt.
+
+An exceedingly satisfactory but at the same time a disappointing end
+to his first chance of a real fine fight; and he watched one reverse
+after another overtake his foes on the other side of the Black-river
+with almost sympathetic eyes.
+
+"There is a murrain amongst their horses now," reported the chief
+farrier one day, "my sister's son who is in service with the
+Samarkandis crept over last night to beg condiments for Prince
+Baisanghâr's charger which is down--the same that the Most Excellent
+gave him three years agone."
+
+"Baisanghâr?" echoed Babar hurriedly. "I knew not that he was--amongst
+mine enemies!" Then he paused, and reason came to him. "Likely he is
+with his father of Tashkend who hovers on the edge of invasion, and
+hath ridden over--there is no harm in that. What didst give the
+fellow?"
+
+The farrier laughed. "A flea in his ear, Most Clement! A likely story,
+indeed, that I should help our enemies."
+
+Babar frowned and turned away. "'Twas a good horse, poor beast," he
+murmured. And afterwards, he went over to the women's quarters, and,
+as his wont was, retailed the story to those three, Isân-daulet, his
+mother and Dearest-One. The grim old Turkhoman lady was sympathetic
+about the horses, as a daughter of the Steppes must needs be, but
+stern over the necessities of war. His mother, more soft-hearted than
+ever by reason of her mourning, wept silently. But Dearest-One, was,
+as ever, a joy.
+
+"I would bastinado the farrier," she said vindictively. "The poor
+brute; and then think of cousin Baisanghâr. He loved the horse!"
+
+Her beautiful eyes flashed and yet were melting, her long brown
+fingers gripped her embroidery closer yet more caressingly. Her
+brother sate and looked at her admiringly, yet with a certain
+diffidence. Sometimes Dearest-One went beyond him; she seemed to
+unfold wings and skim away into another world. And when he asked her
+whither she went, she would smile mysteriously and say:
+
+"Thou wilt unfold thy wings also, some day, O little-big-one, and find
+a new world for thyself."
+
+There was little leisure now, however, for aught but watch and ward.
+Any moment of the day or night might bring assault; but the days
+passed and none came. And then one morning broke and showed a smaller
+camp than had been on the low lying river bank the night before; there
+was a bustle, too, about the still-standing tent pegs, and with the
+first glint of sunlight one Dervish Mahomed Turkhâu rode over the
+narrow bridge and demanded, on the part of his master, an audience
+with Hussan. Old Kâsim looked daggers, but there was no objecting. By
+virtue of his position as Prime-minister Hussan was the man to go, and
+he went. So out in the Place-of-Festivals beyond the gates, they met
+and parleyed: thus patching up a sort of peace, as Babar reported
+contemptuously to his faithful three. He was intensely disgusted and
+disappointed, while Kâsim looked sorrowfully at his piles of stones.
+
+"They will do for next time," he said finally, cheering himself up
+with the remembrance that there were many other claimants to the
+throne of Ferghâna to be reckoned with besides Sultan Ahmed. And by
+evening most of the garrison had found solace for their disappointment
+in overeating themselves, after the disciplined rations which
+Kâsim-Beg, mindful of the possibility of a long siege, had already
+ordained; but Babar and his foster-brother Nevian were out all day on
+their little Turkhoman horses, chasing the white deer and shooting with
+their bows and arrows at a cock pheasant or two.
+
+They brought home one in the evening which, as the boy boasted, was so
+fat, that four men could have dined on the stew of it!
+
+"'Twill do for our dinner anyhow," said Babar's mother, and
+thereinafter she and Isân-daulet bullied cooks and scullions and
+gently quarrelled with each other for a good two hours over the proper
+family recipe for making "_ishkânah_."
+
+And afterwards they sat together in an arched sort of balcony
+vestibule between the women's apartments and the men's rooms and
+talked happily, yet soberly of the future. Old Isân-daulet indeed,
+waxed prophetic. "See you, my sons-in-law will come to harm, not good.
+Ahmed has had to renounce his evil desires. Mahmûd will have to do the
+same; and let them pray God He send not punishment also." And she
+pursed up her thin lips and looked as if she knew something.
+
+But the Khânum, Babar's mother, said little; her heart was still
+sad and she crept away early to her bed, followed after awhile by
+Isân-daulet, leaving stern injunctions on Dearest-One not to sit up
+over-long.
+
+So brother and sister were left alone, and she went and sat beside him
+as he dangled his legs over the parapet of the balcony; for he dearly
+loved looking down from a height. It was to be a dark night so he
+could see little even of the roofs below, or the slabs of stone let
+into the wall at intervals to form a sort of ladder by which a bold
+man could climb from one to the other. And beyond, all was shadow,
+darker in some places than others. Besprinkled too with stars: the
+moving star or two of a lantern in the earth-shadow, but in the sky
+those changeless, changeful beacons, those twinkling tireless stars,
+motionless in their constellations, yet ever moving on and on ...
+
+Round what?...
+
+"Look!" he cried suddenly, "the scimitar of the Warrior is sheathed in
+the hills--my hills!"--
+
+And it was so. Orion shone to the north, setting slowly behind the
+mighty rampart of shadowed mountains in which the starry sword was
+already hidden.
+
+They sat silent for a little while, hand in hand, like the children
+that they were. And then suddenly a noise below them, made Babar swing
+his legs to the ground and stand firm before his sister.
+
+"Who goes?" he asked and his voice rang through the darkness; but no
+answer came.
+
+"'Twas a falling stone, methinks," said his sister carelessly; yet
+even as she spoke she also sprang to her feet, every atom of her, soul
+and body alert for something, she scarce knew what.
+
+She knew, however, in a second, for a darker shadow showed vaguely at
+the end of the balcony, vaulted lightly over the parapet, and a
+pleasant voice said gaily--
+
+"Mirza Baisanghâr of the House of Timur, cousin to the King of
+Ferghâna, at your service."
+
+"Baisanghâr!" echoed Babar. "How camest thou?--" then, even in his
+confusion remembering, as he generally did, _les convenances_ for
+others he added: "Thou hadst best retire, my sister, after making thy
+appropriate salutation."
+
+So, for one second the girl's eyes straining through the starlight
+could see her cousin. A charming figure truly! Not dressed, like her
+brother, in country clothes, but in the silks and satins of the town.
+A dainty figure too, of middle height and slender make, yet manly
+withal. The round face, unlike the faces of his cousins, showing
+Turkhoman descent unmistakably, yet with such indescribable
+attractiveness.
+
+"May the Peace of the Most High be upon you, my cousin," she said
+softly and her voice fluttered.
+
+"And may His Peace remain with you, fair lady," he replied gravely,
+with the finest of Court salutes. That was all; then she withdrew and
+the shadows hid her going.
+
+"By my soul, Baisanghâr," said Babar joyously, when he had seated
+himself and his cousin side by side among the cushions, "I am utterly
+rejoiced to see thee again; though how, or wherefore thou camest--"
+
+Prince Baisanghâr interrupted him with a light laugh. "How, sayest
+thou? By the roof of course; have I not been in Andijân before? and
+did I not once climb hitherwards--but of that, no more! Only thou wilt
+have to set thy masons to work, coz; for by God's truth my foothold
+was but rotten more than once. Sure I must be born to the bowstring
+since sudden death will not have me elseways! Yet of all seriousness,
+I
+came nigh to being dashed to pieces. And as for wherefore? Sure I came
+in duty bound to thank my kingly cousin for his courteous gift of
+horse-medicine. Aye! and for my horse too--for the second time--since,
+thanks to the drugs, he is alive and kicking."
+
+Babar sat back. "Horse-medicines?" he echoed. "What horse-medicine?--I
+sent thee none."
+
+Baisanghâr turned his head instantly to the darkness, and his voice
+rose perceptibly. "Yet it came from thee, my cousin," he replied
+blandly, "with thy salutations. In a packet of silken paper--such as
+ladies use for their trinkets, and tied with crinkled gold-thread such
+as ladies use--"
+
+"Yea! it was I, Mirza Baisanghâr," came a voice from the darkness; a
+voice clear, unabashed. "I sent it--I, the Princess Royal, so
+there is no need for fine wit to beat about the bush. I sent it,
+because--because my brother the King gave thee the horse and I was
+loth--loth it should die."
+
+The voice trailed away faintly, and Mirza Baisanghâr's eyes brimmed
+over with soft mirth; while Babar, forgetful of all save outraged
+etiquette, said sternly:
+
+"Sister! and I told thee to go."
+
+"And I went," retorted the voice rebelliously, "so far as eyesight
+goes. None can see me and 'tis the woman's right to listen."
+
+Prince Baisanghâr laughed aloud. "By the prophet! she speaks truth,
+coz; ladies have the law of listening all over the world; aye! and of
+speaking too. So let be, since we are cousins and free-born Chagatâi
+of the house of Ghengis."
+
+But Babar stickled. "Aye, _we_ are; but thou art not--not on thy
+mother's side."
+
+"My mother!" echoed Baisanghâr, his voice full of amusement. "Lo! I
+admit it! On my mother's side I am beyond salvation, being of the wild
+Horde-of-Black-Sheep! for which may God forgive me since 'tis not my
+fault I was not born a White-Lamb!" He named the two great divisions
+of his Turkhoman ancestry with infinite zest, then went on lightly:
+"But I fail of myself in other ways--many of them. I made an ode
+concerning it, a while past, that sets Baisanghâr Black-Sheep-Prince
+forth to a nicety!" and he began airily to hum a tune.
+
+"Sing it to us, cousin," came that sweet voice from the darkness.
+
+There was a moment of silence, as if the hearer were startled, perhaps
+touched; then came the almost stiff reply:
+
+"My fair cousin is too kind. The ode as verse is nothing worth. And
+its subject is, beyond belief--bad! Still, since she is Princess-Royal
+and I am but her slave, the order is obeyed."
+
+So through the night and out into the stars his high tenor voice rose
+and trilled in minor quavers.
+
+
+[Illustration: Music notes for first and third stanzas.]
+
+   1. Some-times with pi-ous-ness I crawl
+      To-wards High Heav'n on whit-ed wall
+
+   3. Back to the dust and dirt I fly
+      Where un-sub-stan-tial shad-ows lie.
+
+[Illustration: Music notes for second stanza.]
+
+   2. Or rest a-while on tree or flow'r
+      And dream but on-ly for an hour.
+
+
+The quavers ceased, and there was silence from the darkness; but
+Babar's boyish voice rose cheerful as ever.
+
+"'Tis good, cousin, and, in a measure, true. Yet need it not be so,
+surely. Thou hast no lack of parts. Who is more accomplished, of more
+pleasant disposition or more charming manners?"
+
+"I came not hitherto to be catalogued for sale," interrupted
+Baisanghâr curtly. "Of a truth I am admirable. I sing, I dance, I
+paint--yea! I paint uncommon--I could paint one fair lady's portrait
+could I but see her--"
+
+Still there was silence from the shadows, and a frown came to the
+laughter-loving face. "But I waste time," he continued, "and I have
+much to say, for thine ear alone."
+
+He spoke to the darkness, and he waited, his face softening while a
+whispering sound as of light departing feet rose for a space then died
+away in the distance.
+
+It was a good half hour afterwards that Mirza Baisanghâr, who knew his
+way well about the palace at Andijân, came with buoyant step down the
+spiral stairs which ended in a narrow vaulted passage that led to the
+sally-port.
+
+His cousin, from whom he had parted most affectionately, had given him
+the pass-word, so, secure from molestation, he was carelessly humming
+the refrain of his own ode ...
+
+
+      "Back to the dirt and dust I fly
+       Where unsubstantial shadows lie."
+
+
+The light-hearted, cynical words echoed along the arches and on them
+rose a curious sound, half cry, half sob, followed by a torrent of hot
+denial.
+
+"It is a lie! It is not true and thou knowest it. Why shouldest thou
+say such things of thyself, O Baisanghâr?--they--they--hurt!"
+
+The young man stood still as if turned to stone.
+
+"Dearest-One," he whispered at last, using the familiar name he was
+accustomed to hear--"Dost really care--so much?--And I--" he paused
+and a mirthless laugh rang false upon the darkness--"Princess--I
+cannot even thank thee--I--I dare not--save for the horse-medicines--"
+Here the artificial note left his voice and with a sudden cry "If I
+could--if I could, beloved," his eager hands went out and found what
+they sought, a lithe, warm, young body ready to his arms. But almost
+ere he clasped it he thrust it from him roughly.
+
+"Go!" he said briefly. "Go, girl--and forget me--if thou canst. Yet
+remember this--if ever woman's lips touch mine, they would be
+yours--but that will be never--never!"
+
+The next instant he was gone. Dearest-One stood, straining her eyes
+unavailingly into the darkness for a space: then she cowered down in
+on herself and sat shivering, her wide eyes open, fixed. But there was
+nothing to be seen in her heaven or earth: nothing to be realised,
+save that he would not even touch her.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III
+
+   "Draw near, O Man! and lift thy dreamy eyes.
+    See! this the ball; this the arena too
+    Where, mounted on the steed of Love, the prize
+    Is to be won by him who--God in view--
+    Strikes skilfully.
+    The Goal is distant; narrow too the Field;
+    Yet strike with freedom. God will send the Ball
+    Thy hand as sped in faith, where it should fall.
+    Backwards and forward strike and if thou yield
+    Yield cheerfully."
+
+
+Grandmother Isân-daulet proved true prophet. Ere forty days had passed
+from that patched up peace, another hasty messenger bearing a blue
+'kerchief of death had arrived at Âkshi whither the court had gone to
+celebrate the late king's obsequies. Ahmed, the King of Samarkand had
+been seized with a burning fever and after six days had departed from
+this transitory world.
+
+Babar was sorry. His uncle, he said, had been better than most. A
+plain, honest Turk not favoured by genius, who had never omitted the
+five daily prayers except when honestly drunk. And that was but
+seldom, seeing that when he did take to drinking wine, he drank
+without intermission for a month or six weeks at a stretch and
+thereinafter would be sober for a considerable time. So there had
+always been periods for piety.
+
+The womenkind wept, of course, for blood feuds enhanced blood
+relationships when Death the peace bringer stepped in between the
+combatants. Besides, mourning was already afoot; so they could kill
+two birds with one stone. Even Fâtima Begum, the late King's first
+wife, who, losing her premier position through childlessness had
+retreated in a huff to a separate establishment, joined in the chorus
+of wailing. And she brought her belated son Jahângir--nigh three years
+younger than Babar--to take his rightful place in the palace; much to
+old Isân-daulet's indignation.
+
+"Set her up, indeed," she said with a toss of her head, "her and her
+belated brat. Mark my words, had the child been lawful, 'twould have
+come betimes. But when 'tis hoighty-toighty and a separate house, only
+God knows to what an honest man may be made father."
+
+Still the function was a function, and the ladies enjoyed all the
+ceremonies; for they were simple folk, content with little, and that
+little rough and rude, for all they were Queens and Princesses.
+
+Babar, however, wearied of all save the giving of victuals to the
+poor. He loved to see joy at a portion of _pillau_ and butter cakes.
+Indeed he surreptitiously ordered more sugar for the children's thick
+milk. It made him feel hungry, he said, to see them eat it. And there
+was no better enjoyment in the world than real hunger; provided always
+that food was in prospect. For he was tender-hearted over frail
+humanity. He could not see, for instance, why the Black-eyed Princess,
+his father's last and low-born wife who was, of course, quite beyond
+the circle of distinction, should not be allowed, if it pleased her,
+to discover a roundabout relationship to the family of Timur. It did
+not alter facts. But Isân-daulet sniffed.
+
+"'Twill not alter her manners or her speech anyhow; though 'tis true
+in a way. We be all descended from Adam, as I tell her morn, noon, and
+night."
+
+So Babar had to listen to the Black-eyed one's wails; which he did in
+kindly kingly fashion, for he liked the good-natured, stupid, pretty
+creature. He had, however, other things to think of. His Uncle Ahmed's
+death had vaguely disturbed him; for Uncle Ahmed left no male heirs;
+and the question of succession was a burning one, since, by all the
+laws of Moghulistân, Babar had a double claim to the throne through
+his maternal grandfather Yunus Khân.
+
+"Of a surety," he said to Dearest-One who was ever _confidante_ of his
+ambitions and innermost thoughts, "there is no doubt that, now, Uncle
+Mahmûd, as brother, succeeds of right. But at his death? Cousin Masaud
+and Cousin Baisanghâr are not so close to Yunus Khân as I. Then Masaud
+is a nincompoop, and Baisanghâr--" he paused.
+
+"Well! what of Cousin Baisanghâr?" asked the girl hotly.
+
+Babar whittled away with his knife at the arrow he was making--for he
+was ever useful with his hands--ere he replied slowly:
+
+"Baisanghâr will never make a king. Wherefore I know not; but there it
+is. He is not fit for it."
+
+Dearest-One was aflame in a second. "Not fit for it?" she echoed.
+"That is not true. He is as fit for it really as--as thou art,
+brother. Only he will belittle himself! He will talk of himself as a
+shadow--an unsubstantial shadow! It is not true, it is not right, it
+is not fair, and so I told him the other night."
+
+Babar put down his knife and stared.
+
+"Thou didst tell him so--but when?"
+
+Dearest-One hung her head, though a faint smile showed on her face.
+She had given herself away; but she was not in the least afraid of her
+brother. Many youngsters of his age might, from their own experiences
+in love affairs, have been seriously disturbed at the idea of their
+sister speaking to a young man on a dark stair; but Babar was an
+innocent child. To him it would be but a slight breach of decorum. Yet
+something made her breath short as she replied coolly:
+
+"I met him on the stairs. It was dark, so he could not see me,
+brother; and I spoke to him as--as a mother to her son." The head went
+down a little more over the last words; true as they were in one
+sense, she knew better in her heart-of-hearts.
+
+"And he--what said he?" asked Babar alertly, taking his sister
+completely by surprise. With the memory of that cry "Beloved!
+beloved!" in her mind--it had lingered there day and night--she
+faltered.
+
+"Dearest-One!" said the boy, grave, open-eyed, after a pause, "did he
+kiss thee?"
+
+The girl looked up indignantly, a dark flush under her wheat-coloured
+skin. "Kiss me?" she echoed--"he did not even really touch me--"
+
+And then, suddenly, she hid her face in her hands and burst into
+tears. True--he had not touched her--he had shrunk from her eager
+body. Why? oh, why?--
+
+Babar was full of concern. He laid down his knife and arrow, and went
+over to his sister. "Then there is nothing to weep about, see you," he
+said stoutly, "save lack of manners, and for that thou art sorry. Is
+it not so, dearest?"
+
+The girl's sobs changed to a half-hysterical giggle. "So sorry--" she
+assented, "and thou wilt not tell Grandmother--"
+
+"The prophet forbid!" cried her brother aghast; "I should never hear
+the last of it."
+
+And Dearest-One's tears changed to real laughter.
+
+"Brother," she cried, "thou art the dearest darling of all! I would do
+aught in the whole world for thee."
+
+"Nay," replied Babar gravely, "that will I never ask of thee. My
+womenkind shall have no task to do that my hands cannot compass
+alone."
+
+He felt virtuous as he spoke; rather uplifted, too, by that same
+virtue. He did not know what Fate held in store for him. He did not
+dream that he would have to ask of her the greatest sacrifice a woman
+can make, and that she would make it willingly.
+
+Meanwhile it was gorgeous summer tide, and Hussan played forward in
+the King's game of polo, down in the river meadows. He was the best of
+forwards; the best of men consequently to the boy-King.
+
+"Thou art a young fool, child!" said old Isân-daulet who never minced
+her words, "as thou wilt surely find out ere long unless God made thee
+stupid blind. Luckily mine eyes are open; so go thy way and knock
+balls about after the manner of men."
+
+Thus it was early autumn ere Babar's eyes opened; but then what he saw
+made his young blood surge through him from head to foot. The
+meanness, the deceit of it! To conspire with the ambassador from
+wicked Uncle Mahmûd at Samarkand who had come ostensibly to present an
+offering of silver almonds and golden pistachio nuts, to depose him,
+Babar, and put "the brat" Jahângir on the throne. And all the while to
+be playing forward in the King's game! It was too much! It was not
+fair! It was emphatically _not_ the game!
+
+"Throw away bad butter while it's melted," said Isân-daulet firmly;
+"Send Kâsim-Beg and other trustworthy friends to strangle him with a
+bow string! Then wilt thou be quit of such devils' spawn."
+
+But Babar was a sportsman. Even if it came to killing the forward in
+the King's game, he was not going to do it underhand. So he looked
+round the assembly of loyalists who had met to convince him in his
+grandmother's apartments in the stone fort, and said briefly: "To
+horse, gentlemen! I go to dismiss my Prime-minister from his
+appointment."
+
+But that gentleman had already dismissed himself. When they arrived at
+the citadel, they found he had gone hunting; and from that expedition
+he never returned. Someone must have blabbed; for he had posted off to
+Samarkand, rather to the boy-King's relief. It would have been a
+terrible thing to imprison or blind the best forward in the kingdom.
+
+And even when news came that the offender had paused by the way to
+make an attack on Âkshi, and in the consequent _mêlée_, having been
+wounded in the hinder parts by an arrow from his own men, had been
+unable to escape and so had fallen a victim to the loyalists the
+boy-King was glad that Providence had taken judgment from his hands.
+Hussan had but himself to thank. As the poet said:
+
+
+      "Who does an evil deed
+       But sows the seed
+       Of his own meed."
+
+This was finely philosophic; but it did not quite comfort the
+philosopher. The first actual experience of ingratitude and disloyalty
+made its mark upon him and sobered him. He began to abstain from
+forbidden and dubious meats and but seldom omitted his midnight
+prayers.
+
+Mercifully, however, the season for polo was past, and Nevian
+Gokultâsh was almost as good at leap-frog as the deceased statesman.
+Nevian Gokultâsh, who, as foster brother, was above the possibility of
+suspicion.
+
+"Truly," said Babar one evening, throwing his arm round his playmate's
+neck affectionately, "rightly are thy kind named _Gokultâsh_--'heart
+of stone.' Thy love is founded on rock, whereas my brother by blood--"
+he broke off impatiently--"but there! 'tis not his fault--he is so
+young--two whole years younger than I."
+
+Despite the good-natured excuse which in all his chequered life, ever
+came easily to Babar's kindly nature, he felt the first chill of the
+cold world at his heart. He found to his great irritation and
+annoyance, that his _milieu_ was not nearly so reasonable as he was
+himself. It was the irritation and the annoyance which besets
+capability and vitality. Other folk had not nearly such good memories,
+were not half so nimble-minded, or straight-forward, as he expected.
+
+When, for instance, he sent an envoy to a rebellious chief, in order
+to remonstrate with him, before proceeding to arms, the wrong-headed
+man, instead of returning a suitable answer, ordered the ambassador to
+be put to death.
+
+Such, however, not being in the pleasures of God, the envoy managed to
+escape, and after having endured a thousand distresses and hardships,
+arrived naked and on foot, to pour the tale of his wrongs into Babar's
+indignant ears. Urged by wrath at such ill-manners, the boy-King
+proposed instant reprisals, and set off; but a heavy fall of snow on
+the encircling hills and a slight sprinkling on the clover meadows
+warned him that winter was approaching, and his nobles added their
+opinion, that it was no time in which to commence a campaign.
+
+So he returned to Andijân and to a boy's life of study and sport. The
+saintly Kâzi was his tutor, and kept the boy to his Al-jabr (algebra)
+and Arabic, and abstruse dialectic dissertations on the nature of the
+Kosmos. There were not many books to be read in Andijân, but Babar
+knew them all. He had the _Epic of Kings_ almost by heart, and used to
+regret there were not more details about the great Jamsheed with his
+wonderful divining cup; Jamsheed who reigned with might, whom the
+birds, and beasts, and fairies, and demons obeyed; Jamsheed of whom it
+was written "and the world was happier for his sake and he too was
+glad." That was something like a King!
+
+And Babar learnt also, in a rude, unrefined way, all the
+accomplishments of a Turkhi nobleman. He could strum on the lute, bawl
+a song fairly, and play with singlestick to admiration. The latter was
+Kâsim's care; Kâsim who was the best swordsman in the kingdom and who
+used to quarrel with the Kâzi as to whether the young student's
+strongest point was fencing, or the fine _nastalik_ hand-writing in
+which Babar excelled.
+
+As for sport, the snow falling early brought the deer down to the
+valleys; and the undulating country about Andijân was always full of
+wild fowl, while pheasants by the score were to be shot in the skirts
+of the mountains.
+
+The boy was growing fast and in his lambskin coat worn with the fleece
+inside, the soft tanned shammy leather without all encrusted by
+gold-silk embroidery to a supple strength that kept out both cold and
+sabre cuts, he looked quite a young man; and his high peaked cap of
+black astrachan to match the edgings of his coat and bound with
+crimson velvet suited his bright animated face.
+
+Dearest-One admired him hugely.
+
+"I would the court painter were not a fool," she said regretfully as
+he came in one day from the chase and held up for her inspection a
+cock _minâwul_ pheasant all resplendent in its winter plumage. "But he
+cannot see. When he paints thee he makes thee all as one with Timur
+Shâh and Ghengis Khân--on whom be peace--but I want _thee_."
+
+In truth it needed a better artist than Andijân held to do justice to
+the fire which always leapt to the boy's face when beauty such as the
+iridescent bird's struck a spark from his imagination and made the
+whole world blaze into sudden splendour.
+
+"Baisanghâr might do it likely," replied Babar thoughtlessly; "he hath
+a quaint turn with his brush that is not as others; and he said he
+would love to paint thy portrait--" he broke off suddenly, aware that
+this was a subject which had better not have been introduced. But,
+indeed, there seemed a fate that he should always talk of Baisanghâr
+to his sister. Could it be her fault? He looked at her with boyish
+reproach, but the girl's face was lit up with smiles and dimples.
+
+"Aye! he said that. Did he say more after I had gone? Tell me,
+brotherling."
+
+But he walked off in dignified fashion with the cock pheasant. His
+sister thought too much of Baisanghâr. And it was time she married.
+
+He talked to his mother quite seriously about it, and she met his
+anxiety by the calm remark:
+
+"Why should she not marry Baisanghâr?"
+
+Why not, indeed, now he came to think of it. Somehow it had not
+occurred to him before. But when he suggested it to his sister she met
+him with a storm of tears. She was never going to marry. She was going
+to be a sainted canoness and pray for her brother. Why could he not
+leave her alone; and Cousin Baisanghâr also, who apparently was of the
+same mind, since, though he was nigh nineteen, he had never taken a
+wife. And, if it came to weddings, was it not high time that he,
+Babar, King of Ferghâna, bethought himself of bringing _his_ betrothed
+home? That would procure festivities enow, if _that_ was what he was
+wanting.
+
+From which deft shaft in the enemy's camp, Babar fled precipitately.
+The very idea irked him; he had no time for such nonsense. In fact he
+wearied even of the three loving women who insisted upon consulting
+him by day and by night.
+
+But ere the winter was over yet another messenger of death arrived,
+and this one made the boy-King feel like a caged young eagle longing
+for his first flight.
+
+Wicked Uncle Mahmûd after disgusting Samarkand for six months with his
+unbridled licentiousness and tyranny, until great and small, rich and
+poor, lifted up their heads to heaven in supplications for redress,
+and burst out into curses and imprecations on the Mirza's head, had,
+by the judgment that attends on such crime, tyranny, and wickedness,
+died miserably after an illness of six days.
+
+The women wept, of course, though old Isân-daulet's tears were
+considerably tempered by smiles at her own prophetic powers. Had she
+not said that both the men who dared to attack the apple of her eye,
+young Babar, would suffer? And so they had. And now ...
+
+The old lips pursed themselves and were silent. But the old thoughts
+were busy. Her grandson was, mayhap, over young to try his luck this
+year, yet for all that he was the rightful heir to the throne of
+Samarkand. In this way: Father Yunus Khân, Suzerain of all
+Moghulistân, had been suzerain also of Samarkand. None questioned
+that. Had not the triple marriage of Yunus Khân's three daughters with
+the King of Samarkand's three sons been arranged especially in order
+to put an end to the Khân of Moghulistân's undoubted claim, by joining
+the two families? Well, one of those marriages had produced no son.
+Mahmûd who had married the younger daughter, had but one son by her, a
+perfect child. But Babar, son of the eldest sister, was adolescent;
+therefore, by every right, every claim, he was the heir.
+
+But she was a wise old woman. There was no use being in a hurry.
+Samarkand might as well seethe in its own sedition for awhile. By all
+accounts the Turkhâns were up in arms; and the Turkhâns were ticklish
+folk to deal with. Then Khosrau Shâh, the late King's prime-minister
+was an able man and might be trusted to fight for what he wanted. The
+time for intervention would be when the combatants had weakened each
+other.
+
+And the shrewd old woman once more proved herself right. For Khosrau
+Shâh, having plumped for the nincompoop Masaud--doubtless because
+he knew that with a nonentity on the throne, his power would be
+absolute--the Turkhâns declared for Baisanghâr, sent for him express,
+and having driven out Khosrau, who had attempted to conceal his
+master's death until his plans were completed, placed the former on
+the throne.
+
+And here another factor came in to the wary old woman's mind. What if
+her granddaughter were to marry Baisanghâr? Babar could lay claim to
+other kingdoms when he was fit to fight for them, and thus there would
+be a down-sitting for both her daughter's children. So, most of the
+affairs of importance at Andijân being conducted by her advice,
+Kâsim's swashbuckler instincts were held in check for the time.
+Something however must be done to occupy the lad meanwhile; and the
+news that his uncle by marriage and cousin by descent, Hussain, King
+of Khorasân, meditated an expedition against Hissâr, the neighbouring
+province, prompted the suggestion that the boy-King should take
+advantage of proximity to pay his respects and make acquaintance with
+the premier prince of the age.
+
+Babar's imagination was aflame in an instant. Tales of the splendid
+court at Herât were broadcast in Asia. Folk said they had even spread
+to Europe--that dim unknown horizon to which the boy's thoughts often
+reverted. And Sultan Hussain was as his father and his elder brother.
+It was always wise to make the personal acquaintance of such; it
+dispelled misunderstanding on their part, and gained for yourself a
+nearer and better idea of their strength and weakness.
+
+So one day at the beginning of winter, with stout Kâsim wrapped to the
+eyes in furs and a hundred-and-a-half or so of hardy troopers equipped
+for a mountain march, Babar started for the low passes by the White
+Hills to the valley of the Oxus river.
+
+"Have a care of thy soul, my son," said the saintly Kwâja, "and
+remember what the poet sings:
+
+
+      "The soul is the only thing to prize;
+       Heed not the body: it is not wise.
+       The wiles of the Devil are millionfold,
+       And every spell is a fetter to hold.
+       Thou hast five robbers to keep at bay,
+       Hearing and sight, touch, taste and smell,
+       So chain them up and govern them well.
+       Some things are real and some but seem;
+       The mundane things of the world are a dream."
+
+
+But Isân-daulet sniffed. "So be it that he keep the institutes of
+Ghengis Khân as his forebears did, he will do. They be enough for a
+brave man, and death or the bastinado sufficient punishment."
+
+The Kwâja looked grave. "Yet be they not the law of Islâm, sister; and
+we, of the faith, are not heathens."
+
+"Heathen or no!" retorted the old lady, "my grandson will do well if
+he touch Ghengis Khân's height." And she sniffed again.
+
+Perhaps her words put it into the boy's head, but in this, his first
+flight beyond his hill-clipped kingdom his thoughts were with his
+great ancestors. He rather swaggered it in consequence round the camp
+fires at night, and was overbold in the chase; so that more than once
+on the higher hills Nevian-Gokultâsh had to pick him out of a
+snow-drift. But his dignity was always equal to the occasion, and when
+at last Sultan Hussain Mirza's camp showed in ordered array on the low
+ground beyond the passes, he took it as if he were quite accustomed to
+see the large pavilions, the rows on rows of orderly tents, the
+_laagers_ of chained carts.
+
+He held his head very high too, as he rode down the central alley, his
+pennant carried before him by two jostling troopers. The smart
+soldiers, lavish of buckles and broideries, who lounged about, smiled
+at the uncouth troop; but each and all had a need of praise for the
+boyish leader who sat his horse like a centaur and whose bright eyes
+seemed everywhere.
+
+"He is a gay enough young cockerel," admitted a scented noble with a
+smile. "Let us see if his uncle will make him fight."
+
+But even if Babar had been more pugnacious than he was, sheer
+astonishment at his first interview would have kept him quiescent.
+Even Kâsim-Beg, stickler as he was for etiquette, gave up the hopeless
+attempt at ceremonial.
+
+"Thou art welcome, nephew," said the old man whose long white beard
+contrasted with his gay-coloured, juvenile garments, that better
+matched the vivacity of the straight narrow eyes. The black astrachan
+cap perched on the reverend head, however, suited neither. "Sit
+ye down, boy, and watch my butting rams! Yonder is the Earth
+Trembler--peace be on my ancestor's grave ... and this is the
+Barbarian Ghengis--no offence meant to thine, young Chagatâi! Three
+_tumans_ of gold, Muzàffar, he smashes the other's horn first butt!"
+
+The man he addressed, who had been, Heaven knows why, prime favourite
+for years, and showed his position by the most arrogant of airs,
+turned to his neighbour. "Not I; a certainty is no bet for me, though
+by our compact, Excellence, I would get my fair share of two-thirds
+back, if you won! But Berunduk Birlás here, having lost his best hawk
+after bustard to-day, is in a mood for tears, and would like to lose
+gold also."
+
+Berunduk Birlás, the ablest man at the court, shook his head sadly.
+"Of a truth, friend, my loss is great enough to content me. Had my
+sons died or broken their necks I could not grieve more than for my
+true falcon-jinny Brighteyes! No man could desire a more captivating
+beauty."
+
+Sultan Hussain went off into a peal of laughter. "Li! where is
+Ali-Shîr? Where is our poet? Brighteyes the captivating beauty who
+catches hairs, eh? There is a subject for word-play. Out with a
+_ghazel_ on the spot, friend Ali."
+
+A thin, elegant-looking man with a pale, refined face, got up and made
+a perfect salute. From head to foot he was exquisite, the Beau Brummel
+of his age.
+
+"Look," nudged one young courtier to another enviously, "he hath a new
+knot to his kerchief. How, in God's name, think you, is it tied?"
+
+The incomparable person paused for one second only; then in the most
+polished of voices he poured out a lengthy ode, deftly ringing the
+changes on the word "_baz_" (falcon) which in Persian has at least a
+dozen different meanings.
+
+A ripple of laughter followed his somewhat forced allusions, and he
+sat down again amid a chorus of applause.
+
+Babar stood dum-foundered, yet in every fibre of his body sympathetic.
+Here was something new indeed! A new world very different from the
+rough and tumble clash of arms and swords and polo sticks at Andijân;
+but a world where, mayhap, he might hold his own.
+
+"Well done! Well done!" he cried with the rest, and his uncle the
+Sultan nodded approval at the lad.
+
+"Sit ye down, sit ye down!" he said; "and, cupbearer! a beaker of
+Shirâz wine for the King of Ferghâna!"
+
+For the life of him the boy could not refrain from one swift look at
+Kâsim's face, Kâsim who was all shocked propriety at such a violation
+of the rules both of Islâm and Ghengis Khân; but after that one scared
+glance dignity came back.
+
+"Your Highness!" he said, with pomp, waving his hand towards one of
+the butting rams, "like my ancestor the Barbarian I drink water only."
+
+A smile went round the assembly and young Babar felt a glow of pride
+that he had not fallen so far short in wit. Thereinafter he sat and
+listened with wide eyes. His uncle was certainly a lively, pleasant
+man; but his temper was a bit hasty and so were his words. Still,
+despite that and overfreedom with the wine cup, he evidently had a
+profound reverence for the faith, since at the proper hour he put on a
+small turban tied in three folds, broad and showy, and, having placed
+a plume on it, went in this style to prayers!
+
+That night when Kâsim was snoring in the tent and the
+hundred-and-a-half or thereabouts of his followers were slumbering
+peacefully, full up of kid _pullao_, Babar lay awake. He was composing
+an ode for the first time in his life. It was a sorry composition of
+no value except that it filled him with desire to do better.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV
+
+       In this world's inn, where sweetest song abounds
+       There is no prelude to one song that sounds;
+       The guests have quaffed their wine and passed away
+       Their cups were empty and they would not stay.
+       No sage, no stripling, not a hand but thine
+       Has held this goblet of poetic wine;
+       Rise, then, and sing! Thy fear behind thee cast
+       And, be it clear or dull, bring forth the wine thou hast.
+                                                        _Jami_.
+
+
+Babar could not tear himself away from his uncle's camp. He lingered
+on and on, watching the military operations with a more or less
+critical eye, but absorbing culture wholesale.
+
+It was a revelation to him, meeting men to whom fighting was not the
+end and aim of life; and these Begs and nobles of his uncle's court,
+though they were all supposed to be engaged in warfare with Khosrau
+Shâh who was holding Hissâr over the river, for his nominee the
+nincompoop, had yet time for other things.
+
+Ali-Shîr, for instance, was wise beyond belief in all ways.
+Incomparable man! So kind, so courteous. Babar profited by his
+guidance and encouragement in his efforts to civilise himself. Thus
+becoming--since there is not in history any man who was greater patron
+of talent than Ali-Shîr--one of that great company of poets, painters,
+professors, and musicians who owe everything to him, who, passing
+through this world single and unencumbered by wife or child, gave
+himself and his time up to the instruction of others.
+
+So far, therefore, as the clash of intellect went, young Babar was
+satisfied. In regard to the clash of arms it was different. How such a
+mighty body of Mirzas, Begs, and chiefs, who, with their followers, if
+they were not double the number of the enemy over the water were _at
+least_ one-and-a-half times that number, could content themselves with
+practical inaction passed his understanding.
+
+When, too, they had such battering rams and catapults as positively
+made his mouth water! There was one of the latter which threw such a
+quantity of stones and with such accuracy that in half an hour--just
+before bedtime prayers--the enemy's fort was beautifully breached. But
+the night being deemed rather dark for assault and the troops
+preferring the safety and comfort of their trenches, no immediate
+attack was made; the result being that before morning the breach was
+repaired.
+
+There was absolutely no real fine fighting, and at this rate his
+uncle, the Sultan, would doubtless spend the whole winter on the banks
+of the Amu river, and when spring came, patch up some sort of a peace
+from fear of the floods which always came down with the melting snow.
+
+"That is his way," asserted Kâsim with a shrug of his shoulders. "He
+leads his army forth with pomp and state, and in himself is no mean
+general; but ever it comes to naught. It is so, always, when folk take
+to rhyming couplets, and putting spices to their food. Give me orders
+that hang together, and plain roast venison."
+
+But all the while the honest man was stuffing his mouth full of lamb
+and pistachio nuts, and Babar smiled. Still he felt that, so far as
+the art of war went, he might go back to little Andijân without fear
+of leaving behind him any knowledge worth the learning. It was
+otherwise with the culture, and he flung himself with characteristic
+vitality into music lessons, and dancing lessons, elocution lessons
+and deportment lessons, until as he entered the court audience no one
+could have told that but a few weeks before, he had been as rough and
+as uncouth as old Kâsim, who stoutly refused veneer.
+
+"What I am, God made me," he would say, "and if folk like it not let
+them leave. I budge not."
+
+To which uncompromising independence, one pair of hands--delicate,
+long-fingered, ivory hands--gave fluttering applause. They belonged to
+a young man who, almost at first sight, impressed young Babar more
+than anyone he had seen in all his life. He was a helpless cripple who
+yet took his part in life like any other man. Every evening his
+spangled litter would be brought into the big audience tent and set
+down just below the King's. For Mirza Gharib-Beg (who styled himself
+Poverty-prince in allusion to the meaning of his name--poor) was the
+King's son by a low-born woman who had been passionately loved. So,
+despite the fact that he had been born misshapen, ugly, and that
+ill-health had always been his, Poverty-prince still had a hold on his
+father's affection. And no wonder; since, though his form was not
+prepossessing he had a fine genius, and though his constitution was
+feeble, he had a powerful mind. There was nothing, it seemed to Babar,
+that he could not do. He could rhyme with Ali-Shîr, play the guitar
+with Abdulla-Marwârid and paint with Bahzâd. What is more, he could
+talk mysticism far better than Kamâl-ud-din, with his wagging black
+beard, who pretended to raptures and ecstasies and had written a
+portentously dull book about Sufism which he called "The Assembly of
+Lovers"--portentously dull and also profane--which was inexcusable.
+
+But when Poverty-prince spoke of roses and nightingales and even of
+the red wine cup, he took you into another world; and he evidently
+believed what he said, whereas Kâmal-ud-din was all pose.
+
+Yet the next instant the thin ugly face would show almost impish in
+its amusement and its owner would burst out with some sally that would
+set them all a-laughing; and him a-coughing for the change of air
+which was to have done him good was doing him harm; though he would
+not admit it.
+
+"Wherefore should I?" he laughed gaily in some anxious face. "A man is
+as ill as he thinks himself--he is all things that he believes himself
+to be. So I am strong, and well, and young, and deeply enamoured of a
+beauteous lady. She is called Feramors--a pretty name," and he would
+catch up a lute over which his thin, long, ivory hands would flutter
+like butterflies and sing:
+
+
+      "Say! is it Love or Death, O Feramors!
+       That hides behind thy bosom's pearly doors?
+       I care not, so I reach the heart within.
+       Oh! let me in;
+       Open the closed doors, O Feramors!"
+
+
+Truly he was a marvellous person! To Babar, boy as he was, the most
+marvellous thing in the camp. How could he, cripple, suffering, almost
+dying as he was, keep life at bay as it were? How could he sit so free
+of it? He, Babar, with his health and strength was not so independent,
+though he was more so than most, for, almost unconsciously, he set
+himself as free as he could from encumbrance even of thought.
+
+He shrank even from so much as came to him from Gharîb, and avoided
+his cousin in consequence, spending such time as he could spare from
+his numerous lessons, and the watch Kâsim made him keep on military
+matters, in hunting amid the low hills.
+
+But it was no use. That dark, curiously be-scented tent wherein the
+cripple lay laughing at life, had a strange attraction for him. He
+took to dropping into it on his way elsewhere, until old Kâsim grew
+uneasy.
+
+"He lays spells on you, my liege," he protested. "They tell me he can
+do it to all young folk--so have a care!"
+
+"Smear my forehead with lamp-black against the evil eye; then shall I
+be safe," laughed the boy, and yet in his heart he felt the spell.
+And, oddly enough, he liked it. He was fascinated by something in this
+distant, faraway cousin of his; so far-away that it scarcely seemed
+worth while calling him cousin. Yet, as grandmother Isân-daulet would
+say: "all men were descended from Adam!"
+
+"Come in on thy return from the chase," said Poverty-prince one day
+when he had looked in on the scent sodden tent, a picture of youth and
+strength and health, in his fur _posteen_ and his high peaked cap.
+"And bring thy bag with thee for this lifeless log to see. What shall
+it contain? _Imprimis_--a brace of chameleon birds. I love to see
+their iridescent necks and the six different colours between head and
+tail--mark you! how I remember thy description, cousin-ling?"
+
+Babar blushed. "Thou said'st thou had never seen them," he began
+apologetically.
+
+"Save through thine eyes and they are good enough for most folk. Be
+not ashamed, coz, of the gift God hath given thee. And thou shalt
+bring me a fat deer and some _kalidge_ pheasant--and, with luck, a
+cock _minâwul_. Then we will look at it with the same eyes--thou and
+I--" A wistfulness had crept into his voice, and he said no more.
+
+But the curious thing was that the bag was ever just what
+Poverty-prince had predicted, neither more, nor less.
+
+"Thou art a wizard, for sure," said Babar half seriously. "The
+thought of thy words makes my aim sure at times, and at another sets
+my bow arm a-quiver. Wert thou to say '_naught_,' I should return
+empty-handed."
+
+"So be it," laughed the cripple. "Why should we kill God's pretty
+creatures?"
+
+And thereinafter two whole hunts produced nothing. Whether it was a
+fresh fall of snow in the hills that brought ill luck Babar could not
+say, but he looked at his cousin with awe.
+
+"Thou hast more power I verily believe," he said, "than the Dream-man
+whom Uncle Hussain keeps--"
+
+"For his amusement," put in Poverty-prince with a frown. "But _that_
+is black magic; mine is white. I do naught. 'Tis thy mind that
+answers--" he broke off and his large eyes--the only unmarred feature
+in his face--narrowed themselves to a piercing glance. "Wherefore
+should I not say it, cousin? Has it not struck thee, that had'st thou
+been born crooked and not straight, or had I been born straight and
+not crooked, we should have been as two twins? That is why I like
+thee, and thou likest me."
+
+The boy sat and stared at him, almost incredulously. He could not
+imagine his youth and strength pent up in that prison of a body; and
+yet ...
+
+Yes! without doubt there was some tie. Else why should he feel so
+intimate--why should he speak to Poverty-prince of things which every
+decent young Mahomedan was taught to keep to himself; for instance of
+Dearest-One and the possibility of her marrying Baisanghâr?
+
+The blood rushed to his face, however, with shame when he felt his
+cousin's hot, long-fingered, trembling hand close on his wrist in
+quick arrest.
+
+"Marriage--say not the word! Dost not know? Nay--I forgot thy
+youth--and I will not soil thine ears with the tale. But we in foul
+Herât know most wickedness, most degradations. And there is that in
+miserable Baisanghâr's life that bars marriage with any woman worthy
+the name. Aye! and he knows it--poor maimed soul enmeshed for ever by
+the wickedness of one who should have protected him--May God's curse
+light on him for ever. So think not of marriage, cousin."
+
+Babar shook off his cousin's clasp haughtily. It was not that he
+resented having substance given to his vague doubts of Baisanghâr--it
+was better to know for sure; but interference with his womenkind was
+intolerable. And he had brought it on himself!
+
+"By your leave," he said with terrific dignity, "we will speak no more
+on such private matters. 'Tis my own fault. Such subjects are not meet
+for public conversations."
+
+Poverty-prince lay back on his cushions and kindly raillery took
+possession of his face. "Not meet, sayest thou cousin-ling? Yet are
+they the best half--nay! the three quarters of life. Dost know that
+even to me, cripple, marriage hath played the major part?"
+
+Babar's eyes involuntarily travelled over the distorted body, the
+crumpled limbs, and Poverty-prince laughed cynically.
+
+"Thou art right, boy," he went on; "loathsome to sight and touch, what
+had I to do with weddings. But princedom weighs heavy with the pandars
+of the court. And 'twas done early. Mayhap they did not dream I would
+grow up so monstrous--as I did." He paused and his pale face grew
+paler, his hot fingers clasped and unclasped themselves. "Mayest thou
+never--nay! thou will not--see fear upon a girl's face. I saw it. Dost
+understand? Nay, thou art but a child still. Thank God! I did. So she
+waits for release by my death. And then--" He paused again and this
+time bright, cold raillery took possession of his face as he said:
+"Thou wilt make a fine bridegroom, cousin-ling, some day! Fair maids
+will not be alarmed at thee!"
+
+"Likely I shall be of them," answered the boy stoutly; and it was
+true; barring Dearest-One, the stupid, mincing creatures filled him
+with dismay.
+
+This passed but a few days before Kâsim, who thought his young charge
+had had quite enough of the camp, proposed starting homewards. There
+seemed no prospect of the campaign coming to a close. Quite a variety
+of strategical movements had been made, mines had been dug, forts
+besieged, but the result was nil. And time was passing. Events had not
+been going smoothly at Samarkand, the moment for intervention might be
+near and Grandmother Isân-daulet had sent a messenger advocating
+return.
+
+None too soon, for the very same day King Hussain's runners brought
+news of a conspiracy to turn out Baisanghâr, and bring in a younger
+brother Ali-Khân.
+
+"But he is not of the blood, either," said Babar hotly. "Kâsim! we
+must go back at once." The desire for conquest was stirring in him
+once more.
+
+"The sooner the better, sire," replied the stout warrior, settling his
+sword belt. He had wearied terribly among the smart soldiers and was
+longing for a real raid once more.
+
+"To say farewell," echoed Poverty-prince, when Babar looked in that
+night at his cousin's tent; "I thought it was not to be for a week
+yet." And his hot hand clasped the cool one with a lingering touch.
+
+"There was news from Samarkand," replied the lad, regret tempering the
+keenness which had come to his face with the prospect of action. "And,
+cousin, it matters little--'tis but a few hours' difference--"
+
+"A few hours?" echoed the cripple, speaking, for the first time since
+Babar had known him, almost regretfully; "that means much to one who
+has but a few days or weeks to live. Not that it does so really, coz,"
+he added, recovering his usual serenity. "And thou wilt spare me one
+of the hours? I dare claim so much of my twin?"
+
+The pathetic playfulness of the appeal went straight to the lad's soft
+heart; he fell on his knees beside the cushions, then sat back in the
+Mahomedan attitude of prayer. "Nay, brother," he said--and there was
+quite a tremble in his young voice--"say not so--I am but a poor
+creature beside thee. Thou art--truly I know not what! Sometimes I
+think an angel from God's paradise--thou art so splendid!"
+
+"Knowest thou if angels be splendid?" asked Poverty-prince with
+radiant raillery. "For myself I know not--only this--that I shall miss
+my double--" He looked at the lad's lithe limbs, at his long legs, his
+great stretch of arm. "And to think," he muttered, "that I might have
+been born so--My God! to think of it."
+
+Then suddenly he clapped his hands and gave a peremptory order to the
+servant who appeared.
+
+"See that I be not disturbed--that no one enters."
+
+He waited till they were alone, then drew something from his bosom and
+held it before him in both hands. It was a tiny crystal bowl scarce
+large enough for his finger tips. But they held the glittering thing
+lightly. It looked like a diamond body to two fluttering ivory wings,
+as he said slowly, musically.
+
+"It hath lain in my breast, ever. I found it in the hand of death," he
+said dreamily, "but the Riddle-of-Life ends for me, and begins for
+thee. So take it, when I have told thee how it came to me."
+
+Those ivory hands of his seemed more like wings than ever as, still
+holding the bowl before him, he lay back and it showed clear against
+the shadows of the tent.
+
+"Thou knowest," he went on, "the graveyards of the hill-folk? Set on
+an hill and thick with iris flowers--the flowers of immortality--the
+green sword leaves guarding the blossoms, guarding the quiet dead
+below? It was the day I saw fear in a maiden's eyes--there was
+such a graveyard not far from her father's dwelling--he is dead now
+and she awaits the release of death amongst beneficent ladies in a
+House-of-Rest at Herât--and I bid them carry me there; for my heart
+was aflame and I cursed God for this carcase, seeing she was fair. So
+they left me there overlooking the valley, and when they had gone I
+lay amid the crushed iris and writhed--but of that no more. It hath
+passed.
+
+"So, suddenly, between my empty wide-spread arms and clutching fingers
+I saw something amid the crushed blossoms. It must have been a very
+old grave on which I lay, since the iris roots matted thick upon it as
+if to hide the dead that lay in the hollow of it; for the rams and the
+winds sweeping on that high exposed spot had torn the covering of soil
+from Mother Earth's bosom. What I saw was this crystal cup. Perchance
+it had been used when the dead was laid to rest, and forgotten.
+Perchance some sad lover had set it there with flowers and tears in
+the poignancy of first grief, and gone away to love another. Who
+knows? The iris-roots had grown to a cup around it; twisted, white,
+iris-roots like dead fingers; and I took it from them. Take thou it, O
+Zahir-ud-din Mahomed, from one close to the Adventure of Death. I
+burden the gift with but one condition--if ever thou comest across a
+frightened maid--" here his whole face became radiant with smiles--"be
+not afraid of her. So take it cousin-ling. It is no cup of King
+Jamsheed to bring thee counsel in thy need. Yet it hath its virtue to
+those, who, like thou hast, have eyes to see. It can bring content."
+
+Content! was this the secret of Poverty-prince's charm? Babar, bold,
+young, every fibre of him keen-strung for the Life, on the brink of
+which he stood, cared little for content. Yet he took the cup and
+looked at it curiously. Quaint of a surety! Taller than it was broad.
+Small enough to lie in the hollow of the hand. The brim over-thick by
+reason of heavy bosses below the edge: five bosses like those in blown
+glass, but oval, like eyes. The rest faintly frosted by fine
+scratchings (were they without or within?--within surely) which, were
+they letterings, would need a magnifying glass ere they could be
+deciphered. But at the bottom, so disposed that one must read in
+drinking, these words showed clear:
+
+
+      "Save the cup of life, what gift canst thou bring?"
+
+
+That was from Hâfiz surely?
+
+"Aye! divine Hâfiz," replied his cousin answering his thought boldly.
+"Now, hold it to the light, cousin-ling, and see its virtue."
+
+The boy did as he was bid, feeling dazed and dreamful. A seven-lamped
+tripod behind his cousin's cushions had been lit--at least he could
+not remember that it had been there when he came in--Seven little
+lamps ...
+
+Why! those five bosses were deftly arranged to gather the light and
+send it ... God and His Prophet! How beautiful!
+
+Through the clear eye before his eyes he saw his cousin's face--all
+glorified--splendid utterly ...
+
+That something which came to him ever with the sight of beauty, filled
+him with joy ...
+
+But stay! the bosses must be magnifying glasses also! He could read
+something.
+
+What was it?
+
+_Ishk_ (love)? or _Ashk_ (tears)?
+
+"Thou wilt see more clearly when thou hast learnt to use the five eyes
+of the soul," came his cousin's voice; "then thine own thoughts will
+return to thee from the Mirror-of-Life. Now put it into the bosom of
+thy fur coat. There is room there for it and majesty likewise. And now
+I will sing the Song-of-the-Bowl ere thou goest."
+
+He clapped his hands once more, and the boy sighed and rubbed his eyes
+dreamily. Surely the seven lamps had been lit? But now they were not;
+the semi-darkness of the scent-sodden tent closed in on him, and that
+was his cousin's every-day voice:
+
+"Bring me my dulcimer, slave! Lo! King-ling, it suits the measure
+better than the _cithâra_ and I am proud of the tune! 'Tis my own."
+
+So, after a while, the tinkling notes began, the voice rose
+plaintively:
+
+
+[Illustration: Three Bars of Music with words]
+
+
+      "Clear Crystal Bowl! Thy sun-sparkles blind
+         Every poor soul whose eyes seek to find
+       Way through Life's wilderness on thy bright brim,
+           Crystal Bowl!
+         What wilt thou bring to him,
+             Darkness or Light?
+
+       Clear Crystal Bowl! Thy touch, icy cold,
+         Chills lovers lips that lay overbold
+       Hot clinging kisses on thy bright brim,
+           Crystal Bowl!
+         What wilt thou bring to him,
+             Love or Despair?
+
+       Clear Crystal Bowl! I laugh like thy wine!
+         Bring me Life's whole! all things must be mine!
+       Is not the wide world mirrored in thee
+           Crystal Bowl?
+           I bid thee bring to me
+             Joy, Grief, Life, Death--"
+
+
+The voice ceased and there was silence for a little while.
+
+But in all the long after-years the memory of those tinkling notes,
+that thin voice claiming the whole of life, remained with Zahir-ud-din
+Mahomed.
+
+"Well! God's peace go with thee," said Poverty-prince brightly at the
+last; "methinks thy boyhood is about past, and sterner stuff hath to
+come. But keep the gift of death and if thou lose it--at least
+remember my poor verses. And, coz--" here the wizened face almost
+dimpled with laughter, "if thou comest across the frightened maid--I
+give no names, they are an encumbrance, remember to make her not
+frightened of my twin! Farewell."
+
+It was a stirring night. The river had to be crossed silently in the
+very face of Khosrau Shâh's pickets (for he was holding the north bank
+for his nominee the nincompoop) and a stealthy way made skirting the
+enemy's camp, ere they could reach the hills beyond. Some of the party
+felt inclined to put Andijân tactics in force, make a rush through the
+out-posts, give and take a few sabre cuts, and so make off; but Babar,
+even though old Kâsim hesitated, had learnt something besides
+accomplishments in his uncle's camp; he had learnt that time was long,
+and that it was well to choose your own. So he rode canny.
+
+It was dawn ere they reached the last vantage ground whence they could
+see the camp they had left. It lay curiously calm and peaceful. Kâsim,
+more than half-asleep on his horse now there was no chance of a fine
+fight, yawned, and stretched his arms wide.
+
+"No more of that for me," he said lustily. "I am for cut and thrust
+and a good bellyful of plain food."
+
+"But I am for all things," laughed Babar. He was trying to pick out
+his cousin's tent, and as he spoke he put his hand into the bosom of
+his coat to feel for the Crystal Bowl.
+
+He could not find it!
+
+Had it dropped out or what...?
+
+"I must go back," he said, half to himself--"I must, I must!"
+
+"Go back? Wherefore?" asked old Kâsim. "What is it, sire--to go back
+is Death; the enemy is awake by now."
+
+The boy-King looked at him keenly. "Aye!" he said shortly, "and to go
+on is Life. I must remember, as he said. Forward! gentlemen!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V
+
+       The day of delight has come and the wind brings scent
+       Of musk and rose and lilies and peppermint.
+             Oh! day of delight pass slow!
+             God's flowers must blow.
+
+       The day of despair has come and the wind brings dust
+       To bury the flowers; the song of the birds is hushed.
+             Oh, day of despair pass swift!
+             Let God's clouds lift.
+
+       The days of despair and delight have come;
+       Ah, me! I care not away from my home.
+             The days of God pass swift and slow.
+             Allah-i-hu--allah-i-ho!
+                                            _Ashrâf the Exiled_.
+
+
+Old Isân-daulet, who had been Queen-regent to all intents and purposes
+during Babar's absence, welcomed him back to Andijân somewhat charily.
+She had sent for him in a hurry when news came that the Turkhâns of
+Samarkand had revolted against Baisanghâr, captured that prince by
+stratagem, and put Mirza Ali his younger brother on the throne.
+
+But now the tables were turned. Baisanghâr, whom all knew to be wily
+as a fox, had not only managed to escape, but having somehow gained
+the sympathy of the townspeople, they had risen tumultuously against
+the Court-folk and the Turkhâns, had besieged the citadel which had
+not been able to hold out for a single day, and had replaced
+Baisanghâr--why only God knew!
+
+"'Twill be because of his love odes, grandmother," said Babar gravely;
+"there is not a house in Samarkand where a copy of them is not to be
+found."
+
+Isân-daulet sniffed captiously. "I would he would keep his love-songs
+to himself. There is Dearest-One sick as a magpie still with the shock
+of his death, and he is not dead, the good-for-nothing."
+
+Babar's lip set. "He is dead to her anyhow," he said, "so no more
+dreams of that, grandmother. I forbid it, and so I will tell her."
+
+"Hoighty-toighty!" sniffed the old lady; but in her heart of hearts
+she was glad.
+
+"Look you!" she said to her daughter afterwards, "he spoke for all the
+world like his grandfather when things went wrong. Lo! he is boy no
+longer. We must treat him as a man, with wiles."
+
+Such, however, was not Dearest-One's treatment of her brother; nor was
+his of her, what might have been expected from his peremptory tone to
+his grandmother. How could it be, when he found her pale and
+dispirited, despite her joy at seeing him? He beat about the bush
+uncomfortably for quite a long time, until with characteristic
+clarity he blurted out: "And, sister, thou must think no more of
+Baisanghâr--he is a worthless scoundrel--"
+
+The girl, ill as she was, looked as if she could have stabbed him with
+her eyes.
+
+"That he is not," she said proudly; "thou art like the rest of
+them,--even the Kwâja--yea! I have talked with him concerning it and
+he knows, mayhap, more than thou dost--who confound the sinner with
+the sin. But look you, Zahir-ud-din Mahomed, were there no man on
+earth but Mirza Baisanghâr I would not have him; and yet I love him
+dearly, dearly." She sank back on her bed, hid her face in the quilt,
+and sobbed.
+
+Babar stood aghast, yet feeling as if he could cry too.
+
+"I wish thou had'st known Cousin Gharîb," he said suddenly,
+causelessly. "He would have understood. I cannot--not yet."
+
+Then he turned and left her. What was the use of trying to comfort
+anyone when you did not know the cause of their sorrow? And Joy and
+Grief, Life and Death had to come if one were to live.
+
+Then life was so full just at the present. The very story of
+Baisanghâr's escape was enough to make one's heart beat. Under
+sentence of death, and such a death! To be taken with pomp
+and ceremony to the foot of the throne in the Gokserai--the
+Green-palace--that wonderful palace, four stories high, built by the
+Great Timur in the citadel, where every kingly descendant of his must
+be enthroned, where every kingly descendant of his must die--and
+there to be strangled! With _that_ before him, to have the nerve in a
+few minutes to unbrick a closed door, run to the bastion, fling
+himself over the parapet wall, and so find shelter in Kwâja Kwârka's
+house--the holiest man in the city! A thousand pities, indeed, that
+Baisanghâr had sunk so low. Aye! Dearest-One was right. One could
+condemn the sin, and yet do justice to the sinner. Yet there was a
+lack of kingliness too that was inexcusable. To allow his brother Ali
+to escape also was perhaps to err on the side of mercy, but to submit
+to be beaten by him in battle immediately afterwards was distinctly
+unnecessary!
+
+It complicated matters, too, most dreadfully. For here was Baisanghâr,
+acclaimed by the people, more or less imprisoned in the City of
+Samarkand, and Ali-Mirza, nominated by the Court, beleaguering him
+from the Bokhâra side, while Khosrau Shâh, relieved from the necessity
+of defending Hissâr for his nincompoop by the withdrawal of Sultan
+Hussain back to Khorasân, was hastening all he knew to put in his oar
+for _his_ nominee from the Hissâr side!
+
+This being so, and neither of the three claimants having a shadow of
+right beside his, Babar's, there was nothing for it, but to be on the
+spot at once.
+
+So kettledrums were beat and pennons unfurled, while Nevian-Gokultâsh
+saw to his young master's coat of mail, and the latter pored over the
+memoirs of his great ancestor Timur to see what wrinkles he could pick
+up in regard to the disposition of troops in a real fine fight; for,
+being a born general, he was dissatisfied with what he had seen, even
+with Uncle Hussain's smart soldiers.
+
+Only Dearest-One took no interest in the military preparations; she
+embroidered no flag with crinkled gold. She sat on the roof and
+watched the young King ride out in all his bravery and then she prayed
+God for his safety, and also for the safety of that other one, who
+deserved none.
+
+And, for a time, both her prayers were answered. The summer passed on
+to winter and still Samarkand, the protected city that has never
+really fallen, sat gaily secure in its wide suburbs and vast network
+of fortified gardens. Scarcity, indeed, pressed harder outside the
+walls than within. Then the nincompoop whose only object apparently in
+advancing on Samarkand had been to pursue his mistress, the daughter
+of a high Court official, succeeded in marrying her, and so retreated.
+
+Thus Babar found himself confronting Baisanghâr supported by the
+populace, and Ali by the Court. They waited and looked at each other
+for some time; and then one morning, after preliminaries, Babar moved
+his army some twelve miles down the right bank of the river Kohik, and
+Ali-Mirza moved his down the left. So, with their armies behind them
+(though it would seem, somewhat helpless either for support or
+protection) the two young Princes each with five followers rode from
+their own side to the middle of the stream and with the chill water
+just touching their horses' bellies, agreed that if the summer came
+again they would harry Samarkand together.
+
+After which solemn ceremonial Ali returned to his side of the river,
+and Babar to his; whence he set off to Ferghâna.
+
+It was not a very distinguished campaign but it was his first. Perhaps
+it was as well it was uneventful for he was busy working his small
+army into something like discipline. Therein, he saw clearly, boy as
+he was, lay success; without it, there was nothing but one long
+succession of isolated raids, incoherent, useless, leaving the people
+ready, as they had been in the beginning, for a new, and yet another
+new conqueror.
+
+It was something, therefore, when in the next spring, he found himself
+able to restrain his troops and to punish severely many straggling
+Moghuls who had been guilty of great excesses in the different
+villages through which they had passed. It was an unheard-of idea, but
+it had a marked effect; for shortly afterwards when his camp was close
+to a place called Yâm, a number of persons, both traders and others,
+came in from the town to buy and sell, and somehow, about afternoon
+prayer-time a general hubbub arose during which every shop and every
+stranger was plundered. Yet an order that no person should presume to
+detain any part of the effects or property thus seized, but that the
+whole should be restored without reserve before the first watch of the
+next day was over, resulted in not one bit of thread or a broken
+needle being kept by the army!
+
+It was a glorious victory for pure ethics and quite repaid Babar for
+having to remain for six weeks outside Samarkand. Besides, the peach
+gardens were in full bloom. It was curious going out into the pleasure
+ground of the city, to slash, and hack, and hew, and kill! But there
+was no other way for it, and many were the sharp skirmishes that took
+place with the townspeople where folk as a rule had been wont to
+disport themselves on holidays. But in war-time things got upside
+down; witness the dastardly deceit of the Lover's Cave where five of
+Babar's most active men were killed. Seduced by a treacherous promise
+to deliver up the fort if a party came thither by night, a picked
+troop was chosen for the service, with this result.
+
+It rankled bitterly in the young commander's heart; he felt himself at
+fault for his greatest weakness--an inveterate habit of believing what
+he heard.
+
+Yet he had his consolations. Day by day, as he waited, doing his best
+with the small force at his command to cut off the supplies from the
+city, the number of townspeople and traders who came out to traffic in
+the camp bazaar increased, until it became like a city and you could
+find there whatever is procurable in towns. And day by day, the
+inhabitants of the country around came in and surrendered themselves,
+their castles, their lands, high and low. Only the city of Samarkand
+held out. It was in the end of September and the sun was entering the
+Balance, when Babar, weary of waiting, made a feint march to the rear
+and the garrison of Samarkand, jumping to the conclusion that he was
+in retreat, rushed out in great number, both soldiers and citizens.
+Then orders were given to the cavalry in reserve to charge on both
+flanks; whereupon God prospering the proceeding, the enemy were
+decisively defeated; nor from that time forward did they ever again
+venture on a rally. No! though Babar's soldiers advanced through the
+now leafless peach gardens to the very ditch and carried off numbers
+of prisoners close under the walls.
+
+And still fair Samarkand stood secure. Seven whole months had the
+blockade lasted, and now the winter's cold was coming on to aid the
+garrison. In addition, the great Turkhestân raider Shaibâni Khân was
+said to be on his way with a large force to intervene in the quarrel.
+Both dangers had to be faced. Babar felt, in view of the first, that
+he must cantoon his men, and set to work marking out the ground for
+the huts and trenches; so, leaving labourers and overseers to go on
+with the work, he returned to his camp. None too soon, for the very
+next morning a hostile army showed to the north. It must be Shaibâni,
+prince of Free-lances!
+
+Nothing dismayed, by the fact that fully half his soldiers were away
+seeking winter quarters, Babar put the forces he had with him in
+array, and marched out to meet the enemy. Boldness met with its
+reward. Shaibâni withdrew, and after giving the young King some nights
+of sleepless anxiety went back whence he came, and Baisanghâr,
+disappointed in relief, resigned himself to despair and fled
+accompanied by two or three hundred naked and starving followers.
+
+"In the whole habitable world are few cities so pleasantly situated as
+Samarkand." So wrote Babar when at the age of fifteen he found himself
+met as King by the chief men of the city, by the nobles, by the young
+cavaliers, and escorted to the Garden-Palace where Baisanghâr had
+lived. It was a great relief to him that his cousin had escaped,
+indeed he had taken no precautions to prevent his doing so. Babar's
+quarrel was not with him, but with his claim, and as the lad--for he
+was but a lad still--sat that night under the roof which had sheltered
+the deposed prince, he told himself he had been right when he had said
+to Dearest-One that Baisanghâr would never make a king. There were no
+signs of kingship in that Garden-Palace. No plans or sketches, no
+dry-as-dust schedules. Not one of the papers and models such as
+he, Babar, already carried with him. Only a lute, a dulcimer, some
+dice-boxes. Not even luxury! Poor Baisanghâr! Rightly had he called
+himself an unsubstantial shadow. His poetry was the best part of him;
+and his painting.
+
+Babar sitting alone in the alcoved room which Baisanghâr had evidently
+left in a hurry, lay back among the cushions of the divan and thrust
+his hand beneath them to adjust them to his head. There was something
+hard beneath their softness. He drew it out and found a small square
+frame. Of gold--no! it was green enamel and on it were set, like
+flowers, turquoises, rubies, amethysts, topazes.
+
+Why did it remind him of the spring meadows about Andijân? The spring
+meadows set with forget-me-nots and tulips? It was a bit too dark
+where he was to see the pale painting it held, so he rose and took it
+to the light.
+
+Dearest-One!
+
+And with a rush came back accusingly something he had almost forgotten
+all these months of striving and stress. Poverty-prince! the
+Cup-of-Life! those bosses that gathered the Light and magnified what
+was written by Fate. Once or twice he had thought of it carelessly;
+but now...?
+
+Why had the thought come back to him?
+
+It was a speaking likeness. Faint-coloured, delicate as a dream.
+Perhaps Baisanghâr had meant it to be so. It was likely he did. Poor
+Baisanghâr! For the life of him Babar could not help pity, even when
+he found the back of the frame was covered with fine writing--with
+verses!--not even when he recollected that it was to his sister that
+they were dedicated!
+
+In truth there was little in them of offence, and Babar as he went to
+sleep that night, King of Samarkand, caught himself repeating them.
+They were certainly very neat--very neat indeed. And now that he had
+had time to think, why should not poor Dearest-One see them? They had
+given him a kindlier feeling towards the writer, so why should not
+she...?
+
+Why not, indeed! The Cup-of-Life held all things for all.
+
+Yes! he would send, or give her the portrait as it stood. It was
+really an excellent piece of work; and the words were perfect--the
+construction, and the _grammar_ so good.
+
+He fell asleep reciting them.
+
+
+                            HEFT-AURANG[1]
+
+                          THE SEVEN THRONES
+
+       Seven thrones and each a star
+       Set in God's Heaven afar;
+       Seven thrones and each for thee;
+       Thank God there is no place
+         Beside thy face
+         For me! for me!
+
+       Seven sins! Ah! more than seven
+       To cast me down from heaven;
+       Seven sins; and each of me!
+       Thank God there is no place
+         Beside my face
+         For thee! for thee!
+
+       Seven stars and one a pole
+       To guide the wandering soul
+       To rest; but not for me--
+       There is no grace or place
+         Beside thy face.
+         Ah me! Ah me!
+
+
+---------------------
+
+[Footnote 1: The Persian name for the Great Bear.]
+
+---------------------
+
+
+"Samarkand is a wonderfully elegant city."
+
+So wrote its young King the next evening. He had spent the day in
+going round his new possessions and had found them to his liking. Not
+only was the little Mosque with its carven wooden pilasters quaintly
+beautiful, but the big one was magnificent with its frontispiece on
+which was inscribed in letters so large that they could be read a mile
+off:
+
+"And Abraham and Ishmael raised the foundations of the House of God
+saying 'Lord accept it from us; for Thou art He who heareth and
+knoweth.'"
+
+Then the gardens were a joy, the baths the best he had ever seen, the
+bakers' shops excellent, the cooks skilful. And the dried prunes of
+Bokhâra, a fruit renowned as an acceptable rarity and a laxative of
+approved excellence, were to be found in perfection. Then there was
+the Observatory built by Ulugh-Beg, his ancestor, who had been a great
+mathematician. Babar had never seen an observatory before; indeed
+there were at that time but seven in the whole world, so it was an
+honour to possess one. He spent many days poring over its astronomical
+tables, trying to understand them; and finally put on a mathematical
+master, since no science could possibly come amiss to a King.
+Meanwhile Nevian-Gokultâsh and Kâsim and all the Andijân nobles,
+bickered inevitably with the Samarkand grandees, and Babar found no
+small difficulty in keeping the peace.
+
+Still, life was once more splendid; at any rate for the young King.
+But the soldiers grumbled at the lack of loot. It was all very well to
+say that the country had voluntarily submitted and was therefore
+beyond plunder, and that from a city which had suffered the
+vicissitudes of war for two years and withstood a siege of seven
+months, it was impossible to levy anything by taxation. It was all
+very well to supply the inhabitants with seed corn and supplies to
+enable them to carry on till harvest time. But charity began at home,
+and home under these circumstances was best.
+
+The wild Moghuls deserted first; then by twos and threes, the other
+men slipped away by night.
+
+Yet still life was splendid. On those same clear winter's nights Babar
+could watch the stars with new-found knowledge.
+
+"If the Most Excellent would watch the barracks instead," growled old
+Kâsim, "it would be well. Our men grow thin. There are scarce a
+thousand of them left, all told; and new friends are not so good as
+old ones. The Samarkandis are doubtless fine fellows, as the Most
+Excellent appears to find them; but would they follow back to Andijân
+if occasion occur?"
+
+And occasion did occur. A letter arrived from Babar's maternal uncle
+the Khân of Moghulistân who, urged doubtless by the deserters, wrote
+saying that as the former had possessed himself of Samarkand, it was
+only fair that his younger brother Jahângir, who, after all, _was the
+son of Omar Saikh's first wife_ should be given Andijân.
+
+Kâsim, who with his usual frown at all letters sat listening, spat
+solemnly on the ground. "Poison breeds poison," he said; "I deemed
+that talk had been spilt in the blood from Hussan Yakoob's hinder
+parts four years past. But 'tis never too late for mischief when women
+are left to themselves as they are at Andijân."
+
+"But my grandmother is sagacious," began Babar.
+
+Kâsim shrugged his shoulders. "Saw you ever a woman who could manage a
+woman, sire? So have not I. Begum Fâtima and she have been spitting at
+each other like wild cats, and what is wanted is a stick. Now, what is
+to be said?"
+
+Babar spoke hotly. "That I will not hear of it! No! though I might of
+myself have made my brother governor. But of myself. This savours of
+command. He knows my men have gone back! I will not hear the tone of
+authority."
+
+And Babar as he spoke felt himself tremble with anger. His voice was
+hoarse, too, and his head ached. He had been sitting up all night in
+the Observatory to watch an eclipse of the moon, and despite his fur
+coat had felt chill; for February had brought bitter winds.
+
+"So be it!" said old Kâsim gleefully. He was getting weary of
+Samarkandi side, and foresaw more fighting now the spring was at hand.
+
+Next day a special messenger, foot in hand from Andijân, found Babar
+in bed with a severe cold. And the letter from Kwâja Kâzi did not mend
+matters. Briefly, the deserting soldiers, discontented, disloyal, were
+giving trouble, and if help were not sent at once events might come to
+a very bad termination.
+
+That night delirium came to the young soul, as the young body lay
+fighting for breath against pneumonia.
+
+The physician bled him, of course, and fed him with almonds and
+ginger. And they closed every door and window, so that the wood-smoke
+filled the room and such little lung-space as was left. But splendid
+youth and health were his, and after a few days he lay outwearied with
+his hand-to-hand fight with Death, looking at the letters which had
+followed fast upon each other during his illness. And each brought
+worse news than the last. Andijân was besieged. Any moment his
+women-folk might fall into the hands of the enemy. He must start at
+once. To set aside Nevian-Gokultâsh's protestations, was easier than
+to rise and dress. Once up, however, he managed the council of war
+creditably, and for a day held his own bravely, giving orders for this
+and that.
+
+A tall, thin, haggard young figure with sharpened features and
+eager eyes defying Fate; until suddenly voice left him, he struggled
+on for an hour or two, then lay unconscious. So weak that they did
+not dare bleed him again, but mercifully left him as he was. Only
+Nevian-Gokultâsh at his right hand, moistening the dear lips with
+cotton dipped in water, while Kâsim sat still as a statue, the tears
+running down his furrowed cheeks.
+
+Was this, then, the end of that vivid young life, the like of which
+had never been seen?
+
+But the Samarkandi fellows who did not really care might go about the
+city as dogs, and yelp the news that Zahir-ud-din Mahomed their King
+was dying, nay! was dead. It was easy to see that this had been done,
+for hour by hour, day by day the Garden-Palace became more and more
+empty, more and more solitary.
+
+A runner from Andijân, bearing further news found it so, and, anxious
+for the truth, stole upstairs on tiptoe to see for himself.
+
+How still! How cold! How silent! And that half-seen form in the dusk,
+motionless among the quilts? Dead! Dead! or so close to Death that no
+alternative remained.
+
+That night as his bells tinkled from his post-runner's pike as he ran
+past village, and field, and wood, they jangled the refrain that was
+on his mouth for all who cared to listen.
+
+"Babar is dead! Life has ended! The cup is finished!"
+
+Yet, even as the words rang out on the chill air, other words, faint,
+scarce to be heard, were startling those two sad watchers in the
+Garden-Palace.
+
+"The Crystal Bowl. Give it back to me ... I ... I laugh as I
+drink.... Bring me the whole, I say, the whole."
+
+The boy's brain, faintly conscious, was taking command once more.
+
+And the body obeyed. In four or five days he was reading letters of
+despair from his mother, from old Isân-daulet, from Dearest-One.
+Samarkand, they said, had been taken with troops from Andijân. Could
+not _one_ man be spared from Samarkand to keep Andijân?
+
+Babar had not the heart to delay, and ill as he was set off in a
+litter with such followers as he could gather together. It was a
+Saturday in March that he started; just a hundred days since he had
+entered Samarkand, and he knew he could not hope to return as King.
+"_One hundred days only_," he thought, as he jolted through the peach
+gardens that were once again swelling to bud.
+
+He reached Khojend by forced marches in a week's time; but by then he
+was on his horse again, beginning to regain strength and colour.
+
+So he wondered why the people looked at him so strangely as he rode
+through the town. Did they take him for a ghost?
+
+Yet he was even as one when they told him the news. Just a week
+before, on the very Saturday when he had started in such haste from
+Samarkand, Andijân had capitulated, needlessly capitulated, to the
+enemy on the news of Babar's death brought by a returning post-runner.
+
+For the sake of Andijân he had lost Samarkand, and now found that he
+had lost the one without preserving the other.
+
+Worse still, he had lost a dear friend; for the saintly Kwâja Kâzi,
+protesting against the premature yielding of the citadel while there
+was yet no lack of provisions or of fighting men, had been barbarously
+martyred by being hanged in a shameful manner over the gate of the
+citadel.
+
+No wonder Babar wrote in the diary he had begun to keep: "I was in a
+very distressed condition and wept a great deal."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI
+
+   Blest is the soul that is lifted above
+   The paltry cares of Self's selfish love,
+   Which adds no weight to another's care
+   And gives no soul a burden to bear,
+   Which takes what comes as its part and lot,
+   Which laughs at trouble and worries not,
+   Which sleeps without malice or fraud in its breast
+   And rises pure from its daily rest.
+                                                  _Jâmi_.
+
+
+There was a sad meeting, naturally, with the womenfolk Babar had hoped
+to help, and who were--somewhat contemptuously--sent to him, unharmed,
+after a few days. Or perhaps that "divinity which doth hedge a king"
+or whatever it was, which all his life long ensured Babar's own
+safety, extended itself to those who were dear to him.
+
+Anyhow they came, and fell with tears on the neck of their dethroned
+darling. Dearest-One, slim and tall, her face still showing the lines
+of conflicting anxieties, yet still sweet utterly, without trace of
+bitterness for her brother. The Khânum, too rejoiced at seeing her son
+alive and well to care so much about his loss of dignity. Old
+Isân-daulet, keener of look and sharper of tongue than ever, but with
+a world of sympathy in her stern eyes for the lad who had lost all
+save honour. For she realised that Babar had practically given up
+Kingship for the sake of his womenkind. He had had fair grip of
+Samarkand, and even with but a thousand devoted followers of his own
+to help him hold it, could, nay would have done so.
+
+Babar, himself, did not attempt to deny his virtue. He never did; he
+was too frank to gloze over any of his actions, good or bad. He had
+done the right thing and he accepted the fact gravely; perhaps a
+trifle pompously; but that was his nature. In the same way, he could
+not fail to see, that what had placed him in the unfortunate position
+of having insufficient followers to hold both Samarkand and Andijân,
+was no error of judgment on his part, but simply his extreme and
+unusual justice in refusing to grind down the distressed inhabitants
+of the former city for the benefit of his soldiery. Could he only have
+shut his eyes to the usual undisciplined plunder his army would not
+have deserted wholesale.
+
+He was not introspective, but he knew, vaguely, that he had, somehow,
+had no choice in the matter. He had been born with this strong sense
+of justice, so he could not help himself; therefore despite this
+recognition of his own virtue, it slipped from him like water off a
+duck's back leaving no self-conceit behind.
+
+So he welcomed his loving women quite whole-heartedly, and then wept
+more profusely than ever at the difficulty of maintaining them in
+proper fashion. Not that they wanted this. The Khânum, gentle, kindly
+soul, was only too glad that her quite capable hands should do all
+things for her darling, Dearest-One brisked up with work that took her
+out of herself, and Isân-daulet had roughed it too much in her youth
+not to enjoy the familiarity of roughing it again. And life, even at
+Khojend, a miserable place in which a single nobleman would have found
+it difficult to support his family, was not without its interests. Of
+the rather more than two hundred, and considerably less than three
+hundred followers who chose exile with their young King, quite a
+number were men of good family, whose wives and children joined them.
+
+There was, therefore, company of a sort. Then Babar, despite his
+tears, was not one to give in. Inspired as he was by an ambition for
+conquest and extensive dominions, he could not, on account of one or
+two paltry defeats, sit down and look idly about him.
+
+So, at any rate, he told the three loving women with his usual serious
+pomp, when he sent a request for assistance to his uncle, the Khân of
+Moghulistân, and then set off to reconnoitre around Samarkand. He
+returned ere long disappointed; but was soon on the march again
+to see his uncle in person at Tashkend. In this he was encouraged by
+Isân-daulet who remembered her brother of old. "Lo! I know him. A good
+soul but a stupid. The brains of my father, Yunus, went in the female
+line. But if you beat his ears with words he will listen. And keep on
+the soft side of Shâh-Begum, my husband's widow--God rest his soul!
+Anyhow he is at peace from her! A clever woman, but like a camel in
+mud--slippery!"
+
+And this expedition was so far successful that the young leader
+actually returned from it once more at the head of some seven or eight
+hundred horsemen. Rather a wild lot, mostly free-lance Moghuls eager
+for loot and violence. But it was better than nothing, though Khojend
+was not large enough to hold them, even for a night. Mercifully,
+however, there was an enemy's fort some forty miles off, so, taking
+scaling ladders with them, they rode on to it and carried the place by
+surprise. But even one day of Babar's strict discipline was more than
+enough for the wild men of the desert, and the very next morning the
+Moghul Begs represented that, having but a mere handful of men, no
+possible benefit could result to anyone from the keeping of one
+miserable castle; and so, there being truth in this remark, they rode
+off to their desert again unabashed, leaving Babar to return annoyed,
+but not despondent. For at this particular fortress there grew a
+particular melon, yellow in colour, with skin puckered like shagreen
+leather. A remarkably delicate and agreeable melon, with seeds about
+the size of those of an apple, and pulp four fingers thick, which
+everyone agreed was not to be equalled in that quarter.
+
+It was as well, certainly, to have gained _something_ if only a good
+melon, and the little party at Khojend feasted on it and thanked God
+they had their boy back again safe and sound.
+
+The summer was passing to autumn when another fit of despondency came
+to young Babar in the news of his cousin Gharîb-Beg's death. The
+invalid had lingered far longer than had been expected, but still the
+certainty that he was gone brought grief; the more so because it
+re-aroused regret for the lost Crystal Bowl; regret which had almost
+been forgotten in the clash of arms of the last few months. But now he
+had time--only too much of it--for thoughts. Not given to mysticism in
+any form, he yet wondered vaguely if the Crystal Bowl had ever
+existed, or if the whole incident had not been part of the curious
+hold Poverty-prince had had upon his imagination; and not on his only,
+but on the imagination of all with whom the cripple had come in
+contact.
+
+And now he was dead! Gone for ever, like so many friends in these last
+troublous times.
+
+Babar, translucent as the crystal itself, gloomed under the shadow of
+his regrets till his mother began to fret with the fear of on-coming
+illness.
+
+But Dearest-One knew her brother better. "He must get away from us
+all," she said. "Yea! even from old Kâsim and his warriors. Let him go
+to the White Mountains a-hunting for the winter."
+
+But Babar would have none of it.
+
+The White Mountains? Aye! they would be splendid--there were more
+bears there than in any other part of the country. Aye! and snow
+leopard too--the lad's eyes glistened as he admitted this--but he
+_could_ not leave his women-folk again, and he ought not to leave
+those who, to their own cost, had chosen to stick by him.
+
+"Then we will go also," said Dearest-One, nothing daunted. "We are not
+of towns more than thou art, and thou canst divide thy magnificent
+army!--take a hundred men with thee and leave an hundred to guard
+Khojend!"
+
+Her sweet eyes smiled at him, and he agreed. No one in all his life
+had understood him like Dearest-One, he thought; there was perfect
+confidence between them, though, strangely enough, he had never yet
+given her the portrait he had found in the Garden-Palace--the portrait
+left by Baisanghâr in his flight.
+
+Why had he not done so? He scarcely knew, except that he had felt shy
+of broaching a subject that seemed buried. 'Twas best not to rouse
+coiled snakes, and Baisanghâr, who had taken refuge in Bokhâra, had
+gone out of their lives altogether; out of his, Babar's, at any rate.
+
+But everything seemed gone out of that; as the Turkhi couplet said:
+
+
+      "No home, no friends, no roof above my head;
+       Six feet of earth, no more, to make my bed."
+
+
+The White Mountains, however--white indeed during winter with their
+snowy slopes invading all save the tiny cleft of the valley where the
+skin tents of the little party had been pitched--soon brought back
+content. It was as if the soft covering of snow had blotted out the
+past, and the winter slipped by, full up with trivial distractions.
+
+Babar, returning long after dark to the encampment with half-a-dozen
+or so of bear-skins, forgot he was, or ever had been, King. And when
+early spring came on, and the bears were breeding, he took to hunting
+tulips instead. There were so many different kinds of them. Over
+thirty; and one yellow, double and sweet-scented like a rose.
+Dearest-One used to accompany him on these expeditions, for she was a
+real Moghul maiden, and the bright, cold winter had braced her up,
+until her cheeks glowed once more. Yet still Babar had never given her
+the portrait of herself, though he carried it with him more than once
+with that determination. Again, he scarcely knew why, except that it
+seemed to him the right thing to do. Why should she not have it?
+
+But one day the brother and sister had wandered high over the melting
+snow slopes, where the flowers lay thick as a carpet. Blue spring
+gentian and clustered pink primrose, purple pansy, and deep brown
+nodding columbines above a mosaic of forget-me-not and yellow
+crowsfoot. Great sweeps and drifts of flowers where the snow-drifts
+ended, and beyond in the far, far distance, in a dip of the hills, a
+level line of clear cobalt-blue.
+
+"Yonder lies Samarkand," said Babar, glooming in a second with the
+thought of past defeat; but his mind, ever vagrant, followed swiftly a
+line of new thought as he narrowed his long eyes to see better. "Had I
+the quaint contrivance at the Observatory there," he went on; "did I
+not tell thee of it?--no!--Well! 'twas a thing with curved glasses in
+a box and it made far-off things seem near--but blurred sometimes.
+Still had I it, I could mayhap see the Green-Palace. It stands high
+above the town."
+
+Dearest-One, her hands clasped idly over her knees as she sat on a
+little peak of rock and ice that rose out of the flowers, was silent
+for a space; then she said dreamily:
+
+"'Twas in the Green-Palace, was it not, where Kingship comes and goes,
+that Baisanghâr was to die that time he escaped?"
+
+Babar hesitated. It was the first time his sister had mentioned her
+cousin's name to him; but now that the subject had been broached,
+might it not be better to take the opportunity offered? He had the
+portrait with him. Why not have it out and have done with it? After
+all it was a fitting place; the green alp all starred with flowers
+reminded him of the Andijân meadows and they of the green enamel frame
+starred with ruby, turquoise, amethyst, topaz.
+
+"I have something here," he said, fumbling in his fur coat, "that I
+have meant to give thee for some months; but--I know not why--" So he
+began haltingly; then warming to his subject told her in his own
+inimitable way, every tiny touch giving life to the picture, how and
+where he had found what he finally placed in her hands.
+
+The girl who had listened coldly looked at it still more chillily.
+
+"'Twas not meant for me," she said at last, and her tone was as
+ice--"And he prized it little, since he left it behind him."
+
+Babar with the returned miniature in his hand, stared at her in
+confused amaze, feeling that, of a truth, women were kittle cattle.
+One could never count on them--and all these months he had been afraid
+of exciting a storm of tears!
+
+Distinct ill-usage was in his voice as he said gravely: "But thou hast
+not seen the verses writ behind, and they are good. I stake my word
+they are excellent and correct in every elision, every poetic
+licence."
+
+It may have been the bathos in the lad's last eager protest which kept
+the pathos of poor Baisanghâr's words from making full mark, which
+kept the girl's lips from quivering overmuch, which kept the mist of
+tears from overflowing to her cheeks as the words fell on the
+flower-scented air. So little, to frail humanity, turns grief to
+laughter and smiles to tears.
+
+Anyhow Dearest-One sat silent, and a faint smile curved her thin red
+lips.
+
+"Yea!" she said softly, "they are good verses; but he was ever a
+poet."
+
+And then suddenly the poetry which lies hid at the heart of all
+sorrow, all longing, all deprivation, surged on her and her face lit
+up with passionate feeling. "Give it me back, brotherling! give it me
+back. Let us leave it here! Here! on this high unknown place among
+God's flowers! Here! amid ice and snow! Here! overlooking the Palace
+where he would have died. Here! close to high heaven where there is
+understanding!" Her voice had risen as her thought rose, and now
+rang out joyous, triumphant. "Lo! the _Heft-Aurang_ will look down on
+my face night after night and the pole star will point the way to
+him.... Ah! Baisanghâr! have patience, have patience! love will point
+the way!..."
+
+She laid the portrait face upwards to the clear blue sunshiny sky on a
+cold slab of ice that filled up--and looked as if it had filled up for
+centuries of chill summers and frost-bound winters--the wide clefts of
+the rock beside her; then stood up and stepped down amid the flowers,
+tearless, radiant.
+
+"Come, brother!" she said. "It grows late. Let us descend, they will
+be waiting."
+
+But Babar looked meditatively at the pictured face, and then at the
+one before him transfigured by emotion.
+
+"So that is love!" he said at last with a curious impersonality in his
+tone. "Truly it is wonderful; and after all there is not so much
+difference between it and tears!"
+
+So in a flood, came back to him that one glimpse he had had in the
+Crystal Bowl of his cousin's face. He saw it again clearly; he seemed
+to hear his voice telling of the frightened maiden. He had never
+thought of her since; such things passed quickly from his boyish mind.
+But now the wonder came as to whether he _would_ ever meet her. He
+might, without recognising her, since he did not know who she was.
+
+But Dearest-One might know; such things were part and parcel of the
+woman's life. His sister, however, was already half way down the slope
+and he had to run to overtake her.
+
+"Do I know?" she echoed to his question, quite calmly, having had time
+to recover her serenity. "Wherefore not? Such knowledges have to be
+kept by someone; so we women guard it. She whom Mirza Gharîb-Beg
+deserted--" she spoke with distinct blame--"was well within the circle
+of distinction, being both of the royal house and also of the lineage
+of Sheik Jâmi, the divine poet--on whom be peace! Therefore she
+deserved a better fate than to live her life in a House-of-Rest--as I
+shall live mine," she added with conviction.
+
+"But thou art so young," protested Babar, ever ready to follow any new
+lead of thought.
+
+Dearest-One flashed out on him in her old way. "Young! One year older
+than she--so there! She was but a child, and Gharîb-Beg, remember, was
+but two years older." She paused, then added hurriedly: "Did I not
+tell thee we silly women guarded such trivial knowledge as our lives?"
+
+To judge by Babar's women-folk (one of his many widowed aunts had
+joined the little camp on a visit--he had endless aunts and he seemed
+to be a favourite with all--) they guarded other trivial knowledges as
+their lives also. Babar returning home of an evening would find a
+regular Turkhi feast including goats' milk cheese fritters, made, of
+course, after the family recipe, spread out for his delectation, and
+Dearest-One never forgot to put violet essence in the thick milk. And
+plenty of sugar, for the lad had a sweet tooth. Then as they sat round
+the great, pine-log fire at night, Isân-daulet would call for a song;
+none of those niggling Persian odes, about the Beloved's Eyebrows and
+a Cup of Wine--the which was forbidden, though many good men fell away
+from grace and were none the worse for it--not in _this_ world at any
+rate, and for the next who could tell since the dear Kâzi was not
+there to lay down the law ...
+
+"The Kâzi was a saint," interrupted Babar with certainty; "I know it;
+first because the men who martyred him have all since died. That is
+one proof. Then he was a wonderfully bold man. Most men have some
+anxiety or trepidation about them. The Kwâja had not a particle of
+either, which is also no mean proof of sanctity."
+
+Old Isân-daulet chuckled. "Then are all my family canonised," she
+said, "and Paradise will have small peace! But sing, boy, a rattling
+Turkhomân ballad and bawl it fairly, if thou canst, now-a-days."
+
+But Babar had learnt better than bawling over in Uncle Hussain's camp,
+and though his grandmother shook her head over his rendering of
+"Toktâmish Khân" still 'twas a fine song with a good stirring chant to
+it:
+
+
+       The pale white willows grow in the sand,
+       Toktâmish Beg.
+       Choose one to hobble thy horse's leg
+       That thy bay steed stand.
+
+       Thy red blood drips on the yellow sand,
+       Toktâmish Khân.
+       Wilt bind his wound, wife of Mirza Jân
+       With thy jewelled hand?
+
+       The wound is doleful, the kiss was sweet
+       Toktâmish Kull.
+       Which poison, man! makes thine eyes so dull
+       And thy breath so fleet?
+
+       Oh! my bay horse neighed when I did sing,
+       And Mir Jân's wife
+       Swore she would love me all my life
+       And gave me a ring.
+
+       Thy steed will find him a rider soon
+       And fair Narghiss
+       Will have a new lover to cuddle and kiss
+       Ere another moon.
+
+       But thy mother is old; she has lost her brave
+       Toktâmish Khân;
+       Let her carry her sheaf to Death's wide barn
+       And dig her a grave!
+
+
+The firelight danced on the young face as it sang cheerily. The
+Khânum, his mother, wept unobtrusively at the thought of what she
+would do if _her_ young brave were to die. Old Isân-daulet beat time
+with precision; Dearest-One smiled gently; but Nevian-Gokultâsh--the
+Heart-of-Stone--held up his finger.
+
+"Hist!" he said, "a horse's steps."
+
+Not one but many. A little detachment of loyalists headed by Kâsim
+Beg, arriving in hot haste with renewed hope!
+
+Babar stood up tall, strong, and threw his wide arms out as if to
+shake off inaction.
+
+"Whence?" he asked briefly; "East, west, north or south?" There was
+weariness in the thought, not in the tone. He was ready to fight
+anywhere for Kingship again, though his heart sank at the futility of
+it all. Bokhâra, Samarkand, Hissâr, and half-a-dozen other chief-ships
+always changing hands. But this, a message of treaty from Ali Mirza
+who had held Samarkand since it had dropped from Babar's hand might
+mean something. So he was in the saddle and off; only to return then,
+and half-a-dozen other times, despondent, to admit that his star was
+not yet in the ascendant.
+
+Isân-daulet wearied of waiting at last, and set off herself to
+Moghulistân to levy troops to aid her grandson in the name of her dead
+husband. The Khânum went with her, and Dearest-One took the
+opportunity of retiring with one of her old aunts, to a House-of-Rest.
+So Babar was left alone. He would not remain at Khojend, however; he
+felt that he had already taken too much from the loyalists there, so
+in a state of irresolution and uncertainty he made for the border land
+of the Pamîrs beyond the White Mountains. There he remained amongst
+the nomad tribes, perplexed and distracted with the hopelessness of
+his affairs.
+
+And here, as winter passed to spring once more, a saintly Kwâja--also
+an exile and a wanderer--came to visit him. And having no help to
+give, no advice to offer to one so down-cast, prayed over him and took
+his departure much affected.
+
+"And so was I," writes Babar frankly. Doubtless he was; and yet before
+sunset that very day he must have been out on the hillside, possibly
+hunting for new tulips in this new country; for he descried a horseman
+making his way rapidly up the valley.
+
+A horseman!
+
+Within half-an-hour, without an instant's delay, Babar had backed his
+lean Turkhomân mare and, followed by a leaner troop of such friends as
+still clung to him (Kâsim and Nevian-Gokultâsh of course amongst the
+number) was galloping for Marghinân (the place where they remove the
+stone from apricots and put in chopped almonds!). For a message had
+been sent by the governor of the town to say he was ready to give it
+up to its rightful owner, and would hope for forgiveness for past
+offences.
+
+It was then sunset, and Marghinân lay more than a hundred miles away
+as the crow flies. All that night till noon next day the little band
+rode fiercely on. On those wild hills there was no road to speak of;
+one could but follow the water-courses as the streams sought their
+level. At noon next day they drew bridle for the first time. They had
+not come far, or fast, yet so hard had been the way that their horses
+needed rest. Twelve hours to give them a chance, and also, in the
+close valley of Khojend to secure night time for the first part of the
+march, and they were off again; this time to let sunrise pass to
+sunset and sunset pass to night before they again drew rein in the
+grey dawn. Drew rein and looked at each other doubtfully. Yet their
+goal lay not four miles ahead of them, a shadowy hill crowned by a
+fort and scarce seen in the half light.
+
+But the doubt was this:
+
+They had ridden for forty-eight hours up hill and down dale, over
+breakneck precipices and roaring torrents, without ever considering
+that they had no real warranty for so doing!
+
+The Governor of the town was one who was known to stickle at no crime.
+With what confidence then could they unconditionally put themselves in
+his power?
+
+So at least urged Nevian-Gokultâsh. Others joined in, and Babar, ever
+reasonable, saw cogency in the doubt, and ordered a halt for
+consideration.
+
+Out in the dawn, the horses, heads down, taking a nibble of grass
+between heaving breaths, the sweat running down from their polished
+backs, the tired troopers, too tired to dismount, arguing _pros_ and
+_cons_ wearily, until Babar rising in his stirrups, showed tall,
+straight, strong, commanding.
+
+"Gentlemen!" he said. "Our reflections are not without foundation, but
+we have been too late in making them. We have now ridden three nights
+and two days without sleep or rest. Neither horse nor man has strength
+left. There is no possibility of retreating, since there is no place
+of safety to which we _could_ retreat. Having come so far we must
+proceed. Therefore let us go forward remembering that nothing happens
+save by the will of God. Right turn, gentlemen! Forward!"
+
+And forward it proved to be from that moment. Marghinân his, the
+country people, disgusted with the late usurpers, crowded round their
+old young King.
+
+Of course Grandmother Isân-daulet was in at the finish with her horde
+of two thousand wild Moghul horsemen; who nevertheless did good, if
+barbarous, service at Âkshi, where treachery met with its just reward.
+For the Moghuls, stripping their horses, rode barebacked into the
+stream and sabred the escaping traitors in their boats.
+
+So the peach trees had not shed their blossoms before, by the Grace of
+the most High (and many real fine fights) Babar recovered his paternal
+kingdom, of which he had been deprived for two years.
+
+Two years!
+
+He could hardly believe it as he rode through on the mantle of
+lambskins between the fort of Andijân and the river, where not so long
+ago he had been playing leap-frog when first King-ship came to him.
+
+"Nevian-Gokultâsh!" he cried suddenly, "an thou lovest me! off from
+thy horse and give me a back like a kind soul. I must leap to my
+kingdom once more!"
+
+He stood there laughing, the embodiment of boyish youth and energy;
+forgetful of past troubles, eager to enjoy life.
+
+"Ul-la-la!" shouted some of the nobles catching the spirit of the
+thing and throwing themselves from their horses.
+
+So leap Babar did, not over Nevian only, but over half-a-score or more
+of the friends of his adversity including Kâsim who nearly tumbled
+over with laughter and joy.
+
+And the young King, as he once more cast himself face upwards on the
+soft furry little blobs of blossom amid a chorus of applause, felt
+that the whole world was splendid indeed.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII
+
+       Blessed is he who has not to learn
+       How the favour of fortune may change and turn,
+       Whose head is not raised in his high estate
+       Nor his heart in misfortune made desolate.
+                                                _Nizâmi_.
+
+
+"There is no use in talking," quoth Isân-daulet decisively. "Send the
+trays to Ayesha Begum, my daughter, and prepare the wedding
+comestibles. It has been high time, these two years back, that
+Zahir-uddin Mahomed got himself married, but of a truth there was not
+the wherewithal. One cannot marry out of a basket. But now all is
+smooth, so send for the bride. God grant she be not so unwilling as
+the groom."
+
+And in truth Babar, seated on the floor, of course, between his
+grandmother and his mother, looked far from happy. His hands lean,
+supple, strong, hung over his grasshopper knees, and his head--small
+for the rest of his body--had not its usual frank bearing.
+
+"I am not unwilling," protested the young man; "Lo! it has to be done,
+that I know. 'Tis the duty of Kings to marry and have sons; but, see
+you, I have no experience at all; indeed I have never been so
+circumstanced as either to hear or witness any words expressive of the
+amorous passion, and I have never seen my betrothed since I was five."
+
+"God forbid!" ejaculated the Khânum piously.
+
+"But how then can I love her?" protested Babar; "'tis not like
+Dearest-One and Cousin Baisanghâr--"
+
+A shriek of outrage drowned what he would have said. Not that either
+of the two good ladies really felt shocked, but that in dealing with
+Babar they held it wiser to adhere to the strictly conventional;
+otherwise, heaven only knew if he would not go off at a tangent as
+Dearest-One had done. Poor Dearest-One on whom the blow of uttermost
+fate had fallen at last. For a terrible tale had come to Andijân but a
+month before, snuffing out the lamps of festival like a dust-storm at
+a wedding. For who could rejoice when they thought of a poor young
+prince who was nobody's enemy but his own, like Baisanghâr, strangled
+with a bowstring by the orders of the miserable and infidel-like
+wretch, worthless, contemptible, without birth or talents, reputation
+or wisdom, Khosrau Shâh? Babar had been beside himself with rage, and
+had expended every known epithet on the murderer, who though he prayed
+regularly, was black-hearted and vicious, of mean understanding,
+slender talents, faithless and a traitor. A man who for the sake of
+the short and fleeting pomp of this vain world had done to death the
+sweetest prince, the son of his old benefactor, in whose service he
+had been and by whom he had been patronised and protected. Thus
+rendering himself accursed of God, abhorred of men, and worthy of
+shame and execration till the judgment day. Perpetrating his crimes
+too for the sake of trivial enjoyment, and, despite his power and
+place, not having the spirit to face a barn-door chicken!
+
+The young man had poured all this and much more into his sister's
+ears, hoping to comfort her, but she had only turned her face to the
+wall, and wept.
+
+Strange, indeed, were women-folk; she had been so composed when she
+herself renounced him, but now that Death had stepped in she was all
+tears.
+
+The thought of her weeping brought him a quick excuse. "Anyhow," he
+remarked, with evident relief, "there can be no weddings yet awhile;
+my sister is not in condition for festivals."
+
+Isân-daulet sniffed. "Sisters are not indispensables to a marriage. So
+be good boy, Babar, and listen to reason. Do I not ever advise thee to
+thy benefit?"
+
+"Not ever," retorted the young King sulkily; "thou did'st advise me to
+set my promise aside and let thy cursed Moghuls and others plunder
+those I had sworn to protect."
+
+"Not plunder, boy!" replied the old lady shrilly, "but to resume their
+own property."
+
+"I care not," said Babar sternly, and rising to go; "I say I was wrong
+to yield. 'Twas senseless, to begin with, to exasperate so many men
+with arms in their hands. And then--Lo! grandam--I was precipitate,
+and in affairs of state many things that appear reasonable at first
+sight require to be well weighed and considered in a hundred different
+lights ere orders are given. I shall have trouble over that yet."
+
+He stalked away in dignified fashion, and his mother sighed. "He grows
+a man, indeed. 'Tis time he married; but I wonder will she be good
+daughter to me?"
+
+"She will be good granddaughter to me, that I'll warrant me," retorted
+Isân-daulet viciously. She would stand no nonsense from young chits.
+
+So the marriage went on, and Babar performed his part of it with grave
+politeness and propriety. He wore his wedding garments with a
+difference, and when he sat beside his bride for the first time,
+holding her hand and repeating the words after the officiating Kâzi he
+felt quite a thrill. In fact he would like to have squeezed the little
+hand he held, only it was so covered with rings and gew-gaws that he
+was afraid of hurting it. Altogether the fateful she looked rather
+small; but distinctly fetching--though of course he could not see her
+face, in her veil of jasmine blossoms. They smelt, however, rather
+sickly.
+
+That was in fact all that he vouchsafed to Dearest-One who, late in
+the evening, slipped in, dressed in white from head to foot, to wish
+her darling brother happiness.
+
+"I would she smelt of violets instead," he said thoughtfully; "dost
+think, Dearest-One, it could have been the jasmine perfume and not the
+sweets that made me sick when I was five?"
+
+And Dearest-One laughed; a laugh with a sob in it, and said to her
+mother ere she returned to her House-of-Rest:
+
+"He is not fond of her, see you?"
+
+"God forbid!" snapped Isân-daulet tartly. "Lo! he will love her when
+she is the mother of his son."
+
+And Dearest-One was silent; that might be; though she doubted it. But
+for the present she was right. Babar was not in love; what is more he
+was shy.
+
+The Khânum, his mother, who found her town-bred, mincing and
+thoroughly amiable daughter-in-law quite an amusing distraction, began
+by rallying him on his bashfulness; but as the first period of his
+married life went on, bringing a decrease of such affection as he had
+had, and a corresponding increase of shyness, raillery turned to
+tears, then to anger, until the gentle lady, outraged by her son's
+behaviour, would scold him with great fury and send him off like a
+criminal to visit his wife.
+
+Babar had, however, some excuse for his lack of interest. Marriage had
+come to him in the very moment when he needed all his vitality to keep
+his newly-recovered throne. What he had said to his grandmother
+concerning his overprecipitate permission for modified plunder had
+been true. The inconsiderate order, issued without sufficient
+foresight had caused commotions and mutinies.
+
+The Moghuls, still dissatisfied, had marched off in a huff; good
+riddance of bad rubbish, as Babar said, though he chafed inwardly at
+not having been able to control them amicably. Still the Moghul Horde
+had ever been the authors of every kind of mischief and devastation.
+Five separate times had they mutinied against him; and not only
+against him--that might have pointed to incompatibility of temper on
+his part--but against every one in authority, especially their own
+Khâns.
+
+It was in the breed. True was the verse:
+
+
+      "If the Moghul race had an angel's birth
+       It still would be made of the basest earth;
+       Were the Moghul name writ in thrice-fired gold
+       'Twould be worth no more than steel, wrought cold.
+       From a Moghul's harvest sow never a seed,
+       For the germ of a Moghul is false indeed."
+
+
+Thank God! he was no Moghul; he was Turkhomân born and bred!
+
+Before winter came on, indeed, the position of affairs had become
+critical. Half the nobles had sided with young Jahângir who still
+claimed the throne, and fighting was general all over the valley of
+Ferghâna. To shut himself up in the town of Andijân for the winter
+months would only be to leave the enemy free to ravage the country
+outside. He therefore chose a spot on the skirts of the hills and
+cantooned his army there. A pleasant spot with good cover for game! An
+excellent sporting ground, in fact, containing plenty of mountain
+goats, antlered stags, and wild hogs. In the smaller jungle, too, were
+excellent jungle fowl and hares.
+
+Then, when such sport palled, there were always the foxes, which
+possessed more fleetness than those of any other place. Babar rode
+a-hunting every two or three days while he remained in those winter
+quarters, and regaled himself on the jungle fowl, which were very fat.
+Keeping an eye all the time, however, on the enemy's movements, and
+guarding Andijân, where the Khânum and old Isân-daulet appeared to
+have forgotten wars and war's alarms in something more cognate to
+their woman's hearts; something that was almost too delightful to be
+true.
+
+Babar, when he first heard of the delightful prospect, was all that
+could be desired. Affectionate, overjoyed, proud. What else could he
+be when his mother hung round his neck hysterically, and even
+Dearest-One's pale cheeks flushed at the future.
+
+"He shall be my son as well as yours, brotherling," she said. "Lo! I
+will be his best-beloved aunt. So that settles it, and all silly
+women's talk about my marrying somebody--does it not, O King!"
+
+And Babar, as he sat holding his sister's hand as in the old days, saw
+a vista of happiness before him. It would be delightful. Imagine
+having a son of his very own! Ayesha Begum could not complain of his
+coldness on that visit, and he returned to his camp jubilant.
+
+But the knowledge of what was to come, made him restless. Of what use
+was an heir, unless he was heir to something tangible? Ferghâna,
+divided against itself, was no permanent position for either claimant.
+
+But what of Samarkand? There, his cousin Ali (who had no claim) had
+just beaten Weis, his younger brother who had a claim, doubtless,
+through his mother: but after his, Babar's, since she was the younger
+daughter.
+
+He sat on the snowy slopes waiting for _bara-singha_, or bear, and
+ciphered it out; he came back to camp and talked it over with Kâsim
+and the nobles.
+
+"Praise be to God!" said the old swashbuckler, "we may see some fine
+fighting once again."
+
+They were to see more than they had bargained for; since, when with
+the advancing spring Babar and his army arrived before Samarkand it
+was to find that they were pitted, not against the weakling Ali and
+his half-hearted troops, but against the great Usbek raider, Shaibâni
+Khân, who, God knows why or wherefore, had attacked Bokhâra, taken it,
+marched on to Samarkand, taken it by the treachery of a woman, and was
+now there in undisputed possession. Babar felt that to attack the
+position overtly with his small force was madness. But what of a
+surprise? The Usbek horde were strangers. Babar himself had been
+beloved, during his short reign of a hundred days. If once he could
+find himself within the walls, the people of Samarkand might declare
+in his favour. At any rate they would not fight for the Usbek. _That_
+was certain.
+
+It was worth a trial. But those who were to attempt the forlorn hope
+must be picked men, and there must be no attacking force before the
+city. That would put the garrison on the alert.
+
+In the meantime he would go to the mountains; one thought clearer in
+high places.
+
+Summer was nigh on, ere preliminaries were settled, and Babar
+with his picked band, ready for swift attempt, stood on the heights of
+Yâr-Ailak once more. Above him, unseen in the darkness of the moonless
+night was the flower-carpeted alp where Dearest-One's face watched the
+stars wheel. The _Heft-Aurang_, the seven thrones, showed in ordered
+array on the purple velvet of the night. Was one of them kept vacant
+for him, he wondered, or had Baisanghâr's poor ghost found it? Babar's
+mind was ever full of such whimsical thoughts; they came to him,
+unasked, making his outlook on life many-facetted, many-hued, like the
+iridescent edge which had set a halo round all things in the Crystal
+Bowl.
+
+The future seemed thus glorified to him as he sat looking out over the
+unseen city in the valley beyond.
+
+His nobles, his comrades, were sitting round him, revelling over the
+camp fire; holding a sort of sacramental feast before the dangerous
+surprise.
+
+"Come!" cried Babar, turning, a light on his face brighter than the
+firelight; "let us have a bet on when we shall take Samarkand.
+To-night, to-morrow or never!"
+
+"To-night!" cried Nevian-Gokultâsh and the others followed suit.
+
+Half-an-hour afterwards they were in their saddles, low-bowed upon
+their peaks, light scaling ladders slung alongside, riding for all
+they were worth. Now or never! The time was ripe. Shaibâni Khân
+himself, lulled in security, away on a marauding expedition, the
+garrison unalarmed, confident.
+
+It was midnight when they halted in the Pleasure-ground before the
+walls of Samarkand. Here Babar detached eighty of his best men. They
+were, if possible, to scale the wall noiselessly by the Lovers'
+Cave--most deserted portion of the fortifications,--make their way
+silently to the Turquoise Gate, overpower the guard and open the
+doors.
+
+Babar himself, with the remainder of his men was to ride up to the
+Gate and be ready to force their way in.
+
+How still the night was! The stars how bright! The Seven Thrones
+wheeling in their ordered array to the dawn. What had Fate ordered in
+his life? Babar, waiting, his hand gripped on his sword-hilt in the
+dark way of the Gate, listened eagerly for a sound. The horses' hoofs,
+deadened by enswathing felt, had made no sound, the very chink of
+steel on steel had not been heard. All was silent as the grave.
+
+What did Fate hold in store? Hark, a sentry's sleepy call: "What of
+the hour of the night?"
+
+What, indeed?
+
+Then in one second, tumult, uproar, a clashing of sword on sword.
+
+"The Gate! Open the Gate!" shouted Babar.
+
+A swift bombardment of dull blows--stones, anything on iron bolts and
+bars. A shiver, a sudden yielding, and the wide doors swung open.
+
+An instant after Babar was through the gateway, King of Samarkand. He
+knew it, even as he galloped on through the sleeping streets to the
+citadel. A drowsy shopkeeper or two, roused by the clatter, looked out
+from the shops apprehensively, then offered up prayers of
+thanksgiving. So, by ones and twos, the city woke to relief and
+gratitude. By dawn the hunted Usbeks had disappeared; dead or fled.
+And the chief people of the town, bringing such offerings of food
+ready dressed as they had at hand were flocking to the Great Arched
+Hall of the Palace, to do homage to their new King, and congratulate
+him on his success.'
+
+Babar received them with his usual frank, simple dignity. For nearly a
+hundred and forty years, he said, Samarkand had been the capital of
+his family. A foreign robber, none knew whence, had seized the kingdom
+unrighteously. But Almighty God had now restored it, and given him
+back his plundered and pillaged country which he would proceed to put
+in order.
+
+He did it to his heart's content! He was now nineteen, the birth of
+his son was nigh at hand, and all must be ready for the expected heir.
+
+So the next month or two passed in preparations and congratulations.
+Babar, who felt the strength of the pen as well as that of the sword,
+wrote endless letters to the neighbouring princes and chiefs, assuring
+them of his favour, and requesting like return from them. These he
+despatched duly accredited with rose-scent and gold-dust and brocaded
+bags; but not so many came back as went out.
+
+Moghulistân was slow to recognise the value of peaceful persuasion,
+and looked askance at the young general who could surprise so wily a
+foe as Shaibâni Khân and yet think it worth while to write missives
+like a scrivener.
+
+But one letter came which brought the young King unmixed delight; for
+it was from the incomparable Ali-Shîr at Khorasân; an incomparable
+letter without one word astray; a pure pleasure from start to finish.
+The young King answered it boldly: even daring so far as to write a
+Turkhi couplet of his own composing on the outside thereof; a Turkhi
+couplet that was not half-bad; for he was growing to be a man in mind
+as well as body.
+
+So all things went merry as a marriage bell. His grandmother, his
+mother, and the mother of his expected heir, arrived by slow marches
+from Andijân and were lodged in the Birthplace and Deathplace of
+Kings, the Green-Palace. And Dearest-One came too in the white
+robes of a sainted canoness, eager to take up her position of
+aunt-in-ordinary; a position of honour with the Chagatâi family. Babar
+himself had half-a-dozen or so such Benificent-Ladies ready for all
+festivities, all condolences.
+
+So, one hot night, he found himself looking distractedly at the moon
+in a balcony of the women's apartments.
+
+Hurrying feet and whisperings had gone on, it seemed to him, for
+hours.
+
+But these feet did not hurry; they lagged.
+
+"A daughter! a miserable daughter!" said his mother's voice, full of
+tears. "Lo! I wonder Ayesha could think of such a thing ... It is
+unpardonable."
+
+"Let us say no more," put in Isân-daulet. "When a woman disgraces
+herself, the less said the better. We will get thee a more dutiful
+wife, sonling."
+
+Even Dearest-One's face was downcast utterly.
+
+"A daughter!" echoed Babar and paused. Then he said eagerly: "May I
+not see it, motherling?--'Tis my first child, anyhow."
+
+And they showed it him, a naked new-born baby wrapped in a cotton
+quilt.
+
+"It looks old; as if it had been born a long time," he said
+reflectively; then his fine, strong, young hand touched the tiny
+crumpled fingers tentatively. "Lo! they are like little worms," he
+said and laughed aloud suddenly, a gay young laugh. "She is not bad,
+my daughter. I will call her 'Glory of Women.'"
+
+And almost every day he would find time to go in to the women's
+apartments and look at her.
+
+But, after a month or forty days, the little Glory of Womanhood went
+to share the Mercy of God.
+
+She was his first child, and at the time he was just nineteen.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII
+
+       A Moment's Halt--a momentary taste
+       Of Being, from the Well amid the Waste,
+       And lo!--the phantom Caravan has reached
+       The Nothing it set out from.
+                                          _Omar Khayyam_.
+
+
+Fate had called a halt in Babar's life. A court had once more gathered
+round him, and, as King of Samarkand, a city of colleges and culture,
+this was of different stamp from that of Andijân. It occupied itself
+with other things than the edge of a sword-blade or the merits of a
+polo-ball.
+
+"Lo!" said Mulla Binâi the poet, his voice lubricated with artificial
+adulation to extreme oiliness, "I have at last found fitting memorial
+for the magnificent victory of the King in these poor words:
+
+
+      "'Tell me, my soul, the conquering day
+       Fateh Babar Bahadur,' I say."
+
+
+The horrid doggerel, with its inlay of numerical letters giving the
+date of Babar's surprise of Samarkand, was allowed to pass muster in
+that crowd of flattering courtiers.
+
+Only Kâsim Beg, bluff as he had been from the beginning, said,
+smartly:
+
+"Good enough, if so be 'tis accurate; but of that, thank God, I know
+naught; for whilst thou rememberest fine fights by dots and strokes, I
+keep them by the dents on my good sword."
+
+The old noble disliked Binâi; he disliked all poets in general; but
+this one in particular. He knew nothing good of him but his _riposte_
+to Ali-Shîr--who was worth ten of him since he had at least been born
+a Beg and who, before he was bitten by the mad craze for jingling
+words, had struck a good few shrewd blows for the right. Besides, he
+had been author and patron of many useful inventions, and it was not
+his fault if the gilded youth of Herât named every new fashion after
+him, and when he, in consequence of an earache, bound up his face with
+a kerchief, bound up theirs also and called it _à la mode_ Ali-Shîr.
+Still Binâi's _riposte_ to the sarcasms which had driven him from
+Herât was a good joke. To order a ridiculous pad for the ass he was to
+ride and call it the Ali-Shîr pad! The recollection of it always made
+good old Kâsim laugh broadly. The humour of it suited his sturdy
+outlook. An outlook that was disturbed by the jingle-jangle of words
+and wits that began to arise about his young master. It was all very
+well, and affairs were doubtless in a most prosperous state. All the
+same there was no counting on any continuance of fine weather with
+half-a-dozen claimants to the throne and Shaibâni-Khân close at hand.
+The Usbek raider was no man to give in because of one reverse; his
+whole life was war.
+
+So Kâsim frowned at culture, and as Prime-Minister looked to his
+weapons.
+
+It was not however for many months that his fear came true and
+Shaibâni, reinforced, appeared again on the horizon of Babar's world.
+
+But when he did, the young King set aside everything else and buckled
+on his sword once more with zest. He had been studying military art in
+his great ancestor Timur's memoirs, and was eager for a pitched
+battle. No sooner, therefore, did Shaibâni's hordes show themselves,
+than the young general marched to meet them, and, over-impatient,
+precipitated a collision before his own re-enforcements of over five
+thousand men had time to join him.
+
+But it was his first pitched battle, he was keen as mustard, and had
+planned it all out on paper beautifully on strategical lines.
+
+And the astronomers were to the fore with a lucky conjunction of
+stars.
+
+So the right and left wings marched out in orderly array, and wheeled
+admirably to meet the first attack of their flank. But somehow this
+separated Babar from his staff of veterans, who possibly did not
+believe in the virtue of disciplined movements; and though in person
+he led a dashing and impetuous charge of his centre on the foe, which
+drove the Usbeks back to the point of rout, Shaibâni would not accept
+defeat. He stood firm, despite his officers' advice to withdraw while
+he could, and continued the wild desert tactics of repeated charges on
+the enemy's flank, repeated withdrawals to wheel and reform.
+
+And Babar's army, but half-disciplined, divided by conflicting ideals
+became hopelessly confused. His Moghul troops, refusing to obey
+orders, reverted to their old habit of killing and plundering, with
+the result of rout--complete absolute rout.
+
+That night the young leader, stern and calm, despite the ache at his
+heart for his own broken ideals as well as for the loss of the many
+Begs of the highest rank, the many admirable soldiers, the many
+devoted friends who had perished in the action, held a council of war
+in the citadel as to what had best be done under the circumstances.
+Capitulation on terms, or unconditional defence?
+
+Belief in their leader and the devotion of the Andijân nobles carried
+the day against the more lukewarm Samarkandis. It was resolved to hold
+the citadel to the death, to the very last drop of blood; and with
+vitality renewed by the need for immediate action Babar set to work
+strengthening the fortifications. Here at any rate he was master;
+bricks and earth could not disobey orders; they must remain where they
+were put.
+
+Yet most of the nobles sent away their wives and families secretly.
+Babar's mother and sister, however, refused to leave their beloved one
+whose fortunes they had followed for so long through thick and thin.
+Grandmother Isân-daulet, also, remained of course. Her brave old heart
+rather gloried in the thought of a siege, and with all the hatred of a
+desert-born Chagatâi, she hated the Usbek raider who had dared to beat
+her grandson.
+
+Though on that point she and Babar had many words. He reviling her
+Moghul horde as the cause of his failure; she asserting it to be his
+cramping conditions which had prevented the success of the old methods
+of warfare that had served his fathers well enough.
+
+As for Ayesha Begum she had long since retired in a huff to her own
+relations, making as her excuse the plea of grief for the death of the
+little Glory of Womanhood. But Babar knew better. She had not cared at
+all. Her other plea that he did not love her was more to the purpose.
+Anyhow it was as well, thought the young husband grimly; she would
+only have wept and been uncomfortable.
+
+For discomfort was inevitable even from the very beginning of the
+siege; at any rate for the men. The nightly round of the ramparts
+alone entailed lack of proper sleep, since but a small portion of them
+was ridable, the rest had to be done on foot. And so long was the
+circuit that, starting at dusk, it was dawn before every place had
+been inspected. Still, even with the small force at his command, Babar
+kept the foe at bay, though, more than once he had a narrow squeak of
+it. Once when a feint attack of Shaibâni's on the Iron-Gate covered a
+daring escalade at the Needle-makers Gate. An escalade that was all
+but successful. Four of the attacking party were actually over the
+wall, dozens of others were swarming up it, when one Kuch-Beg, noble
+by birth and by nature, caught a glimpse of someone where someone
+should not be. To draw his sword single-handed as he was, and spring
+to the attack was the work of an instant. It was an exploit for ever
+to be cited to his honour, though his ringing war-shout brought three
+more heroes to his aid. Even so, there were but four against dozens;
+but furious blows, daredevil recklessness do much, and almost before
+the nodding guards were roused, the danger was over, the escaladers
+driven back, to fall a confused heap of ladders and men leaving a dead
+body or two on the ramparts.
+
+Then Kâsim Beg sallied out again and again to engage the enemy's
+pickets and returned, bringing heads to set on pikes upon the walls.
+
+For war was war in those days; there was no talk of Red-Crosses and
+ambulance-wagons.
+
+And yet two women went about inside the fortress, bandaging wounds and
+applying simples. For the Khânum, Babar's mother, could not bear to
+see pain, and though old Isân-daulet sniffed at new fangled ways,
+asserting that men could but die once and that it was waste of time to
+tend a common soldier as though he were a noble, she came of a
+fighting tribe and could give many an inherited recipe for the healing
+of cuts, the prevention of wound fever. Then Dearest-One despite her
+youth, had a claim, as one who had renounced the world to freedom for
+good works; so mother and daughter went about in their close white
+veils applying the simples which the old woman pounded and compounded,
+and doing all they could for the brave men who were helping the
+beloved of their eyes to keep his kingdom. They could do no less; they
+could do no more; so at least said the Khânum, as often in the dark
+nights the mother and daughter lay awake trembling in each other's
+arms, listening during an attack or a sally.
+
+Grandmother Isân-daulet would fall foul of them for their red eyes.
+
+"When a man comes in to his food," she would say, "reeling from blows
+at his head or sick at stomach with hunger, 'tis no comfort to him to
+see tears, or the signs of tears. Thou sayest, daughter, thou can'st
+do no more for thy son? Then I can. I can make him angry."
+
+And she did: so that Babar went from his breakfast with his soft heart
+hardened to disdain.
+
+Dearest-One used to admire her grandmother's pluck. Not to care if one
+hurt the beloved for his good! That was great. And she would wring her
+hands tight and say to herself: "I told him long ago that there was
+nothing I would not do for him; but there is nothing, nothing I can
+do."
+
+So the months dragged by. Harvest came and went without bringing fresh
+supplies to the beleaguered fortress, and Shaibâni, cynical, somewhat
+afraid of his daring young antagonist, withdrew from actual collision,
+and contented himself with blockade. Starvation would do the work
+without his aid.
+
+The grain for the horses had already given out; however, while the
+leaves lasted the mulberry trees and the rose-wood trees in the
+fortified gardens were stripped and did for fodder. But the winter
+winds ended this supply, and the shift was made to keep some few
+horses alive with the rispings of wood moistened with water and
+sprinkled with salt. A sorry appearance was that of the poor steeds on
+such miserable fare; but Babar's charger did better, with a daily
+share of his master's bread; though the big-boned lad could ill
+spare it. For all alike were on short commons; and they grew shorter
+day by day. The dying horses were killed and eaten, the donkeys went
+next--then the cats and dogs. When matters came to this pass, however,
+night after night men--brave men--began to let themselves down over
+the wall and make their escape. The haggard young King never knew when
+he called a council of war, what trusted, what honoured face, might
+not be absent. Yet still he clung to that last drop of blood. The oath
+might have been foolish, since, as the ancients said, a fortress can
+only be maintained by the joint action of head, and feet, and hands;
+that is to say by generalship, two friendly forces on either side, and
+a good supply of water and stores as the starting point of all. Still
+he had made it, and he meant to stick to it. The others might go if
+they pleased.
+
+"If I could only secure thine and my mother's and my grandmother's
+safety," he said to Dearest-One--"the other few women also," he
+added--"though there is little fear for them, they count not enough
+for harm; and Shaibâni hath his army well in hand. That is how he
+scored against me. Those accursed Moghuls of my grandmother's would
+not obey orders. If they killed a man they plundered him--and what is
+that, when a turning movement hath been ordered? Ah! it was devilish!
+devilish!" And the tall, thin, young figure would throw out its arms
+almost appealingly. For Babar was ever high-strung, and his nerves
+were going.
+
+He gave himself no rest either. Night and day he was always on the
+watch. So it did not matter so much to him as to others when Shaibâni
+Khân, changing his tactics, commenced making the darkness hideous by
+beating large kettle drums and sounding the alarm. Yet the young King
+shook his fist over the battlements at his foe, who had now pitched
+his headquarters tent close to the Lovers' Cave, and said to
+Dearest-One, "It is not fair, and yet it is! I would do it in his
+place--and yet I don't know--I don't know!" He was very near the end
+of his tether, yet his grip was tight as ever and he would sit on the
+top of the gateway with a crossbow and shoot at everyone and
+everything living that showed itself.
+
+"I struck a palish white-coloured horse to-day," he said to his sister
+with a cruel exultant look in the eyes that had always been so tender
+for God's dumb creatures, "and it fell dead--would it had been a man!"
+
+And Dearest-One turned pale. This was worse than death; worse than
+anything--anything in the wide, wide world!
+
+She lay face downwards beside her mother that night and thought, and
+thought, and thought, until the grey dawn came. Then she sat up and
+looked at her mother sleeping beside her.
+
+Yes! it was best. The plan was worth the trying at any rate; and she
+would be the only one to suffer.
+
+She lay down again, and laid her head on that gentle, loving, sleeping
+breast. And the motherly arms, unconscious as they were, closed round
+her and held her fast until she, too, slept, outwearied. That morning
+she was closeted with her grandmother for hours, and at the midday
+meal the old woman's eyes showed red; but Dearest-One's were clear and
+bright; when the mind is made up there is no use in tears.
+
+The evening was stormy. The bitter east wind swept along the ramparts
+and drove the dust in blinding clouds into the eyes of all. The very
+foe ceased from their disturbing shouts of alarm, and on many a post
+the sentry slept awhile.
+
+Did one at the wicket gate by the Lovers' Cave sleep or did he not;
+and did the white-robed figure that slipped after dusk through the
+deserted streets pass out, unseen, to challenge fate in the Usbek
+leader's camp?
+
+Or did Dearest-One send a message only?
+
+Or was it only chance which the very next morning brought the
+ultimatum to the haggard young King? Who knows? Certain it is it came.
+
+There was no reason, Shaibâni wrote, why those who had been brave foes
+should not be brave friends. None could deny the King of Samarkand's
+bravery; few would care to deny his own. Why then should they not be
+friends? A marriage was ever the best way of securing peace. Let Babar
+therefore give his sister Khanzâda Begum in lawful marriage to his
+foe--who, be it said, was in strong enough position to take her--and
+so form a lasting alliance.
+
+"My sister!" burst out Babar in a fury. "Go back to the savage
+Usbek Shaibâni, robber, raider, sir ambassador; and tell him that
+Zahir-ud-din Mahomed is not his peer--he is his master!"
+
+This was all very well in the saying; it sent the blood, growing a bit
+sluggish from sheer starvation, flooding to heart and brain; but
+afterwards when the envoy had gone, and the hungry anxious faces of
+the few who still remained to him showed bitter disappointment, he
+leant his head on his hands drearily in the quiet of the women's room,
+and tried to put himself in the place of those bearded Begs to whom a
+woman's honour or happiness or indeed affection, was, as a rule, of
+small account.
+
+He could not, of course, assent; and yet it seemed a pity that he
+could not.
+
+And while he sat crouched in upon himself, spent and weary,
+Dearest-One herself came and crouched beside him and laid her pretty
+head on his shoulder.
+
+"Brother!" she said, "I have heard. Come let us talk it over as in old
+days. So let me hold thy poor hand as we used to do; for we have ever
+been friends, Babar-ling--have we not?"
+
+Her voice was calm and steady despite the clamant note of tears that
+was in every word.
+
+"Talk not of it, sister! I will not have it," he muttered; and his
+voice was broken, husky. "By God and his prophet! I could strike him
+dead for the thought that I could be such a cur as even to think of
+it."
+
+She shrank just for a second. "Many men would think it naught," she
+said, "but it is because it means much to thee that thou must think."
+
+"I will not think," he cried passionately, "I will not be coerced. I
+will not be cozened. I, Babar, take the consequence."
+
+He left her, baffled, yet still determined, to return to the charge in
+a day or two; and in starvation times a day or two means much. So
+much, that she spoke sternly with finality.
+
+"Wilt thou kill thy mother by thy pride, Babar? Listen! Long years ago
+I said I would do aught for thee--"
+
+"And I answered I would never ask aught," interrupted her brother
+hotly; but she went on unheeding:
+
+"And now thou deniest me the right to save thee. I who have so few
+pleasures. Lo! as thou knowest, my heart is dead for love; and this
+man--this Shaibâni--is not all bad--I--I know he is not. Brotherling!
+women have borne more for love than I shall have to bear maybe--for
+the man must be kind in a way--for--for if it ended, Babar--he could
+take me--without marriage--so grandmother says--"
+
+Babar started up with an oath. "So she also is against me!"
+
+Yet in his heart of hearts he knew that the old woman spoke truth. It
+was generous in Shaibâni even to offer marriage.
+
+"I will not have it!" he cried. "I will not yield! I would sooner kill
+thee, myself."
+
+"Thou wilt kill--us all," she said calmly. Then she broke down and
+clung to him sobbing. "Let it be, brotherling, for my sake. There is
+so little I can do--let me do this."
+
+The quick tears of understanding ran down his cheeks, but he shook his
+head and left her.
+
+So, after a day or two, yet another proposition came from Shaibâni to
+his brave foe. Babar might go with bare life, taking his womenkind
+with him if he chose, provided he capitulated utterly and acknowledged
+he was beaten.
+
+There were parleyings and parleyings and who knows what secret
+promisings beside, what innocent lies, what heart-broken yielding on
+Babar's part. At last, protesting vainly that had he had the slightest
+hope of relief, or had he had another week's stores remaining he would
+never have listened to either threats or entreaties, he agreed to
+capitulate for bare life to him and his. His mother, his sister, his
+grandmother, these three must share his freedom. The others must take
+their chance of horses, or remain, unharmed. Grandmother Isân-daulet,
+however, flatly refused to come. She was too old, she said, to be
+cocked up on a horse for days. She was not afraid. Thrice, already,
+when she was young and good-looking she had fallen into the enemies'
+hands and had been unmolested--save once and how that business ended
+Babar knew. So, being now wrinkled and undesirable she would just
+remain and mayhap give Shaibâni a piece of her mind. So her horse had
+better go to Mingilek-Gokultâsh who was perchance over good-looking.
+It was ever best not to put temptation in men's way. Besides
+Dearest-One might like to have her foster-sister with her. It was
+convenient to have some woman one could trust beside one in dangerous
+times.
+
+As the old woman spoke, she held her granddaughter by the hand, and
+her old fingers tightened themselves on the young ones with a grip
+firm as steel, soft as a caress. And Dearest-One stooped and kissed
+the old face on the lips.
+
+So by midnight all was ready for the preconcerted escape. The few
+sorry horses left in the citadel were standing saddled, the enemy's
+pickets, it is to be presumed, were looking another way. Babar,
+fierce, miserable, helped his mother to her pad and settled the
+stirrups for her. He could scarcely see for the hot tears held back so
+angrily in his eyes. He could scarcely speak for the hard-held breath
+that seemed to choke him.
+
+Defeated, flying for his life--No! not for his own only; for theirs
+also!
+
+He gave a glance round at his party. "Is everyone there? Is everyone
+ready?"
+
+And from the midst of the little crowd clustering round the fugitives
+with sobs and tears a voice came clearly:
+
+"Yea! brother! I am ready."
+
+It was Dearest-One's voice. That must be she leaning from her horse to
+whisper a word to old Isân-daulet who stood waving farewells.
+
+"Then in God's name let us begone, and end the business," he shouted
+fiercely, leapt to his charger, dug spurs to its flanks and was off
+careless of disturbance. He had sold himself for the sake of those who
+loved him, man and woman alike; but the blackness as of death was
+before his eyes; he could not think; he could do nothing but dig spurs
+to his horse, and ride on recklessly.
+
+And the night itself was dark as death; he had to rein up amid the
+great branches of the Soyd Canal, and with difficulty rallied his
+party to the right road. Yet, still entangled in the intricacies of
+the irrigated fields, there was time for no other thought save that of
+getting as far from Samarkand as possible before the dawn. Since
+though the Usbek leader himself had given order for free pass, his
+followers, still less his allies, were not to be trusted.
+
+The sky was grey with coming day before they reached the comparative
+safety of a wild valley set amid encircling hills. Here Babar called a
+minute's halt to breathe the horses, and for the first time turned to
+take stock of those who followed him.
+
+His keen eye took in his mother's veiled form. But that bundle like a
+sack of corn, that crumpled heap like a withered rose leaf--neither of
+these were Dearest-One? _She_ rode! In a flash, a sense of pride at
+her upright carriage on her horse came to him, even as a suffocating
+leap of his heart made him speechless for a second. An awful fear
+seized him. He knew, and yet he would not know what had happened.
+
+"Khanzâda Begum!" he muttered hoarsely. "Where--where is she?"
+
+No one spoke, and anger--hopeless, helpless anger and grief kept him
+silent. Then someone said almost fearfully:
+
+"Mayhap in the night time--in the darkness--"
+
+"It is a lie!" burst out Babar. "It is a lie!--I have been tricked!"
+Then something of the innate truth that was ever in his soul made him
+pause. He ought to have known--he ought to have guessed. Foes were not
+usually so generous, and he saw himself not altogether free from
+blame. "I have tricked myself--I ought to have known," he burst out.
+"I--oh! may God's curse light on everyone--everyone--"
+
+So he stood, his face turned towards the distant city for a moment,
+then with a reckless laugh he loosed the rein on his horse's neck and
+threw his arms above his head.
+
+"Come on!" he shouted as the horse bounded forward. "We are free! Let
+us ride to hell--to hell and damnation!" And his laughter echoed back,
+bringing terror to his mother's heart.
+
+"He is beside himself," she cried. "After him, Kâsim--for God's sake
+keep him from harm."
+
+But Kâsim and Kambar-Ali his squire, were already at the gallop, and
+the sound of their horses' feet followed Babar as he fled.
+
+From what?
+
+From everything in the wide world. From anger, love, remorse, helpless
+grief, even from resolve not to be beaten. His nerves were unstrung;
+for the moment his one thought was escape.
+
+But only for a moment. The sound of those galloping hoofs behind him
+brought immediate self-control, immediate grip on kingly dignity.
+
+He turned back on his saddle to cast a word that would re-instate him
+in sanity to those following fools.
+
+"A race!" he cried gaily. "Come on! A race let it be!--Ten
+_dinars_ ..."
+
+But even as he spoke, he overbalanced. Perhaps he felt giddy, perhaps
+the girths on his starving horse were all too slack. Anyhow the saddle
+turned with him and he fell; fell clear on his head.
+
+He was up again, however, ere they reached him, standing unsteadily
+with dazed eyes, passing his hand gently backwards and forwards over
+his brow.
+
+"What was it all about?" he murmured cheerfully. "I've clean forgotten
+it all." And he had.
+
+He mounted again after a minute and rode on; but the memory of that
+night had gone out of his mind for ever and aye.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX
+
+       Think, in this battered Caravanserai
+       Whose doorways are alternate Night and Day,
+       How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
+       Abode his Hour or two and went his way.
+                                          _Omar Khayyam_.
+
+
+Those first few days of despair were as a dream. The world and all
+that is in it showed to Babar's eyes like a phantasy of sleep. He lay
+and rested at a friendly village, passing from the extreme of famine
+to plenty; from an estate of danger and calamity to peace and ease.
+The nice fat flesh, the bread of fine flour well baked, the sweet
+melons and excellent grapes in great abundance, all these made him
+feel sensibly the pleasures of peace and plenty; for enjoyment after
+suffering, abundance after want, come with an increased relish and
+afford a more exquisite delight. It was the first time in his life
+that he had passed from the injuries of his enemies and the pressure
+of actual hunger to the ease of security, and he revelled in it like
+the wholesome-hearted, and, for the time, mindless creature that he
+was.
+
+But memory of a sort came back to him after a few days and he grew
+restless; so they marched on. And as he rode over the hills or walked,
+leading his mother's pony, discontent began once more to leaven his
+glad content. The world in these lower lying districts was beautiful
+in the early springtide, but there was something more in life than
+mere beauty. There was something else needed to make it splendid.
+
+"I will go back to where we were in the White Mountains," he said one
+day. "I was happy there and so was Dearest-One."
+
+It was the first time he had mentioned his sister's name, and his
+mother looked at him anxiously. But he said no more. Nature was
+dealing in kindly fashion with him and bringing memory back by slow
+degrees.
+
+But at Bishâgher, where they halted a few days, it was like to have
+been otherwise, for there they came across an old duenna of Babar's
+mother who having been left behind in Samarkand because of the
+scarcity of horses, had, nothing daunted, trudged after her mistress
+on foot. The two women sobbed on each other's necks, while the one
+told and the other listened to the piteous tale of a marriage, which
+after all had not been so bad as it might have been, because of old
+Isân-daulet's masterful spirit. But they said nothing to the menfolk
+about it all. It was as well that their boy should hear as few details
+as possible.
+
+And here--the first possible place for news since those long months of
+siege--tidings came of family deaths at Tashkend. It was fourteen
+years since Babar's mother had been there and seen her people, and
+now, when they were hopeless, homeless, and when, moreover, she had
+her old governess to serve her once more, the time seemed fitting for
+a visit.
+
+So she went, and for the first time for many years Babar was left
+alone without any hostages to fortune.
+
+And one of the first things he did with his liberty was to climb a
+certain hill all set with flowers, which he and his sister had climbed
+one spring day in the past. The gentians were as blue, the primulas as
+pink as ever, and the mosaic of forget-me-nots and yellow crowsfoot
+lay almost inconceivably bright as ever. The blue sky, grazing ground
+for fleecy white flocks of clouds, stretched away beyond the hills to
+that faint bluer line of distant Samarkand.
+
+All was as it had been. And the green enamel frame set with jewels,
+like flowers, lay on the transparent ice where she had put it. He had
+not noticed that before; one could see through the slab--see green
+grass-blades, and a half opened flower bud that had been held in chill
+prison for years and years and years--It was quaint, utterly, when her
+face, her portrait had gone! The rain had washed it away. The vellum
+on which it had been painted lay white as snow.
+
+Yes! quaint utterly. The icy grip had kept its hold, the warm sunshine
+had let slip its prize. He sat down idly, his head resting in his
+hands.
+
+Yes! her face had gone! What matter now if there was place or grace
+beside it for another? Poor Baisanghâr! and poor--infinitely poorer
+Dearest-One! For the first time the full meaning of what had happened
+came over him; he turned round passionately, hid his face among the
+flowers and cried like a child.
+
+_Ishk_ and _ashk!_ Love and tears. How little divided them. So the
+thought of his dead, crippled cousin came to him and the memory of
+that vivid, fate-defying face stood between him and despair. The
+Crystal Bowl! Yes! he would laugh as he quaffed: life had brought him
+strange adventures; let her bring more! He was ready for them--quite
+ready, in his manhood, to take what the years might hold. For boyhood
+had gone. That had capitulated with Samarkand.
+
+He did not formulate all this clearly; he simply felt it. Felt the
+keen joy in life come back to him as he sat up once more and looked
+out over God's beauties with still swimming eyes; and the tears were
+magnifying glasses!
+
+A quaint conceit that might be worked up into a couplet or perchance a
+quatrain. Baisanghâr would have done it finely: he worked well on such
+finniken fancies. But he had been wrong in the verses he had written
+on the back of the enamel frame. Were they there still? Aye! they had
+been protected from the tears of rain.
+
+He read the lines over, feeling as he read them that there was
+something in them that lacked. So, as he felt, words came to him; for
+he was born with that artistic temperament which cannot help trading
+on its own most sacred emotions; perhaps because such natures see
+vaguely that individualism is a snare to the soul, that all things
+worth recording are part of a Greater Personality than their own. And
+the outcome of feeling and words ran thus:--
+
+
+      "Seven thrones, seven sins, seven stars,
+       But not one thing that bars
+       Life's love, Life's tears.
+       The crushed grape fills the bowl
+       With wine for the sad soul
+       Beyond these years."
+
+
+He jumped up feeling quite pleased with himself, for they were the
+first verses in that measure he had ever composed!
+
+After this when he was wandering barefoot over hill and dale, he would
+sit down when he found some pleasant spot and string rhymes together;
+for he was in a backwater, mentally and bodily. For twenty years he
+had battled with Fate over trivialities; since what, after all, were
+Ferghâna and Samarkand and Hissâr? Only tiny little bits of God's
+earth. He was beginning to be a trifle weary of it all, to long for a
+larger horizon. So he sent off on the pretext of getting news, the few
+followers who had remained with him while he, Nevian-Gokultâsh,
+and another wandered farther and farther, higher and higher up the
+White Mountains until they reached the Roof-of-the-World. And there
+they lodged awhile in the felt tents of a shepherd and lived on
+sheeps'-milk, cheese and buckwheat-cakes. Their host was a man of some
+eighty years; but his mother was still alive, and of extreme age,
+being at this time no less than one hundred and eleven years old, and
+in full possession of her faculties. Indeed, the circumstances of the
+great Timur's invasion of India remained fresh in her memory owing,
+doubtless, to her having been in her youth greatly interested in one
+who had been in his army.
+
+She was a hale old woman, smoke-dried yet apple-cheeked, who loved to
+hear herself talk, especially when the tall good-looking young
+stranger sat at her feet, fixing his hazel eyes that were at once so
+sad and so merry on her whirling pirn as she twisted the brown wool
+for the blankets.
+
+How it whirled, and leaped, and spun, as the withered old hand jerked
+the thread! So the Hand of Fate jerked men's lives, setting them
+spinning like tops into the shadows, out into the firelight again;
+always, always spinning!
+
+"So the Great Khân was feeding his dogs, being in those days infidel,
+when Shaikh Jumâl-ud-din the divine came to him. 'Am I better than
+this dog?' quoth Timur, 'or is he better than I?' And the Shaikh
+smiled. 'If the King has faith he is better than his dog; but if he
+has no faith, then is his dog better than he, since the dog believes
+in a master.' So the Great Khân said the Creed immediately."
+
+"Wah!" murmured the circle of shepherds; but Babar would press for
+tales of the Great Invasion. And sometimes the old lady would begin at
+the very beginning, and tell how Timur's soldiers, imitating their
+leader, would make their left arms straight as the letter "I" and
+their right arms crooked as a "K" and so write death in the blood of
+their enemies. How they let fly their arrows as the moon lets fly
+shooting stars so that the blood-sodden hillsides showed like a drift
+of red tulips. Or she would drone on--it was a long story--over the
+"Battle of the Mire," where the enemy not having strength to fight,
+sought help from the magic rain-stone, so that though the sun was in
+the Warrior, a host of dark clouds suddenly filled the sky. The
+thunder resounded, the lightnings flashed, the water descended from
+the eyes of the stars until the voice of Noah was heard praying a
+second time for deliverance from the Deluge. Then the beasts of the
+field swam like fishes, the skin of the horses' bellies adhered to the
+crust of the earth. The feathers of the arrows damped off, their
+notches came out, neither men nor horses could move by reason of the
+rain ...
+
+So she would maunder on until Babar would say impatiently:
+
+"Get on to India, mother! I would fain be there myself."
+
+And he would hardly listen as she, once more beginning at the very
+beginning, would detail the eight-hundred-thousand men, provided with
+rations for seven years and each accompanied with two milch-kine and
+ten milch-goats, so that when stores were exhausted they might live on
+milk, and when milk dried up they could convert the animals themselves
+into provisions.
+
+It was all doubtless very wise of Timur--God rest his soul!--who was
+ever great on the commissariat; but he, Babar, preferred the laconic
+remark in his great ancestor's autobiography, "The princes of India
+were at variance with one another. Resolved to make myself master of
+the Indian empire. Did so."
+
+It was however the more intimate personal experiences which the old
+woman held by virtue of that dead "interest" of hers, which fired
+Babar's imagination; but these fragments of a half-forgotten past were
+not always to be got at. The long years of common round and daily task
+had overlaid them; it needed a subtle touch upon the instrument to
+make it vibrate once more. But Babar found a key. There was a certain
+Turkhomân ballad called "The Maid-of-the-Spring," which invariably
+unlocked the old woman's memory. So, often, as they sat over the camp
+fire at night, Babar, smiling to himself, would say, "A song, a song!
+Let us sing 'The Maid-of-the-Spring' together once more, grandmother!
+There is none sings it as thou dost."
+
+Which was true! Still the toneless treble of the old voice whining
+away like the fine whing of a mosquito did not sound so bad against
+the rich baritone. And the youngest maiden could not have nodded and
+becked more, or looked more arch. And perhaps the old heart beat as
+quickly as a young one; such things do not go by age.
+
+And this is what they sang in somewhat monotonous antiphon:
+
+
+   He.
+       Maid of the Spring! I'm thirsty! I pray
+       A drop of water! I must away.
+       God bless you, my girl! And don't be slow!
+       Give me a drink and let me go.
+
+   She.
+       I don't give drinks to strange young men
+       Who come a-swaggering down the glen;
+       Naught you'll get from my pitcher to-day,
+       Drink for yourself and go your way.
+
+   He.
+       Maid of the Spring! I cannot alight,
+       I'm far too tired! I'm wearied quite!
+       I haven't time! God bless you, my dear!
+       Give me a drink--I _can't_ stay here.
+
+   She.
+       The birds sing sweet in the spring, they say,
+       It's sweeter still when _I_ tune my lay,
+       But tired man should sleep in his bed--
+       Farewell! God's blessing be on your head.
+
+   He.
+       Give me some water, you pretty dear!
+       If I'd only time, you need not fear.
+       My darling! a drink from that stoup of thine,
+       Be it water or be it wine.
+
+   She.
+       Many men travel along this way,
+       All are thirsty but none can stay.
+       Take my pitcher and drink if you will,
+       A thirsty man must have his fill.
+
+   He.
+       Your brows are arched by a pen, I swear,
+       Your teeth are pearls--I will treat you fair,
+       Get down from my horse and wait an hour.
+       Give me your lips, my sweet, my flower.
+
+   She.
+       Roses and violets grow our groves,
+       No one may pluck them but he who loves.
+       My brother has slaves, and sticks a-main;
+       Drink and be off--it soon will rain!
+
+   He.
+       Darlingest dear! let it storm or rain,
+       My wide felt cloak shall shelter us twain.
+       Pitcher and all, leap up and ride,
+       We'll find a kiss at the water's side.
+
+   She.
+       My love! my love! have you come at last?
+       Drop the pitcher and hold me fast!
+       There are my lips before we fly
+       Out to a new world--you and I.
+
+
+"And now for India!" Babar would cry when the applause was over. "I
+want to hear about the size of it, and the fruit and flowers of it,
+and all about it. See you, grandmother, begin and tell me of the young
+woman thy man met at Lahore--then thou wilt remember to a nicety!"
+
+So the summer passed, until old Isân-daulet arriving from Samarkand
+with news of Dearest-One, set Babar's mind a-jogging once more over
+his enemy Shaibâni. But there was nothing to be done in winter time:
+such a bitter cold winter, too. More than one man died of it, and even
+Babar himself admitted that, after diving sixteen times in swift
+succession into a river that was only unfrozen in the middle by reason
+of its swift current, the extreme chilliness of the water quite
+penetrated his bones; as well it might.
+
+Then early spring brought a great grief which gave pause to energy.
+Nevian-Gokultâsh was done to death, by a scoundrel who was jealous of
+Babar's affection for him, and who had the temerity to say that
+faithful creature had fallen over a precipice when he was drunk.
+Nevian, who adhered so strictly to the law of Islâm! Nevian, who had
+always sided for sobriety, who had been to the full as urgent as old
+Kâsim Beg against a King giving himself up to wine. Babar, helpless to
+follow the murderer, felt deeply the death of his playmate in
+childhood, the companion of his boyhood. There were few persons for
+whose loss he would have grieved so much or so long. For a week or ten
+days, he thought of nothing else and the unbidden tears were ever in
+his eyes.
+
+After this, a great restlessness set in, fostered by old Isân-daulet,
+whose whole life had been one long succession of battles and murders
+and sudden deaths, and whose belief in Moghul troops never wavered.
+Why, she suggested, not go to his uncles the Khâns at Tashkend? His
+mother had been ill; she would like to see him once more. And if his
+tongue was sufficiently careful amongst his thirty-two teeth, he might
+get substantial help.
+
+"For what?" gloomed Babar--"to get back Âkshi and lose Andijân or get
+Andijân and lose Âkshi? 'Tis all one in the end."
+
+"Not the fine fighting, child!" replied the old lady craftily. "That
+is the same, be it in _Gehannum_ or _Bihisht_." (Hell or Heaven.)
+
+That was undoubtedly true; and there was no good to be gained by
+rambling from hill to hill as he had been doing.
+
+So, once more, the young adventurer gathered together a very scanty
+band of followers; for old Kâsim Beg, who till then had never left
+him, had come to words with Isân-daulet over these same Moghuls, and
+refused to accompany him.
+
+"I say not, sire," remonstrated the wise old soldier, "that these men
+are bad soldiers for me; but they are for the Most Exalted, who has
+ideas of discipline. Besides, I care not to risk my own neck for a
+chance. In obedience to the Most Exalted's commands I beheaded quite a
+number of these men in the last campaign, for marauding. Wherefore,
+therefore, should I go amongst their mourning relatives? I will come
+if there be fighting. Then there is no leisure and little desire for
+private revenge; blood can be let anywhere and one corpse is as good
+as another."
+
+So Kâsim went with his immediate adherents towards Hissâr; and Babar
+set off to Tashkend with rather a heavy heart. In a somewhat didactic
+mood also, for resting for a day or two beside a spring in the lower
+hills, he caused a verse to be inscribed on a stone slab which formed
+one side of the well where the water gushed in from the hill above, to
+disappear into the earth when it had run through a masonry trough.
+
+
+      "Many a man has rested and has drunk
+       Thy water, and like thee, O spring, has sunk
+       Swift to a grave where he lies all forgot,
+       Conqueror or vanquished, libertine or monk."
+
+
+He was not, however, at home in the _rubâi_, as he had not, at that
+time, studied with much attention the style and phraseology of poetry.
+
+Indeed, one of his first actions on reaching Tashkend was to submit
+some of his compositions to the Khân who had pretensions to taste, and
+who, moreover, wrote verses himself; though his odes, to be sure, were
+rather deficient in manner and substance. The younger poetaster,
+however, did not get either explicit or satisfactory criticism, and
+came to the conclusion that his uncle had no great skill in poetic
+diction. He did not know, for instance, that in the Turkhi language it
+was allowable, by poetic licence, to interchange certain letters for
+the sake of the rhyme.
+
+"He will think thee a nincompoop," stormed Isân-daulet. "Why did'st
+not show him thy sword play?"
+
+"He may see that ere long," quoth Babar, grimly, and went straight
+away to write the first _ghazel_ of six Couplets he ever composed.
+
+
+      "I have found no faithful friend
+       In the world save my own sad soul.
+       Dear heart! thou must give and spend
+       On thyself thy confidence whole.
+       Nightingale sings to the rose,
+       Roses give scent to the bird,
+       Dreams one of the thorny foes?
+       The other of passion deferred?
+       The exile must live apart,
+       To his coffers none give or lend.
+       The banished one holds his heart
+       To his soul as lover and friend."
+
+
+He was quite pleased with this effusion and sang it at a festive party
+soon after with great gusto; but the next morning he found that the
+golden clasp of his girdle had been stolen by one of the appreciative
+audience!
+
+Moghuls again!
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER X
+
+      "A blow or two and then the Fighting ends,
+       The Sword seeks Scabbard, and the Warrior wends
+       Through Death's wide Door. Were it not wiser then
+       To sleep until Retreat its message sends?"
+
+
+So, vaguely thought Babar as life went on dully with the family party
+at Tashkend. Most of his servants had left from absolute want; one, or
+at most two attendants were all that he could muster when he went to
+pay his compliments to the Khân, his uncle. Once, indeed, he
+accompanied the latter on a foray; but it was a useless sort of
+expedition. He, the Khân, took no part, beat no enemy; he simply went
+out and came back again.
+
+The young man spent much of his time with his mother who was
+convalescing but slowly; and she naturally, after so many years of
+absence, saw much of her sisters and cousins; most of them elderly
+women, inclined to make much of the handsome young King-errant whose
+melancholy never could withstand the faintest joke.
+
+For all that Babar, at the bottom of his heart, was utterly
+dissatisfied with himself and his world. Never since the debacle at
+Samarkand had he found himself again, the light-hearted, intensely
+vital person, who, taking things as they came, could yet turn them to
+his own uses. He began to tell himself privately that, rather than
+pass his life as he was now doing, homeless and purposeless, it would
+be better to retire into some corner where he might live unknown and
+undistinguished; that, rather than exist in distress and abasement far
+better were it to flee away from the sight of man, so far as his feet
+could carry him. In his infancy he remembered he had always had a
+strong desire to see China, but had never been able to accomplish his
+wish because of being a King and having a duty towards his relations
+and connections.
+
+Now he no longer had a throne. Now, his mother--the only tie left, for
+Ayesha his wife had never returned to him--was safe with her mother
+and her brother.
+
+Now, therefore, was the time. His mother, however, he knew well would
+not support the proposition; besides he had still a few followers who,
+having attached themselves to him with very different hopes, would be
+bitterly disappointed at his project. He could not bear to hurt
+anyone's feelings, so he devised a plan in order to get away quietly.
+He had never seen his other uncle, the younger Khân of Outer
+Moghulistân. Why should he not go, in this slack time, and pay him a
+visit?
+
+There seemed, indeed, no reason against this; and Babar was on the
+very point of starting when a messenger arrived hot haste, to say that
+the younger Khân himself was on his way to see his nephew and his
+nephew's mother!
+
+It was a blow; Babar's plan was utterly disconcerted, but being, like
+all his race, full of family affection, he set off with ever so many
+elderly Khânums with beautiful high-sounding names to meet his uncle.
+Such a meeting as it was; so many embracings and kneelings and yet
+more embracings; some ceremonious, others quite without form or
+decorum. After which the great circle of cousins and aunts, and uncles
+and nephews, sat down and continued talking about past occurrences and
+old stories till after midnight.
+
+His younger uncle had, according to the custom of his tribe, brought
+Babar a complete dress of state. A cap embroidered with gold thread, a
+long frock of China satin ornamented with flowered needle-work. A
+cuirass of fine chain-mail, Chinese fashion, with a whetstone and a
+purse-pocket from which were suspended a lot of little trinkets such
+as women wear, including a bag of perfumed earth. He looked very smart
+in it indeed, and when he returned to his own, tricked out in all this
+finery, they declared it was only by his voice they recognised him;
+that they had thought he was some grand young Sultan!
+
+Life at any rate did not seem quite so empty; since the two Khâns,
+having got together, began to propose a joint expedition to recover
+Andijân--_for Babar_, being an understood corollary so long as they
+remained under the influence of stern old Isân-daulet, who ruled her
+sons in matriarchal fashion.
+
+So they set off with flaunting pennons and kettledrums, after the
+manner of Moghul armies, and at their first halt held a muster of
+the troops, also in the Moghul fashion. In groups of three, three
+horse-tail standards were erected, and from the centre staff of each a
+long strip of white cloth was fastened, on the loose end of which
+stood the foot of the leader of that division. All around, in a huge
+circle, the troops were drawn up. Then with many ceremonials and
+sprinklings of mares'-milk spirit, each leader estimated the total
+number of the force. The final verdict being received with a wild
+war-shout; and then, at full speed, the whole army galloped
+centre-wards, the foremost troopers drawing bridle within a foot or
+two of the standards. On this occasion Babar looked with a certain
+awe, yet some misgiving, at no less than thirty thousand wild horsemen
+of the desert.
+
+But he had more certain aid than this. He found that he was not all
+forgot in the little valley at the extreme limit of the habitable
+world; and the country people welcomed his return with acclaim. So as
+soon as he could, with that curious distrust of Moghul blood, which
+makes the name given to the dynasty he founded in India so quaintly
+ironical, he parted company with his uncle's forces, and pushing on
+with such of his own people as had come together, sought for fine
+fighting.
+
+And he got it. Still reckless, almost without definite aim, he
+followed swift on every opportunity for a skirmish. When he saw a body
+of the enemy, he advanced at full gallop without minding order or
+array; and in nine cases out of ten the sheer daredevil clash
+succeeded. The enemy could not stand the charge and fled without
+exchanging blows. But sometimes his ill-luck with the Moghuls pursued
+him. Once when he, with his staff, was waiting outside Andijân for the
+return of a messenger. It was about the third watch of the night, and
+some of them were nodding, others fast asleep on their horses, when
+all at once the saddle-drums struck up with martial noise and hubbub.
+The few men who were with Babar were seized with a panic and took to
+flight; except three, all the rest ran off to a man. In vain these
+four galloped after the fugitives; in vain they horsewhipped some of
+them.
+
+All their exertions were ineffectual to make them stand.
+
+There was nothing for it but to try and check the pursuers themselves
+as best they could. So the four turned, stood and discharged flights
+of arrows, until the enemy was almost within sword thrust; then,
+wheeling swiftly, they galloped on to take up a fresh position of
+offence.
+
+In this way they covered and protected the retreat, until by good
+fortune they fell in with a patrol party of their own. Then, of
+course, came immediate charge, to discover that the pursuers were
+Moghuls from his uncle's force, who were out on a pillaging expedition
+of their own! In this manner, by a false alarm, the plan which Babar
+had conceived came to nothing, and he had to return after a fruitless
+journey.
+
+Truly, if the young man had wished to throw away his life, he could
+scarcely have dared Fate more recklessly. More than once he found
+himself almost alone facing stupendous odds. Once, when surprised at
+night in negligent security without advanced guard and without
+_videttes_, he had to gallop out almost unarmed to meet a large body
+of the enemy and found himself in the midst of them with but three
+supporters. Even so Fate was against him. He drew out of his quiver by
+mistake a green-tipped finger guard instead of an arrow, and being
+unwilling to throw it away because his uncle the Khân had given it to
+him, lost as much time in returning it to its place as would have
+sufficed for the despatch of two arrows, and, ere he was ready, his
+companions had been swept back by the onslaught and he was alone. To
+draw up to his ear and let the foremost foe have it for all he was
+worth was easy, but at the same instant an arrow struck him on the
+right thigh unsteadying his aim, and the next moment that foremost foe
+was on him and smote him such a blow on the head with a sword, that,
+despite his steel cap he was nigh stunned. And then, through his
+having neglected to clean his sword after swimming a river, it had
+rusted a little in the scabbard and he lost time in drawing it. Still,
+he won through that time, and, despite continual anxiety and
+irritation because of the behaviour of the Moghul troops which his
+uncles detached to help him, and who _would_ insist on plundering and
+were with difficulty restrained from putting honourable prisoners to
+death, he was fairly successful, until a final act of treachery threw
+him on his beam ends, and he was forced to retreat, fairly beaten.
+
+He was invited to a parley by the enemy and the Moghuls urged him to
+accept the invitation, and by hook or by crook, to seize or murder the
+leaders. Babar was indignant. Such artifice and underhand dealing
+were, he said, totally abhorrent to his habits and disposition. If he
+made an agreement for peaceful interview, he would not violate it.
+
+Nor did he. But whether from perversity or sheer stupidity, his orders
+were disobeyed, and he found himself committed to battle in the very
+heart of the opponents' defences, and without a sufficient force to
+secure success. Even then he challenged Fate, by waiting for personal
+retreat a full hour or more, unwilling, as he thought, to leave some
+of his friends in danger. Finally news came that having been beaten,
+at the other side of the city in about as much time as milk takes to
+boil, they, and half Babar's men, had escaped long before by another
+gate!
+
+Only about twenty men were left to the young King. It was no longer
+season to tarry; they set off, a great band of the enemy's troops in
+full pursuit.
+
+And then commenced a memorable ride for life. Man after man dropped
+out, maimed by the flights of following arrows.
+
+"Help! Help!" cried a well known voice behind him and Babar instantly
+turned bridle to aid a dear friend. But those who rode on either side
+the young King would not have it; this was no time to defy Death. It
+was the time to keep hold on Life. So, with strong hands upon his
+reins, Babar had no choice but to ride on. There were but eight of
+them left now; a wearied, hurried band of hunted men struggling
+through broken glens remote from the beaten road. The enemy behind was
+now out of sight, but, as at sunset the fugitives passed into more
+level ground, a shadow darker than the shadows of evening should be,
+showed on the plain.
+
+Placing his men under cover, Babar dismounted, and on foot, ascended
+an eminence to see what this might be. When suddenly from behind, a
+number of horsemen showed coming towards them. It was too dark to see
+their number but, doubtless, it must be a detachment in pursuit, and
+the only hope flight.
+
+"There is no use, sire," said a noble, "going on thus. They will
+outweary and take us all. Better by far, that you and Kâli-Gokultâsh
+choose two extra horses from amongst us, your devoted servants; so by
+keeping the four horses at full speed you may escape--it is a last
+chance."
+
+But Babar shook his head. To leave anyone dismounted in the midst of
+the enemy was beyond him; so he set his teeth and rode on.
+
+"The Most High is heavier than I am," urged an entreating voice at his
+elbow, "and it is my lord they want, not this slave whose horse is
+fairly fresh."
+
+Babar set his teeth again; but he felt the truth of the words and
+exchanged horses. Jân-Kâli could slip aside down some ravine. They
+would not follow him. It was he, Zahir-ud-din Mohamed Babar, that was
+wanted.
+
+Again came the plea--"My horse is fresher than the Most High's."
+
+And yet again Babar exchanged steeds.
+
+On and on, the horses flagging, followers dropping out, until but two
+remained--the King and his foster-brother Kâli-Gokultâsh.
+
+"Sire!--you had best go on!" muttered the latter as his horse stumbled
+and almost fell.
+
+"Whither?" called back the King bitterly. "Come on! be it Life or
+Death, let us meet it together."
+
+And ever and ever, as they went on blindly, he paused to look back, to
+wait ...
+
+And once, when he looked back there was no one near at hand. Only in
+the far distance, coming closer and closer, dark figures--were there
+two or more?
+
+But now, alone, hopeless, the worst seemed over. Babar dug spurs into
+his horse, weary but willing, and was off with renewed vigour in his
+veins. It was himself against the world once more! He would fight it
+out to the end--the bitter end!
+
+It was now dark and before him lay a hill. If he could reach it, and
+dismount, he might trust to his own nimbleness in climbing. But his
+horse was dropping, and two of the pursuers were within bowshot, ere
+he could fling himself from his steed on rising ground and dash up a
+glen to the right. He did not pause to shoot, though he had arrows in
+his quiver. A few of these he had stuck in his belt as he flung off
+his accoutrements piece-meal; they were for use at the last--the very
+last!
+
+But voices followed him; eager, protesting voices. They were no
+enemies; neither were they friends. But they could not leave a King in
+such a desolate situation Let him confide in them and he might yet
+find safety.
+
+It was a desperate chance; still it was a chance. And there were but
+two of them. One brave man could surely keep them in check--or kill
+them before he died. Babar pulled up, went back to his horse and faced
+Fate. So, all that night, they rode together, and when dawn came, one
+of the troopers commandeered some loaves of bread. All that day they
+lay watchfully in hiding, and when night came they passed on to a
+half-ruined house on the outskirts of a town. Here the troopers
+brought Babar an old fur coat; which was welcome, for the nights were
+bitterly cold. They also brought him a mess of boiled millet-flour
+pottage, which he ate and found wonderfully comfortable.
+
+So comfortable, that having lit a fire, Babar actually fell asleep
+beside it, despite his imminent danger, despite his distrust of his
+comrades who were for ever whispering amongst themselves. But he was
+outwearied after three nights' riding, and two days of watchful
+hiding. Indeed when they roused him at dawn on the pretext that there
+were spies about, and that a change was imperative, he was so spent
+and outdone that he felt inclined to bid them do their worst, or leave
+him to his fate. Yet he followed them dully, to a garden on the
+outskirts of the town--as well die there as elsewhere.
+
+But it was a primrose dawn, with a promise of brilliant sunshine, and
+the garden, partially walled, held a few flowers, a few birds.
+
+It needed no more to re-arouse vitality, and Babar, with fresh vigour
+in his veins after his few hours of sleep, began to emerge from the
+slough of despondency in which he had passed the last three days.
+These would-be guides of his were doubtless traitors; could he escape
+them?
+
+The day passed on to noon. Babar, in a corner of the garden, performed
+his religious ablutions and recited his prayers, adding to them the
+consolations of poetry by repeating the couplet:
+
+
+      "Long or short be your tenancy past
+       You must quit the Palace-of-Life at last."
+
+
+That was a self-evident proposition, and as such gave his simple,
+clear-sighted soul much comfort. So much so, that he fell asleep under
+the trees, and dreamt a dream of victory and triumph.
+
+From which he awoke to find three men standing over him, to hear
+whispers of how best to seize and throttle him.
+
+To spring to his feet and face them did not take long.
+
+"Ill-begotten, treacherous hounds!" he cried, ablaze with anger. "So
+canst thou dare when Babar sleeps--let us see who will lay hands on
+him awake!"
+
+The villains fell back; but at that moment the tramp of horsemen was
+heard beyond the garden wall, and one of the trio laughed.
+
+"Crow away, cockerel!" he cried. "Mayhap, hadst thou trusted us at
+first we might have let thee escape according to our oath. But now is
+the work of death taken out of our hands; for yonder comes a troop to
+seize thee and save our promise unbroken."
+
+He turned as he spoke to welcome the newcomers, then started. For the
+horsemen hurrying in to the garden were not Babar's foes, but his
+friends!
+
+"Kutluk! Babâi!" cried the young King, recognising two of his most
+devoted adherents. They flung themselves from their horses.
+
+"The King! Long live the King!" they shouted, as bending the knee at a
+respectful distance they rushed forward to fall at the feet of their
+dear leader.
+
+It had been a wonderful ride for life; yet in a way a needless one, as
+Babar told his uncles when he rejoined them. Since, had he but known,
+as he afterwards discovered, that the following party was not a whole
+detachment, but only a band of twenty troopers, he and his seven would
+of course, have made a stand and engaged them with every hope of
+success.
+
+Not that it would have made much difference; for both the elder Khân
+and the younger one had become weary of their expedition, and on news
+of the Great Usbek raider Shaibâni's appearance in their country, had
+retired in hot haste to their dominions.
+
+So Babar once more was at the end of his tether. The Moghuls he told
+his grandmother, to her great dudgeon, were no good as conquerors.
+Nature had made them pillagers, and an inch of plunder was worth more
+than an ell of honour.
+
+"He is out of joint with life," said his mother, weeping.
+
+Old Isân-daulet sniffed. "Try him with a pretty girl," she suggested.
+
+The Khânum shook her head. "He is not that sort--he will not even
+marry and that is nigh shameless--since he is one and twenty, yet
+without a child. 'Tis hard indeed on a woman of my age to have no
+grandchild."
+
+"Except Dearest-One's boy," said the old woman, her stern face
+softening. "Lo! perfidious barbarian though the father be, I should
+like to see the child. It should have the makings in it of a man--from
+its mother." And she was silent for awhile; perhaps she was thinking
+of that night in Samarkand when a girl had waited patiently for worse
+than death. Then she spoke:
+
+"See you, daughter! Your boy is not all King, no more than he is all
+my grandson. He hath material for half-a-dozen different persons in
+him and he hath not yet made choice of which to take. Lo!--mayhap--I
+have had too big a hand in the pease-porridge. Let be a bit. Let him
+do as he likes for a while and if that be to leave us for the time--so
+be it. Hurry not God's work."
+
+It was wise advice. None wiser. So for two whole years, the King was
+King-errant indeed. Even whither he went none know. Most likely he
+fulfilled his boyhood's desire to see China; but this much is certain.
+He and a few intimate friends, not half-a-dozen at most, wandered for
+months and months. Over the White Mountains likely, amid eternal
+snows, across the high lying steppes to Kashgâr, and so onwards.
+
+Or perhaps from Tashkend he may have wandered over high plateaux and
+past wide lakes to the Great Tian-Shan mountains. But either way, from
+some high peak, he must have caught one glimpse at least of a sight
+never to be forgotten. The sight of the wide plain of Eastern
+Turkhestân lying like a lake of pale amber beneath an encircling rim
+of snowy pearls, that change to rubies in the sunset. Marvellous
+indeed! All around the everlasting hills contemptuous of man and his
+finite work, glittering icily on that ever-present haze of dust, which
+effaced alike, the sand of the central desert, and the faint fringe of
+cultivation on the skirts of the hills. Over a thousand feet of golden
+dust-pall covering the corpses of the six sand-buried cities of
+Khotân!
+
+Buried when, and how? And wherefore, in God's name, did humanity found
+its houses on the Moving Sands?
+
+Fine stimulation here, for the imagination of a poet born.
+
+Babar must have sat and looked, sat and learnt from the slow
+invincible march of the sand waves piled by the desert winds,
+something of the strength of patience. Slow and sure. Under the gentle
+call of a summer breeze, mayhap, one sand atom shifting place; then
+another and another. But in the end, a high-piled wave, ready to fall
+over and engulf what lay beyond, when the whistle of the winter winds
+rang over the wastes, rousing the hidden devil in those harmless sand
+grains, to whirls of death.
+
+Shifting, shifting; never still for a second. Unearthing there,
+burying here.
+
+With what end?
+
+And doubtless Babar heard the oft told tale of the Muâzzim of Kâr, and
+of the minaret of the mosque which the sand can never hide for long;
+which even in these later days the dry biting winds of the desert lay
+bare, ever and anon, until the golden final of its blue dome shines
+bright as ever over the wide plain.
+
+Perhaps,--being a poet born--he may have tried to put the legend into
+verse with better success than the following:
+
+
+       The Preacher preached; his words were austere
+       So was his Life. "Oh! sinners, hear!
+       I oft have warned you--oft and amain,
+       Gentle and stern; yet all in vain.
+       From off my feet by order of God
+       Shake I the dust in which I've trod.
+       I rend my garments, go on my way.
+       Not for my soul His Judgment Day.
+       No more I preach, no more will I warn;
+       Wait till the resurrection morn!"
+       He left the pulpit; garments he rent;
+       Forth from the Lord's own House he went.
+
+      "Thou com'st with me," he said as he strode
+       Past the Muâzzim. "Thine the road
+       Of Mercy too." The singer bowed,
+       Bit at his lips, then said aloud:
+      "The Grace of God I cannot gainsay,
+       Fain would I go, fain would I stay,
+       Once more I'd waken sinners to prayer."
+       Frowning the Priest said "Fool! beware
+       Our God is Fire! He burns and He rends,
+       Message of Peace, once only sends."
+       The singer shivered. "So be it, yet
+       Prayers must be called from the minaret.
+       Yet once again singing must rise
+       Out of the night to dawning skies."
+       The Preacher spat. "It lies on thy head."
+       Gripped at his purse; smiled as he fled.
+
+                   *   *   *   *   *
+
+       The minaret was slender and high,
+       Blue was its dome; blue like the sky,
+       Its gilded finial shone like a star
+       Over the sinful town of Kâr.
+       The singer climbed its narrowing stair,
+       Stood in his place, then breathed a prayer:
+      "O God, most great, no atom of sand
+       Slips through Thy Fingers' grip; Thy Hand
+       Heeds not man's worth. Thou fillest his need.
+       Wake those who sleep, Dear God I plead!"
+
+                   *   *   *   *   *
+
+       No star, no moon, the gloom of the night
+       Making the snow peaks rim with light
+       The purpling sky, the darkening world.
+       Was it a sand grain sharp that whirled
+       To touch the watcher keen on his cheek?
+       Waiting so patient until a streak
+       Of cold grey dawn should come to the sky
+       Bringing the time for clamant cry
+      "_Ul-sul-lah-to-khair-un-mun-nun-nu!_
+       _Sleepers! awake! Prayer time has come to you!_
+       _Awake! Far better Prayer than Sleep to you!_
+       _Ul-sul-lah-to-khair-un-mun-nun-nu!_"
+
+                   *   *   *   *   *
+
+       The night was silent: that was a gust
+       Wind hot as fire, laden with dust.
+       The singer wiped salt tears from his eyes--
+       God! if the sand-storm should arise,
+       The storm of sand that comes like a pall
+       Gliding soft as snow flakes to fall
+       On good, on bad. "Oh! sleepers awake!
+       Waken and fly!" His voice could make
+       Small sound against the sound of the storm
+       Whistling the sand grains, "Rise and form
+       In serried order! carry the town!
+       Bury each fool, knave, sinner, clown,
+       Who sleeps unheeding God's gracious grace,
+       Mercy is tired. Go! leave no trace
+       Of saint or sinner within this place."
+
+                   *   *   *   *   *
+
+       The singer fought for breath as he prayed.
+      "Lord! give me one more chance," he said.
+       And lo! the sand-storm faltered away;
+       Still as the grave the city lay.
+       The singer he sang as never before,
+       Piercing through gateway, wall and door
+       The clamant cry. "Oh! sleepers rise!
+       Better is prayer than sleep! Be wise!"
+       Awakened all; they saw and they fled
+       Forth from the town, bewildered
+       Forth from the town, bewildered
+       To seek for refuge far from the sands
+       Out of the wind. But still he stands
+       And still he sings. Perchance there be one
+       Soul in the town who might be won!
+       The storm fresh-gathered swept on its task,
+       Covered all things with deadly mask
+       Of sand high-piled like waves of the sea
+       Till there was naught save sand to see.
+       No soul was left; no need for him more!
+       Downwards he crept. He found the door
+       Was blocked by sand waves! Merciful Heav'n!
+       Not for his soul was ransom given!
+       So back he went to the minaret
+       --Stood in the wind, the sandy fret--
+       Giving the call. It echoes yet
+       O'er wastes of sand when the sun has set.
+       When shifting winds in gusts and in whirls
+       Part of the dead town's shroud unfurls,
+       When dimly blue the minaret shows
+       Dim as a lamp its finial glows,
+       And soft and low and faint as a sigh
+       Comes to the ear that clamant cry,
+      "_Ul-sul-lah-to-khair-un-mun-nun-nu!_
+       _Awake! Awake! Prayer time has come to you!_
+       _Awake! Better Prayer than Sleep to you!_
+       _Ul-sul-lah-to-khair-un-mun-nun-nu!_"
+
+
+
+
+
+                               BOOK II
+                             BLOSSOM TIME
+                             1504 TO 1511
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+      "Youth asked the lark,
+      'Why dost thou sing
+       When clouds are darkling?'
+       Replied the lark,
+      'Behind the dark
+       The light is sparkling.'
+
+       Youth begged the Hours
+       Death not to bring
+       Though clouds were lowering.
+       Replied the Hours,
+      'In Heaven's bowers
+       Roses are flowering.'"
+
+
+"To-day I will shave," said Babar with conviction; and his long, fine
+fingers felt his rather ragged young beard reflectively.
+
+He was altogether a bit ragged after his long wanderings. But he had
+come back from them wiser, steadier in mind, still stronger in body.
+The record of years of clean, hard living showed in his bright hazel
+eyes, and the general alertness of his lithe young body.
+
+But he _was_ ragged! The brilliant June sunshine poured down on the
+sorry encampment set out on the summer pasturage of the high alps of
+Ilâk, and revealed the rents and patches of the two tents which were
+all that Babar possessed; his own, terribly tattered in its royalty,
+reserved for his mother's use; a common felt tilt, flexible in its
+cross-poles, for his own.
+
+And then his followers! Some two hundred in all; mostly on foot with
+brogues to them: blanket frocks over their shoulders; clubs in their
+hands. A miserable court, indeed, for a Prince of the Blood Royal!
+
+Yet the sense of Kingship rose stronger than ever in the young mind.
+
+"Yea! I will be shaven!" he said, magisterially, and summoned the
+court barber. He came running barefoot with a tin basin.
+
+"There should be ceremonials and entertainments," said the Khânum, his
+mother, plaintively. "Even at my brothers' first shavings there were
+ever illuminations and feastings, and thou art King; but what will
+you, here in the wilderness?"
+
+Babar laughed. "One King is as like another King as split peas, when
+there is lather to his face, motherling; so quick, barber, image me to
+Sulaiman-the-Wise, or Haroun-ul-Raschid. Lo! I could be Emperor as
+well as they, were fate but kind."
+
+So, out in the June sunshine, the young man sat while the white lather
+foamed up into his eyes and made them smart.
+
+"Have a care! slave," he said sharply. "Lo! I shall see things
+cloudy--and I would fain see clear."
+
+See clear! Aye! that was what he wanted. The past was leaving
+him--with his beard! He had made up his mind to that. Never again
+would he quarrel possession of that sweet valley on the extreme limits
+of the habitable world. He would go farther afield; how far
+depended--On what? On himself chiefly. So for the present he was on
+his way to Khorasân, the centre of civilisation.
+
+Ay! Bare feet and blanket frocks were well enough in boyhood; but when
+a man came to his own there were other Kingships to be fought for
+besides those which involved a temporal throne. There was Kingship in
+thought, Kingship in Art; a dozen or more Kingships ready to be
+gripped.
+
+The razor sweeping backwards and forwards, seemed to be shaving away
+all the disappointments of his past life; he leapt to his feet when
+the business was over and stretched his strong young arms out as if to
+embrace the whole world.
+
+"Lo! I feel a new man. I am ready for anything--for everything!"
+
+So, as he stood there, the memory--never very far distant from his
+mind in his moments of exaltation--of the Crystal Bowl of Life came
+back to him and he sang the last verse, his full voice rolling away
+among the hills:
+
+
+      "Clear Crystal Bowl, I laugh as I quaff.
+       Bring me Life's whole! I won't take the half!
+       Crystal Bowl, I bid thee bring to me
+           Joy, Grief, Life, Death."
+
+
+"Where didst learn that song, sonling?" said his mother, fondly. "And
+how well thou singest now! Thou hast learnt much of late, Babar."
+
+"I learnt it," replied her son, his face sobering, "from my cousin
+Gharîb. Dost know, motherling," he added swiftly, the light coming
+back to his eyes, "I learnt more of him than I wist at the time.
+Sometimes I think I owe all to him."
+
+"All?" echoed the Khânum, hurt. "Dost owe nothing to me--or at least
+to thy grandmother?"
+
+Babar's face showed whimsically reverent. "Oh, yea! Oh, yea!" he
+assented readily; "I owe much to my revered grandparent; yet at this
+present it shows but little."
+
+And he pointed to the two ragged tents, the two hundred
+tatterdemalions. "I would I were a tulip at times," he added
+irrelevantly, as he flung himself down on the grass that was all
+starred with the blood-red blossoms. "Think of it, motherling! To lie
+cosy all winter at your own heart, and when the sun has warmed the
+world to unfurl your banner and flaunt it independent--disobedient, if
+you choose!"--he rolled over on his stomach to look clear into one
+ruby cup--"Yea! little one!" he said patronisingly. "Rightly art thou
+called '_na farmân_.'[2] Thou holdest thine own treasure secure,
+caring for none--yet will I touch it with my hand," and the tip of his
+long finger dived into the chalice to touch the stiff stamens, and
+come out all covered with pale, yellow pollen. "An augury!" he said
+gravely, as he smeared his forehead with the powder of life. "Lo! I am
+marked like a Hindu--I shall conquer Hind yet."
+
+
+---------------------
+
+[Footnote 2: Contempt.]
+
+---------------------
+
+
+"God forgive thee, child," exclaimed his mother hastily. "Say not such
+things--they tempt Providence. Even not thyself to an idolater."
+
+Babar looked contrite. "Yet if I conquer Hind, I cannot kill all my
+subjects," he replied thoughtfully. "There is a puzzle for thee,
+motherling--how to be true Mussulman and yet not a fool?"
+
+His mother looked at him and shook her head. Dear son as he was,
+always loving, always affectionate, he had a bad habit of getting away
+from her ken mentally and bodily. It all came of leading such a
+wandering life. If only he would marry and settle down. But there
+seemed no chance of either.
+
+Yet Fate held the latter to close quarters. It almost seemed as if
+that shaving of his beard, that setting aside once and for all of his
+boyish aspirations had had a magical effect on Babar's environments;
+for within two months, seated at his ease in a splendid tent, he was
+writing in his diary:
+
+"The Lord is wonderful in His might! That a man, master of twenty or
+thirty thousand retainers, should, in the space of half-a-day, without
+battle, without contest, be reduced to give up all to a needy fugitive
+like myself, who had only two hundred tatterdemalions at his back (and
+they, all in the greatest want); that he should no longer have any
+power over his own servants, nor over his own wealth, nor even his own
+life, was a wonderful disposition of the Omnipotent!"
+
+Undoubtedly! And as the enemy who was thus discomfited was no less a
+person that Khosrau-Shâh, the man who had so treacherously caused
+Prince Baisanghâr to be strangled, it is certain that his lack of
+power over his own life was a sore temptation to Babar. The man
+undoubtedly deserved death: it was indeed conformable to every law,
+human and divine, that such should meet with condign punishment. But
+an agreement had been entered into, so he must be left free and
+unmolested, and allowed to carry off as much of his personal property
+as he could.
+
+For Babar was no promise-breaker. Perhaps also the memory of poor,
+miserable Khosrau's appearance when this pompous man (who for years
+had wanted nothing of royalty save that he had not actually proclaimed
+himself King) presented himself for audience and bent himself
+twenty-five or twenty-six times successively, and went and came back,
+and went and came back, till he was so tired that he nearly fell
+forward in his last genuflection, may have weighed with the keen young
+observer. The man was getting old; let him go with his sins upon his
+head.
+
+So he went. And Babar with the thirty thousand retainers at _his_ back
+set out promptly for Kâbul.
+
+His paternal uncle, its King, had died leaving a young son. A
+perfidious minister had ousted this boy from the throne, but had
+himself been assassinated at a grand festival. Thereinafter all was
+disorder and tumult. Fitting opportunity then for a _coup d'état_.
+
+So, over the peaks and passes, Babar at the head of a movable column
+passed swiftly. Still more swiftly--since surprise is the essence of
+success--when news came that the usurper for the time being had left
+Kâbul at the head of his army to intercept another adversary. The
+instant this information was received, the young leader gave his
+orders; within an hour the force was on the march. A hill pass lay
+before them; it must be mastered ere dawn; they must go up and up all
+the night through, the laden mules stumbling over the stones,
+dismounted troopers hauling their horses up rock ladders. A troublous
+time, indeed; but at last the crest of the hill was reached, and
+there, bright to the South, showed a star.
+
+The young leader's heart leapt to his mouth--Could it--could it be
+Canopus?--the lucky star of the conqueror? The star of which he had
+read--the star he had never seen before ...
+
+"That--that cannot be _Soheil_," he said almost timorously.
+
+"It is _Soheil_, Most High," replied Bâki Cheghaniâni in a courtier's
+voice; then repeated pompously the well known verse:
+
+
+      "How far dost thou shine, _Soheil?_
+       And where dost thou rise?
+       Who knows? But this cannot fail:
+       Thy light brings luck to the eyes
+       Who see it and cry, 'All hail!
+                                         _Soheil!_'"
+
+
+"Gentlemen!" rang out Babar's jubilant young voice, cutting the
+clear night air like a knife. "Let us give it all we can...! All
+hail!--_Soheil!_"
+
+"All hail! _Soheil!_" The cry clamoured round the rocks and surged up
+from the ravines where men were still striving upwards; while on that
+downward path to the pleasant valleys below where spear points were
+already beginning to cluster, the troopers paused to echo and re-echo:
+
+"All hail! _Soheil!_"
+
+And Babar's star was veritably in the ascendant. Within a month--yet
+once more without battle, without contest--he had gained complete
+possession of Kâbul and Ghazni with the countries and provinces
+dependent thereon.
+
+It had been almost unbelievable success ever since that day when on
+the uplands of Ilâk, he had shaved off his beard and set aside, once
+and for all, his childish hopes and aims!
+
+_Really_, it was rather quaint! The thought of it, with its hint of
+imagination, its something beyond the dull routine of the inevitable,
+added zest to the young King's almost rapturous appreciation of his
+new dominions.
+
+To begin with Kâbul was in the very midst of the habitable world. That
+was a great point in its favour. Then it was in the fourth climate;
+and so of course its gardens were perfection. Its warm and its cold
+districts were close together; in a single day you could go to a place
+where snow never falls, and in the space of two astronomical hours you
+might reach a spot where snow lay always (except now and then when the
+summer happened to be peculiarly hot).
+
+Then the fruits! Grapes, pomegranates, apricots, peaches, pears,
+apples, quinces, jujubes, damsons, walnuts, almonds, to say nothing of
+oranges and citrons! The wines, also, were strong and intoxicating;
+indeed, that produced on the skirts of one mountain was celebrated for
+its potency. This, however, was only a matter of hearsay since Babar
+was still a tee-totaler; and as the verse says:
+
+
+      "The drinker knows the virtue of wine
+       Which those who are sober can't divine."
+
+
+Then the honey was delicious, the number of beehives extraordinary,
+and the climate itself was so extremely delightful that in this
+respect there was no other such place in the known world.
+
+But it was the gardens, after all, which made Kâbul what it was, a
+place that filled the imagination with joy. Years and years afterwards
+the mere thought of them was to make Babar homesick almost to tears;
+now every moment of time he could spare was spent on the skirts of the
+Shâh-Kâbul hill where terraces rise one above the other to touch the
+Summer Palace of the New Year. It was early October; the plane trees
+were dropping their golden leaves, the peaches were crimson and pale
+red, the vines vied with each other in vivid colouring. It was all so
+much pure joy to the young King, and he passed on his content to all.
+His dearest mother was housed as she never had been before. And when
+old Isân-daulet came, just to have a peep at her grandson's success,
+he lodged her in the New Year's palace where the old lady could have
+her fill of the garden. Since, quaintly enough, it was from the
+ancient desert-born dame that Babar inherited his keen delight in
+flowers. Kâsim-Beg was back too, and so was Dost-Ali, his oldest
+friend amongst the nobles of Andijân; but Kambar-Ali had left; he was
+a thoughtless and rude talker and the more polished courtiers of Kâbul
+could not put up with his manners. Not that he was a great loss, for
+besides talking idly--and those who talk persistently cannot avoid at
+times saying foolish things--his wits were but skin deep, and he had a
+muddy brain.
+
+There was but one fly in the honey, and that was the desire of all
+Babar's female relations that he should marry. There was justice, he
+felt, in his mother's claim for grandchildren. Undoubtedly it was his
+duty; but ...
+
+He was too good-natured, however, to resist making everyone as happy
+as he was himself, especially after old Isân-daulet arrived with a
+bride in her pocket; so, before he quite realised the magnitude of the
+affair, he was duly wedded to yet another cousin, a half-sister of
+dead Prince Baisanghâr. She was some years older than her groom and
+very, very beautiful.
+
+But Babar came out from the bridal-chamber with a stern, set mouth and
+went straight to his mother.
+
+"Tell her to say no more of Dearest-One," he said briefly; "or there
+will be trouble. And 'twere as well if she left Baisanghâr in peace
+also. She loved him, doubtless--but--but so did I." His voice softened
+over the last words.
+
+Trouble, however, was not to be avoided. Babar made no more
+complaints; possibly because he gave few opportunities for fresh
+injury.
+
+His mother wept and scolded in vain. That hurt him; but for his
+cousin-wife he cared not at all. He was proud; he could not understand
+a woman's petty spite, especially when shown to _him_, a good-looking
+young King in the zenith of success.
+
+"We do not agree," he said gloomily. "Lo! it is true what Saádi saith:
+
+
+      'In a good man's house a cross-grained wife
+       Makes hell upon earth with ill-tempered strife.'
+
+
+Mayhap if we part we may come together again in better fashion; and
+sure I pray God that such a thing as a shrew be not left in the
+world."
+
+He would not acknowledge any fault on his side. Perhaps there was
+none. Anyhow he was determined this year of good fortune should not be
+marred by silly domestic squabbles. So, with affectionate farewells to
+his mother, whom he left determined to bring her choice to reason, he
+set off in light-hearted fashion to make that irruption into Hindustan
+which he had threatened when he had marked his forehead with pollen
+dust. He was not strong enough as yet, his army was not yet
+sufficiently disciplined for any attempt at real conquest; but he
+meant at least to cross the river Sind and set foot on Indian soil.
+The expedition, however, fizzled out into a mere plundering raid along
+the western bank of the Indus. But Babar at least saw India, getting
+his first glimpse of it across the wide waters and sandbanks of that
+great stream. He was deeply impressed by the sight. At some places the
+water seemed to join the sky; at others the farther bank lay reflected
+in inverted fashion like a _mirage_. And he saw other strange and
+beautiful things also. Once between this water and the heavens
+something of a red appearance like a crepuscule cloud was seen, which
+by and by vanished, and so continued shifting till he came near.
+
+And then with a whirr of thousands--nay! not ten thousand nor twenty
+thousand wings, but of wings absolutely beyond computation and
+innumerable--an immense flock of flamingoes rose into the air, and as
+they flew, sometimes their red plumes showed and sometimes they were
+hidden.
+
+So, with his mind stocked with endless new ideas, for he had been
+struck by astonishment--and indeed there was room for wonder in this
+new world where the grass was different, the trees different, the wild
+animals of a different sort, the birds of a different plumage, the
+very manners of the men different--he returned in early summer to
+Kâbul.
+
+But here he once more found trouble. There was an epidemic of measles
+in the town and one of the first victims was his cousin-wife. He was
+vaguely distressed; mostly it is to be feared because of his mother
+who had nursed her daughter-in-law devotedly. Partly also from a
+remembrance of his own parting wish. Yes! it was distinctly wrong to
+say such ill-advised things, for if anything did happen one always
+regretted one's own words. And yet one had meant nothing.
+
+"I will marry again, motherling! I will indeed; but this time let me
+choose for myself," he said consolingly as the fond woman clung to him
+in mingled joy at seeing him again, and grief at the failure of her
+schemes. Not that they would have come to much, likely, even had the
+cousin-wife not died; for she had been a handful doubtless, all those
+months.
+
+"Lo! motherling," said her son once more, "let us forget the mistake
+for a time. Thy hands are hot, thou art outwearied. Lie so among the
+cushions, and I will sing to thee."
+
+She loved to hear him sing, and even in the old Turkhomân ballads, she
+did not--like old Isân-daulet--claim to have them fairly bawled. This
+new soft fashion was utterly sweet. So was her son's close-shaven
+chin. He had gone far from the wild Turkhomân tents; far ahead of her;
+God only knew how much farther he was to go.
+
+"Motherling! Thou art not so well to-night," he said with solicitude
+as he noticed how fever-bright were her kind, worn eyes. "I will bid
+the Court physician send for him of Khorasân. He will likely know all
+methods; for I cannot have thee ill, my motherling."
+
+The Khânum held him fast with her hot hands. "I care not, sonling,"
+she sobbed suddenly; "so long as thou art here to the last--the
+best--the bravest son--
+
+"But I?" he said in tender raillery, though a sudden fear gripped at
+his heart. "Whom have I in the wide world but thee, mother? Lo! thou
+art the one thing feminine left to me after all these years." And his
+eyes grew stern as he thought of that dearest Dearest-One away in far
+Samarkand. Thank God she had a child.
+
+"Have I not always said so?" wailed his mother. "Have I not bid thee
+have children? Ah, Babar! if I live, promise thou wilt marry."
+
+"I will marry either way, motherling," he said. "Lo! I promise that;
+so cease thy tears and try to sleep. Thou wilt be better by morn."
+
+But morning found the palace hushed with the hush of mortal sickness.
+There was no longer any doubt that the Khânum had contracted measles
+in its worst repressed form, and regret, vague almost unreasonable
+regret, seized on Babar. He was responsible. It was his fault. His
+mother had nursed his wife. The Khorasân physician came and ordered
+water-melons; he of Kâbul let blood. And Babar sat dry-eyed beside his
+mother, holding her hot hand. She did not know him. Those words of
+hers, begging him to marry had been her last to him. His to her his
+promise that he would marry. Even amid his dazed grief he remembered
+this; remembered it keenly as, when the end came in quiet
+unconsciousness, he bent over her to give the last caress before Death
+claimed the body and it lay soulless, impure. But she? She was
+received into the Mercy of God.
+
+He said that over and over again to himself as, on the Sunday morning,
+he put his strong shoulder under the light bier and carried it to the
+Garden of the New Year. It was summer-time now, the roses were
+beginning to blow, the tulips were nigh over, but the wild pansies
+were in full blossom. They had dug a grave under the plane trees and
+here, after the committal prayers had been said and flowers strewn,
+Babar, holding the head and Kâsim, his foster brother, the feet, laid
+the light, muslin-swathed, tinsel-bound corpse in the long, low niche,
+cut coffin-wise in the side. His voice scarcely trembled at all as he
+laid a handful of earth upon the breast with the solemn words of
+admonition and hope.
+
+"Out of the dust I made you, and to dust I return you, to raise you
+yet once more out of the dust upon the Day of Resurrection."
+
+But his eyes brimmed with tears as, with lavish hand, he scattered
+pansy blossoms till the white shroud was hidden by them.
+
+Then without one word he drew himself up from the grave, and taking a
+shovel worked his hardest to fill in the earth.
+
+Afterwards he sat down and looked out over the valley.
+
+When his time came, he, also, would lie here. One could not desire a
+more peaceful, a more beautiful spot. But he would have no tomb built
+over him to blot out the blue sky. No! He and his mother should rest
+together till the Resurrection morn out in the open, among the birds
+and flowers.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II
+
+       I set Death's Door wide open for thee, Friend,
+       That thou might'st go.
+       I did not weep; I did not even send
+       One sign of woe
+       To follow, lest the way thou had'st to wend
+       The harder show.
+       But thou? Thou shut'st the Door upon my face,
+       Thou hid'st from me
+       One tiny gleam of glory from the place
+       Where thou would'st be;
+       In this world or the next there is no trace
+       No trace of thee!
+
+
+With the swift family affection of their clan, relatives gathered
+round Babar in his bereavement. His paternal aunts came from Khorasân,
+and ere the forty days of mourning were over, a small cavalcade
+arrived from Tashkend. But it brought an aggravation of grief; for old
+Isân-daulet had predeceased her daughter by a few days. Babar's uncle,
+the little Khân, had also died; but beyond the fact that this deepened
+the Shadow-of-Death which seemed to have fallen over his young life,
+it brought no sorrow to the King. It was different with his
+grandmother. With her passing he had veritably no feminine thing left
+to whom he owed affection and duty, to whom he could go for comfort
+and counsel.
+
+There were his paternal aunts, of course; good creatures every one of
+them, especially Ak Begum, though the others always flouted her
+because she had not married. Which was very unkind, since anyone
+with half-an-eye could see it was because she had devoted her life to
+her fat, half-witted lame sister. Poor Badul-jamâl-Begum! What an
+irony of fate it was that she had been called that! The "Lady of
+Astonishing-Beauty." But feminine names were beyond reason. Even Ak
+Begum--the "Fair Princess." What a name for that little bird-like,
+dark creature who twittered and preened herself at every word.
+
+Yet she was the only one of them who understood, who gave the young
+man's sore heart any comfort at all.
+
+She came to him, looking as if no pin were out of place, so natty,
+with her scanty hair still braided in virginal fashion on her wrinkled
+forehead, and said in her high piping voice:
+
+"Lo, nephew! here are violets. A man brought them from the snows. Are
+they not sweet? Sniff them! Thy mother was ever so fond of them."
+
+And Babar sniffed at them and afterwards took them to his mother's
+grave. Yes! The Fair Princess was certainly his grandfather's
+daughter; of the same blood as he was.
+
+Still, grief must have its way, and here it was unbounded. Regret and
+remorse were mixed with it; and, yet once again, Babar gave way before
+the mental strain.
+
+He tried to resume his ordinary life and actually started to lead his
+army afield, but was struck down with a sort of sleeping sickness. For
+days no matter what efforts they made to rouse him, his eyes
+constantly fell back to sleep. Yet after a time he pulled himself
+together again and started once more, but this time with no definite
+plan. Nor did he quite recover his normal health all that winter,
+which was spent in half-hearted attacks, and whole-hearted forgiveness
+of all and sundry of his enemies; for it was not his wish to treat
+anyone harshly. The snow lay very deep that winter in the high glens
+and passes. At one place off the road it reached up to the horses'
+cruppers and the pickets appointed for the night-watch round the camp
+had to remain on their horses, from sheer inability to dismount.
+
+Half the army suffered, and Babar himself had to be carried back to
+Kâbul, helpless with lumbago. Mental unhappiness always seemed to
+affect his bodily health. But spring comes early in Kâbul and the
+pulse of renewed life began to beat once more in Babar's veins. By
+March, when the red tulips he had planted there were in full bloom
+about his mother's grave in the garden of the New Year, he was once
+more looking out from that high ground at the world beneath his feet,
+and straining his bright eyes over new horizons.
+
+One thing he must do. He must marry. But this time he would choose for
+himself. This time he would give himself a chance of finding that new
+world he had seen when he was a boy in Dearest-One's eyes. Poor
+Dearest-One! He had had letters from her concerning their mother's
+death, and their pitifulness had almost broken his heart. Yet he could
+do nothing, nothing! She was as one dead; only not at peace like his
+mother.
+
+But she also had urged marriage. Yes! he must marry, and no one should
+have a finger in the matrimonial pie but himself; least of all his
+paternal aunts. If needs be he would marry privately. The idea
+attracted him; he pondered over it. The question arose, in that case,
+whom he was to choose. Amongst the well born, those who lived in the
+circle of distinction as the phrase ran, it would be impossible.
+Without a _confidante_ the mere broaching of marriage was out of the
+question.
+
+And yet the very idea of one low born was distasteful to him.
+
+So, as he pondered vaguely over possibilities, an idea came to him.
+
+What of the frightened girl? Why not?
+
+She could not be more than a year or two his senior; if that, for
+she had been much younger than his Cousin Gharîb. And her father was
+dead. And she lived in a House-of-Rest. That is to say if she still
+lived--or if she was not married.
+
+Bah!--he was a fool to let his fancy run so far. Still he could
+enquire when he went to Khorasân as he meant to do some time that
+summer. Meanwhile a feeling of content came to him; partly because his
+imagination endorsed the idea as delightfully sentimental; mostly
+because it postponed necessity for immediate action.
+
+And yet, when a day or two after a missive arrived from his uncle,
+Sultan Hussain, begging for his assistance at Khorasân against the
+arch enemy and raider Shaibâni-Khân who threatened an inroad, Babar
+felt pleased at what seemed an order from Fate; especially as the
+missive came by the hands of rather a quaint ambassador; namely by the
+son of his uncle's professional Dreamer-of-Dreams. To be sure Cousin
+Gharîb had made fun of the man's pretensions; but there was more in
+that sort of thing than could be accounted for by reason. Anyhow, it
+was a clear duty to set off at once. If Shaibâni was the enemy, then,
+if other princes went to the attack on their feet it was incumbent on
+him to go if necessary on his head! and if they went against him with
+swords, it was his business to go, were it only with stones!
+
+"The Most High must have a care of Kâbul nathless," said wary old
+Kâsim. "Look you the saying runs:
+
+
+       Ten dervishes in one rug
+       Lie comfy, and warm, and snug,
+       But two Kings upon one throne--
+       Such a thing never was known.
+
+
+The most High's brother--and his cousin--"
+
+But Babar cut him short. He never would listen to suspicions of his
+own relations.
+
+"I have done nothing," he said, with just that little touch of
+conscious virtue that in him was so translucent, so simple, though in
+one less artless it might have been offensive, "to provoke either of
+them to hostility; neither have they given me ground for
+dissatisfaction."
+
+Kâsim shrugged his shoulders and muttered under his breath that it
+would need the Day of Judgment to make some folk believe in sin, and
+applied himself to seeing that the garrison left was sufficient to
+keep order.
+
+Babar himself was full of spirits. Apart from other considerations the
+prospect of, at last, seeing Herât, the most civilised city in Central
+Asia, filled him with keen interest. It was full, he knew, of poets,
+painters, philosophers, and its luxuries were things to speak of with
+bated breath. In addition, he had a pleasant remembrance of his Uncle
+Hussain. It was more than ten years since he had seen him over in the
+camp which had struck him, the hardy barbarian, with awe. Did the old
+man--old now with a vengeance since he had reigned a good fifty
+years--still keep butting rams and amuse himself with cock fighting?
+Above all, did he still on festival days put on that small turban tied
+in three folds, broad and showy, and having placed a plume nodding
+over it in that style go to prayers? Babar wrote in his own hand--in
+the Babari writing which he had just invented and of which he was
+vastly proud--a letter to the kindly old man, telling him that he had
+set out from Kâbul and hoped to be with him shortly. This he entrusted
+to an ambassador who with the Dreamer-of-Dreams started express for
+Herât; he himself having a small job on hand by the way, in the
+punishment of some wandering tribes to the west.
+
+It was not much of a task; but summer quarters in the hills had a
+fascination for Babar, and he remained on the top of one of the many
+ranges he had to cross; despatching Kâsim-Beg meanwhile with a body of
+troops to scour the countryside for rebels.
+
+There was a sense of freedom about the wide upland stretches of sweet
+grass, where flocks and herds grazed placidly, where flowers blossomed
+by the million, and the tall fir forests edged the downward slopes.
+The whole world of blue waving hills touched the blue sky. One might
+be adrift on a huge raft in the River of Life. Babar would doff shoes
+and wander barefoot for hours, content with a chance shot after an
+escaping deer, or a chance following of his own vagrant thoughts. And
+these often fled in the direction of a House-of-Rest wherein dwelt a
+frightened girl. He could not help it. He was made sentimental to his
+heart's core. Remove the pressure of fine fighting, of ardent
+ambition, and there he was, ready to be touched by pity, love,
+admiration. And the thought of the woman to come was a perpetual
+stimulus to his imagination. The mere fact that he did not know her
+name was delightful; it took from the idea all trace of earth. And
+Babar, though the very reverse of ascetic in his tastes and pleasures,
+had ever been repulsed by sensuality. His was the Epicurean enjoyment
+of the spirit, as distinct from that of the mind, or that of the body.
+So in his thoughts he called the woman he intended should be his wife
+"My moon," which is the eastern equivalent of "My queen"; and, in easy
+dilettante fashion wrote more than one ode to that luminary. Most of
+them were in Persian and contained exactly the proper number of feet,
+and rang the appointed interchanges of meaning and words with
+faultless accuracy. He was quite proud of them, and thought better of
+them than of the one in Turkhi; which, however, he set to music and
+sang, for his innate good taste was for ever breaking loose from
+scholastic tradition. He twanged the tune on a _cithâra_ as he sat on
+a rock in the moonlight and felt quite light-hearted over his own
+unworthiness; it fitted so neatly into the rhyming fall ...
+
+
+       Moon of still night!
+         Whence the bright light
+           that enfolds
+       In its pure smile
+         Earth's untold guile;
+           that upholds
+       Silver in glow,
+         whiter than snow,
+           this my hand
+       Tuning thy praise?
+         Whence come thy rays?
+           From what land
+       Bringest thou peace,
+         thus to release,
+           from its sin
+       Stricken sad heart,
+         wailing its part
+           in Life's din?
+       Lo! from God's sun
+         must thou have won
+           thy kind light.
+       Though I am clay,
+         watch me alway
+           through the night.
+       I am of earth;
+         thine is the birth-
+           right divine.
+       Moon of my soul,
+         thine is this whole
+           heart of mine.
+
+
+The distance from Kâbul to Khorasân was over eight hundred miles; so
+with even every-day marching the journey would have taken some time,
+and Babar was in no particular hurry. Less so than ever when news came
+to him with the return of his ambassador, that Sultan Hussain had
+suddenly died from an apoplectic seizure. At first Babar felt inclined
+to turn back. His uncle, he knew, had left his kingdom, in unheard of
+fashion, to his three legitimate sons, in defiance of the old saw
+about the ten dervishes, and Babar had too much experience to believe
+that such an arrangement could work satisfactorily. However he had
+other motives for advancing, and therefore he continued his route,
+and, passing over the last range of high hills, found himself in the
+country where the advanced detachments of the Usbek force were already
+raiding. This in itself was an attraction, bringing as it did a chance
+of fine fighting. He found his cousins, the new Kings, encamped, ready
+to meet the advancing foe on the Murghâb river; or rather he found two
+of them. The third, from private motives of pique had refused to join
+the confederacy. This appeared to Babar to be inexpressibly mean, when
+everyone else had united and were sparing no efforts to oppose an
+enemy so formidable as Shaibâni. He could not understand how any
+reasonable man could pursue a line of conduct which must after his
+death, stain his fair fame. Surely everyone with the commonest grace
+would push forwards his career, so that, even if closed, it would
+conduct him to renown and glory, since fame is truly a second
+existence?
+
+These sentiments, however, fine as they were, did not make much mark
+on the luxurious camp on the banks of the Murghâb. His cousins
+received Babar fairly well, though their manners required some
+polishing up by old Kâsim-Beg's inflexible rules of etiquette. Of
+course, the fact that two of the younger and illegitimate princes did
+not come out as far as they ought to have done to welcome their Kingly
+cousin was objectionable; but that might be put down to delay in
+starting due to an over-night debauch, rather than to intentional
+slight. But when it came to the State reception in the Audience Tent,
+Kâsim had to pluck at his young master's girdle and remind him with
+this jog, that he was to go no further, but to await his eldest
+cousin's advance. Which he did obediently, knowing that old Kâsim held
+his King's honour as his own, and was keenly alive to his consequence.
+
+But he, himself, was always forgetting these _convenances_, where he
+was concerned. If you really felt affectionate it was a nuisance
+having to wait, and bow, and scrape.
+
+The State reception, however, went off very well and it was followed
+by a sort of entertainment at which wine was served in goblets of
+silver and gold, that were put down by the meat!
+
+Fateful innovation which sent old Kâsim back to his own camp hungry,
+in the highest of dudgeons.
+
+"Had it been a drinking party, sire," he protested, "'twould have been
+my own fault for being there. But at an official dinner, 'twas
+scandalous. No faithful Mussulmân could touch a morsel of food so
+defiled."
+
+Babar, somewhat regretful at a rather abrupt departure, murmured an
+excuse to the effect briefly, of "_autres tempes, autres moeurs_";
+whereat Kâsim-Beg, a purist for the old ways, broke out hotly:
+
+"Lo! sire! the Institutions of Ghengis Khân have brought your
+Highness' family well through much trouble. Sacredly have they
+observed them in their parties, their courts, their festivals, their
+entertainments, their down sittings, their risings up, and it would
+ill become their descendant to flout them."
+
+Babar flushed up; in his heart of hearts, he was not quite such an
+admirer of the old Turk. "Lo! the Institutes are good enough," he
+said; "a man may well follow them; yet are they not of Divine
+authority, so that one be damned for disobeying them. Besides, see
+you, what hope would there be for the world if folk made no change? If
+a father has done wrong why should not a son change it to what is
+right?"
+
+Old Kâsim, munching away at the dry bread and pickles which was all
+his servants could produce, snorted. "'Tis the other way round most
+times; and see you, sire, I give those Kings your cousins one year,
+one little year, to hold Herât! Then the Kingdom of their father--God
+rest his soul since he had gleams of grace and once let one of his
+God-forgetting sons go before the magistrate--held--despite wine
+bibbing--for nigh fifty years, will have gone for ever."
+
+"Aye," replied Barbar, thoughtfully. "I have noticed that myself. Some
+men drink with impunity. I wonder if 'twould hurt me?"
+
+"God forbid! your Majesty!" said old Kâsim with a tremble in his
+voice. "Shall all our care, mine and the saintly Kwâja who held you as
+a boy in his guardian care, be wasted? God forbid, say I."
+
+But Babar said nothing; he knew that in his inmost heart he had had
+for years a great longing just to see what it was like to be drunk! It
+could scarcely hurt for once, and the land of inebriety could hardly
+be the arid desert it had been painted for him, or so many folk would
+not wander in it.
+
+He was always open to reason on all points. Nevertheless he gave out
+solemnly that he drank no wine, and his cousins, being good hosts,
+refrained from pressing him to do so.
+
+Badia-zamân, the elder of the three, doubtless thought little of him
+for the abstinence. To be young, good-looking, able to enjoy yourself
+in every way and yet not to take the best of Life, seemed to him sheer
+foolishness; and he showed his estimate in his manner, so that Babar
+came home from his second interview in a fume of anger.
+
+"This shall not be!" he said hotly. "Kâsim! send proper
+representations that young as I am, I am of high extraction. Twice
+have I by force regained my paternal Kingdom, Samarkand. To show want
+of respect to one who has done so much for his family by repelling the
+foreign invader is not commendable."
+
+For a marvel the young King was on his dignity, much to old Kâsim's
+joy. And with good result; for nothing more could have been desired at
+the next audience which Babar attended with his full retinue. And a
+fine figure he looked, dressed in the very latest fashion with a gold
+brocade coat, a flowered undershirt and white silk baggy trousers all
+lined with gold thread. His hair, too, was scented and curled and his
+turban tied with a difference. A very different person this from the
+ragged, out-at-elbow fugitive, or even the stern young soldier in his
+tarnished coat of mail, fighting for life against overwhelming odds.
+
+He rather liked the change. It was a new experience to ruffle with
+gilded youth, and he ruffled fairly until his boon companions began to
+play indecent and scurvy tricks, when he left, disgusted for the time
+being. But the entertainments were wonderfully elegant. There was
+every sort of delicacy on the comestible trays, and _kababs_ of fowl
+and goose; indeed dishes of every sort and kind. The Prince-Kings vied
+with each other in the refinement of their luxuries, and certainly
+Badia-zamân's parties deserved to be celebrated; they were so fine, so
+easy, so unconstrained. On the other hand Mozuffar's entertainments
+were more amusing, especially when the wine began to take effect.
+There was a man who danced excessively well; a dance of his own
+invention.
+
+"Dance or no dance," grumbled old Kâsim, "the Princes thy cousins have
+taken four months to reach this place. And now news comes that a
+plundering party of Usbeks is well within touch not more than forty
+miles off--and they dance! 'Twill be to another tune ere long."
+
+"Mayhap they would let me go," said Babar eagerly, "'twould be a
+diversion."
+
+So he was off to lay his proposition before his Cousins; but they,
+afraid of their own reputations, would not suffer him to move. The
+fact was, as he admitted to old Kâsim privately, the Princes, though
+very accomplished at the social board or in the arrangements for a
+party of pleasure, and though they had a pleasing talent for
+conversation and society, yet possessed no knowledge whatever of the
+conduct of a campaign, and were perfect strangers to the arrangements
+for a battle, or the danger and spirit of a soldier's life.
+
+This left nothing more to be said; especially as his hearer agreed
+with every word.
+
+Early autumn, however, had passed, and Shaibâni, being a careful
+general, prepared to withdraw his forces against the winter's
+cold. This being so, there was no longer any reason--there had been
+but little before--for remaining in camp at the Murghâb, and the
+Prince-Kings proposed a return to Herât and invited Babar to accompany
+them.
+
+"Were I your Highness," said old Kâsim sturdily, "I would not go. So
+far God in His mercy has kept virtue on the lips of the King, and kept
+wine away from them. But in that God-forsaken city of Herât who knows
+what might happen? They tell me even the women there are castaway, and
+that your uncle the late King's widow drinks like a fish--may God
+reward her!"
+
+"I have never seen a woman drink wine," said Babar quite thoughtfully.
+"Have you?"
+
+Kâsim looked at his young master critically.
+
+"New things are not always good things, sire," he replied drily, "and,
+as was mentioned ere we set out from Kâbul, God only knows what may
+happen there if we delay our return too long. Already have five months
+passed and 'tis a fifty days' march homewards."
+
+"Not if we take the high road," said Babar.
+
+"The high road," echoed the old general; "that may be covered with
+snow any moment now."
+
+"Yet will I chance my luck," returned Babar gaily. "See you, old
+friend, I have my reasons! I must see Herât--in the whole habitable
+world they say there is not such a city; besides ..."
+
+He paused, for his was a truthful soul even to itself; and he knew
+that the past six weeks of jollity and convivial male merry-making had
+considerably dimmed his desire to do his duty and marry. Still he had
+promised himself he would try and seek out his Cousin Gharîb's
+betrothed--for she had never been his wife--and he meant to do it.
+Between whiles of course. For he must make the most of his time in
+Herât. Yes! it would be a pity to miss the chance of his life. To be
+in the most refined of cities which possessed every means of
+heightening pleasure and gaiety; in which all the incentives to, and
+apparatus for, enjoyment were combined into one vast invitation to
+indulgence, and _not_ to indulge, would be foolish. If he did not
+seize the present moment, even to the point of tasting wine, he was
+not likely to have such another.
+
+And, certainly, wine seemed to raise the level of a man's mind. His
+cousins were but dullards out of their cups. And there was no need to
+exceed. To be dead-drunk was no pleasure to anyone.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III
+
+       The Load of Love, nor Earth nor Heav'n can bear,
+       Yet thou, Improvident! wouldst lightly wear
+       The lovers' yoke, give up the flaming sword,
+       Fool! Love only can bear love! Beware! Beware!
+                                            _Ebd-ul-Homîd_.
+
+
+Herât was entered. It was his!
+
+Babar, his eyes wide with curiosity and appreciation had ridden
+through what were to him interminable streets. He had seen towers and
+pleasure houses and palaces rising on all sides, had noted the crowds
+which surged out from every side alley to see one who was already
+renowned in the songs of half Central Asia, as the embodiment of
+youthful valour. And all had been simply inconceivable in its beauty,
+its size.
+
+Yusuf-Ali who had been appointed his guide, rode at his right hand,
+and supplied him with endless information. Close on a million of
+people in the town and suburbs. Over a hundred and seventy thousand
+occupied houses. Nigh on four hundred public schools.
+
+Shops! Why there must be at least fifteen thousand of them!
+
+The statistics went in at one ear and out at another. It was the sheer
+beauty of the place which held Babar's mind. The wide valley, the
+surrounding hills just touched with snow. The white buildings
+following the blue curves of the river. The marble colonnades
+terracing the slopes, the marble palaces crowning the heights; and,
+dense-packed between high carven houses, the multi-coloured crowd all
+intent on pleasure. Roars of laughter rising from it at every passing
+jest, a chorus of "Victory, young champion!" following him as he rode
+along.
+
+By God and his prophet! Life was a splendid thing to live!
+
+Had he had Prince Fortunatus' purse in his pocket he would have flung
+gold pieces along every inch of the way.
+
+Even in the mausoleum of his lately deceased uncle, where, in
+accordance with etiquette he had, before even taking up his quarters
+in the palace assigned to him, to pay his respects to the female
+members of his uncle's family, his ceremonial condolences were
+somewhat marred by the _joie de vivre_ which simply exhaled from
+him. Yet he was none the less sympathetically impressed by the dim
+Dome-of-Kings all lit up darkly by swinging lamps, by tall funereal
+tapers throwing flickering shadows on the purple-crimson pall fringed
+with gold that covered the catafalque.
+
+Dim blue clouds of incense filled the air; their scent mixed with the
+perfume-sodden rustle of the silks and satins beneath the circle of
+ivory-tinted mourning veils that enshrouded the crouching figures of
+the female mourners. The low guttural chant of canons appointed to
+sing prayers for the repose of the dead, rose monotonously, a fitting
+background to the little conventional sobs and cries, as each lady in
+turn stood up to embrace the newly arrived member of the family.
+
+There were so many aunts to embrace; but Babar went through them
+decorously; with a little real emotion when he hugged Aunt Fair, and
+some rather obvious impatience when fat, silly, Astonishing
+Beauty--who loved young men--hugged him.
+
+They did not, however, keep up the "_marsiah_" for long; the
+ladies--who after the expiry of five months had got over the first
+flush of grief--being anxious to have their handsome relative's budget
+of news.
+
+So they all repaired to Khadîjah-Begum's house and had a repast. It
+was very refined and--rather to Babar's disappointment, for he was
+curious to see a woman drink wine--strictly teetotal; doubtless
+because Payandâ-Begum, the late King's chief wife and--as his father's
+sister--Babar's real aunt, was present. And she was naturally of the
+highest circle of distinction and of the most correct behaviour.
+
+Khadîjah-Begum on the other hand, whom Babar now saw for the first
+time, showed her low birth despite the fact that as favourite wife she
+had managed the court for years. Even the knowledge that she was
+Cousin Gharîb's mother could not prevent Babar's putting her down at
+once as a vulgar talkative woman who posed for being a person of
+profound sense.
+
+There was another Begum of the late King's present, however, on whom
+the young observer, seeing her for the first time, passed a very
+different opinion. This was one Lady Apak, a delicate fair woman who
+spent her childless life in nursing other people's children, and who
+Babar felt deserved all the respect and kindness it was in his power
+to give.
+
+He was not sorry however, when, various other visits paid, he
+found himself in the house assigned to him. And sure, no better
+place could have been discovered in the whole habitable world! For it
+was the garden palace which the great Master-of-all-Arts, Messer
+Ali-Shîr--dead this while back, God rest his soul!--had designed and
+built for himself. Babar spent hours wandering through its cool
+corridors, sitting awhile in cunning alcoves whence the enchanting
+view, framed in gilt filigree arch, showed like a picture indeed. He
+sampled the rose-water baths, all mosaicked like a garden with buds,
+and leaves, and blossoms; he sat stroking the soft silk pile of
+carpets, green and set with flowers as thick as Andijân meadows in
+spring. And there was one, deeply darkly verdant and almost covered
+with the softest, fleeciest white furry blobs, on which he could have
+lain down and cried, so keenly did it bring back the mantle of clover
+lambskin into which he had poured the first grief that had come to his
+young life.
+
+He read round the walls of the central marble hall, veined and
+mosaicked with precious stones, the boast that in after years one of
+his descendants was to use in the Court-of-Private-Audience at Delhi.
+
+"If Earth holds a Paradise--it is this, it is this, it is this."
+
+Yes! it was true! Not only in the hall, but in every niche and
+corner--in the ivory carven bedstead, in the crystal goblets inlaid
+with coral, in the curiously beaten metal-work, in the very shading of
+the coloured tiles, here was perfection of Beauty. Even with their
+shoes doffed in respectful Oriental fashion, Babar could hardly endure
+to see servants, whose minds he knew were not attuned to that high
+level, passing backwards and forwards in what he felt to be a Shrine.
+He dismissed them all and sat, pillowed by the softest down, looking
+out from the colonnade which gave on the garden. It, also, must be
+beautiful beyond compare. He would see that to-morrow. To-night it was
+sufficient to revel in the burnished dusk of the orange trees, seen in
+the soft moonlight, to watch the glittering radiance of the fountain
+drops against that background of distant hills--purple--aye!
+positively purple even in this light. Lo! it was beauty concentrated
+almost to pain. Beauty, unearthly, beyond the senses. Something not to
+be seen, or heard, or tasted, or touched, or even felt. Beauty that
+brought an utter abnegation of Self.
+
+"This slave has a letter for the Most High," came a clear sweet
+voice. "It is from his Cousin Gharîb. It was to be given--if occasion
+came--in private, and in person if possible. So I have brought it."
+
+Babar turned quickly. At first to see nothing. Then several paces away
+faintly outlined against one of the square white pilasters he caught
+the silhouette of a white, curiously shadowless figure. A woman's
+figure surely; slim, elegant, despite the enshrouding veil.
+
+He rose swiftly; his heart beating. His dead cousin! Could it be--No!
+Impossible--And yet--
+
+"With deepest reverence--mother," he said almost mechanically, as the
+figure remaining quiescent he stepped forward to take what it held
+out. He could see the hand--a marble hand in the moonlight--beyond the
+line of the pilaster.
+
+A pretty hand too, with fingers pointed and delicate.
+
+"May God reward you," came his mechanical thanks, as instinctively he
+stepped back again.
+
+The figure remained quiescent, silent. In the moonlight he could see
+clearly the sweeping black curves of the writing. The letter was very
+brief.
+
+
+"_Shouldst thou, cousin, ever come to Khorasân, I have counselled her,
+who was my wife in name, to give you this. I make no claim, I express
+no wish save this--I should like her to be happy, for I have loved
+her--and thou also, O Babar. Farewell! May the Crystal Bowl give Love,
+not Tears_."
+
+
+For an instant Babar stood confounded, irresolute: it was so
+unconventional: so almost impossible. Yet it fitted strangely with the
+place; with his vague feeling that had been beyond even Time and
+Space.
+
+
+[Illustration: "'THIS SLAVE HAS A LETTER FOR THE MOST HIGH'"]
+
+
+There was a ruby jewelled lamp swinging from the arch between them. It
+scarce gave light, but it sent a patterned shimmering rose upon the
+white marble floor. A gentle breeze swayed the lamp; the rose
+flickered between them backwards and forwards. His eyes were on it as
+he stood holding the letter, the moonlight catching at the signet ring
+he wore, dallying with the gold embroidery of his light silken coat.
+
+"Is it possible," he said at last, fluttering a bit like a girl, "that
+she who stands before me--"
+
+"Yea, I am she," came the composed reply.
+
+It settled the young man by bringing conviction of his own confusion.
+
+"But how--" he began, a certain blame in his surprise; and once again
+the answer was ready, grave, sufficient.
+
+"My lord's slave comes every Friday after the custom of her
+family--she is of the blood of the divine Jâmi as doubtless my lord
+knows--to place flowers on the tomb of the now sainted Messer
+Ali-Shîr--may his ashes rest in peace--who is interred by his own wish
+in this garden, and who was her distant relative. But in life he was
+ever kind to this dust-like one, teaching her, and allowing her to be
+his disciple. So her litter comes hither often. It awaits her return
+yonder at the grave. Thus the letter was easy to deliver in person,
+and it is delivered. May God keep the King."
+
+Faintly the figure moved as if to go; but Babar stepped a step
+forward. His head was in a whirl, his heart curiously steady.
+
+"And has the cupola of chastity no word to say of herself?" he asked.
+
+"What word is there to say, my lord?" came the quick reply. "I have
+performed my duty. The rest lies with my lord."
+
+There was just a suspicion of raillery in the voice which spurred
+Babar to hardihood.
+
+"Then I would fain know if--if she who thus deigns to honour me is
+satisfied with--with what she sees?"
+
+"But yea! my lord, quite satisfied! And this is not the first time she
+has seen my lord. She was at the window when he made his entry to the
+town."
+
+"Then the lady has doubly the advantage," said Babar with an
+irrepressible laugh. "Yet will I not ask her to make us equal and
+unveil. That were not meet at such a time and place."
+
+There was just that faint suspicion of conscious virtue about the
+remark, but it was met promptly, coolly.
+
+"Nor is there need. My lord would not be frightened at what he saw, as
+I, poor foolish child, was frightened. But I lived to be wiser. I
+lived to know that deformity of body is as naught before deformity of
+mind. But my lord has neither. Nor has this dust-like one. She is
+counted beautiful, and though she catalogues not her own charms, she
+hath two eyes, somewhat large, that look straight, a passable nose,
+thirty-two sound teeth, even and white, and a mouth that can say kind
+things harshly, and--an' it please my lord--harsh things kindly. Shall
+the recital proceed further, my lord?"
+
+"By God and the prophets no!" cried Babar catching fire at last.
+"There is but one more thing between us. Lady, wilt thou take me for
+husband?"
+
+"Of a surety; therefore came I here." So far the reply was as ever,
+cool, collected, without shadow of emotion; now the sweet, polished
+voice broke faintly. "There is but one matter of which I would remind
+my lord. I am older than he by three years. And I am not quite like
+other women. Messer Ali-Shîr taught me much. If my lord would rather
+someone else--"
+
+The rose light on the pavement flickered between them backwards and
+forwards.
+
+"Lady," said Babar, and involuntarily he drew himself up to his full
+height, "in my childhood they married me to one for whom I cared
+little. She left me, saying truly, I did not love her. Awhile back my
+mother--God rest her soul for she was very dear to me--married me to
+yet another wife whom, mercifully, God took; since we were as cat and
+dog. But I have never loved a woman. I do not now; perhaps I never
+shall. 'Tis well to be prepared."
+
+Was it a faint sigh, or only another breath of wind that set the
+swinging lamp swaying.
+
+"I am prepared. And God may send the father's love to the mother of
+his son."
+
+There was silence. The splash of the glistening fountain made itself
+heard faintly; the soft coo of a dove in the orange trees seemed a
+lullaby to the whole wide world.
+
+"Lady," said Babar when he spoke at last, "I have sworn to myself that
+none should know of my marriage till it was accomplished. Till I could
+place my wife before them and say 'See her whom I have chosen.' I stay
+but a week or two in Herât. My kingdom calls me back. Is it possible
+that ere I go the formulas may be said privately, so that when good
+fortune enables me to send to Herât it may be for my wedded wife that
+I send?"
+
+There was a pause Then the cool, quiet voice replied, "Wherefore not,
+my lord? I have said I am ready."
+
+"But when?" Babar spoke anxiously, almost appealingly. He felt himself
+as wax in a woman's hand--a woman he had never seen.
+
+"Next Friday, my lord, when I come again to lay the flowers at the
+shrine. If my lord makes preparation, and if he changeth not his mind,
+his servant will be there."
+
+"Unless she also changeth her mind," interrupted Babar with forced
+lightness.
+
+"That might be," came the answer. "Yet is it not so likely as the
+other. The caged bird does not choose its song. And now farewell. God
+have you in his keeping."
+
+The figure stooped to gather its flowing robes together, and something
+in the supple elegance of the movement sent Babar's blood to his heart
+and head.
+
+"Not so, my moon," he cried, every atom of him vibrant with emotion.
+"Not so do we part." And with two swinging strides he was across the
+flickering rose light on the marble floor, took the hand held out to
+him unflinchingly, and stooped to kiss it.
+
+"Wife and mother, guardian and friend, so shalt thou be to me, so help
+me God."
+
+The next instant he was alone staring into the night, wondering if he
+had fallen asleep and dreamt it all.
+
+No! It was a reality. His signet ring was gone. He must have put it on
+that firm delicate hand, the memory of whose touch thrilled him
+through and through.
+
+And he had called her his moon. Yet his heart was beating tranquilly.
+
+When he lay down on the carven bed he did not toss and turn. He did
+not even feel inclined to indite a sonnet to his mistress's eyebrow or
+compare her to anything in heaven above or the earth beneath.
+
+He was simply content, and fell into a dreamless sleep. It was not
+till the next morning that he recollected that he did not know the
+lady's name, nor where she lived.
+
+Not that either ignorance mattered. He would find out next Friday.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV
+
+       Noisy the Tavern where Life's wine has sped
+       From variant cup to fuddle variant Head;
+       Love peeps through crannied Door; each Drinker straight
+       Flings cup aside to follow Her instead.
+                                                 _Ebd-ul-Hamîd_.
+
+
+There was not much time for thought in Herât. Early in the morning
+Babar was astir to ride out with Yusuf to some of the sights, and find
+the first collation of the day spread in some suitable place.
+
+Then on his return there was the State visit to the Court, where with
+pomp and circumstance he took his place as King of Kâbul.
+
+After that, each day had its entertainment at some new palace of
+delight, and sometimes after dinner had been served, the party would
+be carried off by one of the guests to a further and more intimate
+circle of amusement.
+
+Once this was done by no less a person than Khadîjah-Begum herself.
+She took a few of the young princes to the King's Pleasure House, a
+delightful little edifice of two storeys high which stood in the midst
+of a still more delightful garden. The upper storey was simply
+perfect! Four little apartments at the four corners, each with a wide
+balcony, and between them and enclosed by them, one large central
+arched Hall. Every portion of this upper storey was covered with
+frescoes representing the battles of Babar's grandfather Sultan
+Abusa'id.
+
+And it was all so charmingly arranged. Carpets and hangings
+everywhere; especially in the balcony where the party assembled and
+where Babar as the guest of the evening was placed above his hosts.
+These little attentions always flattered Babar and he never failed to
+notice them. So the entertainment began with a cup of welcome which
+was charged and drunk by the host in chief. Then the cupbearers began
+to fill up the cup of the others with pure wine which everyone,
+including Khadîjah-Begum, quaffed as if it had been the water of life!
+Only the tall good-looking young King refused, even when, the party
+waxing warm, and the spirit mounting to their heads, they took a fancy
+to make the young abstainer drink also.
+
+The night was fine, the moonlight streamed in upon fruit and flowers.
+Jelâl the flute player fluted to perfection, and Bechâb on the harp
+might have wiled doves from their nests. Then Hâfiz sang well in the
+Herâti style, low, delicate, equable. Everything tempted to pleasure
+and Babar sat with a half-frown on his kindly face watching the others
+get lordily drunk.
+
+Then mercifully a false note was struck by one of his own following.
+Jahângir Mirza, who was far gone, insisted that his favourite singer
+of Samarkand should delight the company. And the man sang (as he
+always did) in a loud harsh voice and out of tune; altogether a
+dreadful, disagreeable performance. So disagreeable that the Khorasân
+Princes, though far too polite to stop it out of respect to Babar, had
+to yawn and furtively protect their ears. This, and the reflection
+that if he was to yield and taste wine it would be more courteous to
+do so when he was the guest of the eldest of the Princes, and not of
+the younger, decided him not to give way; at that party at any rate.
+
+But he was no wet blanket; for after a time, having had enough of the
+Pleasure-House, they repaired to the new Winter-Palace, where Yusuf,
+being by this time extremely drunk, rose and, for a marvel, danced
+remarkably well; possibly because he was a musical man. Here they all
+got very merry and friendly. Babar was presented more or less
+ceremoniously with a corselet, a sword, a belt, and a whitish Tipchak
+horse, and someone sang a Turkhi song well. On the other hand while
+the party was hot with wine two slaves again performed indecent scurvy
+tricks. But this time Babar did not leave. He remained to the bitter
+end when the party broke up at such an untimely hour that Babar
+thought it best to stay where he was; the others doubtless, being too
+drunk to move.
+
+Perhaps it was this experience, coming in such close contrast to the
+marvellous peace of that moonlight night when, as if in a dream, he
+had handfasted a nameless woman, that made Babar listen to old Kâsim's
+horror-struck remonstrances concerning his young master's failing
+adherence to orthodoxy in the matter of wine.
+
+The rigid old Mahomedan was fairly scandalised, and made such a fuss
+that the Khorasân Prime-Minister intervened, and took _his_ young
+masters to task so severely that they wholly laid aside any idea of
+urging their cousin further to drink.
+
+Rather perhaps to that cousin's private regret. It seemed a thousand
+pities to leave Herât without having tasted all Life's pleasures; all,
+that is, that were not indecent or scurvy. And a man could be drunk
+and yet remain a gentleman.
+
+Still, when the elder prince did give the promised party, at which
+Babar had promised himself he would for once drink wine, he still
+refrained, though he fretted because his nobles thought it necessary
+only to drink by stealth, hiding their goblets and taking draughts in
+great dread. It was so foolish; when they knew he was never one to
+object to the following of common usage, if so be the follower could
+reconcile it to his own conscience.
+
+He was altogether a trifle hoity-toity at this supper party; for a
+whole goose, after Herâti fashion, being set down before him, he did
+not touch it; and, on his host's asking if he did not like it, said
+frankly, that being accustomed to the unrefined habit of having his
+food served in gobbets, he did not know how to carve it.
+
+Whereupon his host obligingly sent for the goose, cut it up, and
+placed it himself before his guest. Badia-zamân was, of course,
+unequalled in such attentions, and life was very delightful; yet still
+Babar's thoughts began to turn to the next Friday, and after that to
+Kâbul. His future life seemed more settled than it had ever been
+before.
+
+But Fate had a surprise in store for him, as he found out one
+afternoon, when, after his usual kindly custom, he had gone to pay a
+duty visit to his paternal aunts. Running down the narrow stairs which
+led to Payandâ-Begum's upper storey, he came full tilt on two veiled
+women coming up. The stair was but shoulder wide; no room to pass,
+even had the first figure not been so appallingly stout. Impossible to
+pass, rude to turn one's back on those who were evidently of the
+circle of distinction--
+
+Nor could he, King of Kâbul, retreat step by step like a lackey. He
+stood for a second gracious, debonnair; then with a merry "Your
+pardon, mother," wedged his arms tight between those narrow walls, so
+swung himself back. And there, in two such bounds, he was up the six
+steps and at the top of the stair.
+
+"Have a care, nephew," shrieked a fat, familiar voice from the first
+bundle. "Thou wilt fall and crush thy Yenkâm!"
+
+"My bridesmaid!" cried Babar joyously, repeating the pet nickname.
+"Say not so! When didst thou come?" And he was down the stairs again
+to embrace a favourite aunt he had not seen for years, and help her
+mount the remaining steps.
+
+So, still panting, the elderly matron unwound her veil and stood
+revealed; fat indeed.
+
+"Lo! Yenkâm," said Babar, his eyes twinkling. "Had I fallen, I should
+have fallen--soft."
+
+"Fie on thee, scapegrace! God send thee not a skinny old age,"
+retorted Habee-ba-Begum good humouredly. "But what of thy cousin
+Ma'asuma here? Ma'asuma that is like the fairy princess, weighing but
+five flowers--have a care of thy veil, child!"
+
+The tiny little figure, slim and graceful, which now stood beside the
+fat one, apparently made a court salutation beneath her thick veil,
+and a bird-like voice said, with a laugh in every tone, "My cousin
+Babar, never having seen my smallness, Mother, cannot gauge it."
+
+The young King returned the salute in his best manner. "If the
+gracious lady would allow me to judge," he began, when his Yenkâm cut
+short his hardihood.
+
+"Fie! no nonsense, children! Ma'asuma! Follow me. Thou must be
+presented at once to thy eldest aunt. I shall see thee, scapegrace!
+doubtless, later on."
+
+So, with a nod to Babar, bundled propriety moved off down the
+corridor.
+
+Was it chance?--Was it really a trip over a tiresome veil...?
+
+Anyhow Habee-ba-Begum had rounded a corner, and those two young things
+stood staring at each other as if they had never seen anything in the
+wide world before.
+
+It was a real case of love at first sight.
+
+As for him, he did not even realise what she was like. He only knew
+that she was beautiful exceedingly. And she knew he was a Prince
+indeed.
+
+The mirth in their eyes died down. Then hers grew startled, his caught
+fire. So they stood; till suddenly hers flamed back into his, and with
+a low cry she huddled her draperies round her, turned, and fled after
+her mother.
+
+Babar stood still as a stone. What had happened to him? He felt
+confused, lost, yet utterly, entirely, absurdly happy.
+
+After a time he walked soberly downstairs feeling vaguely that the
+world was a new world, and that he must go and find himself.
+
+Once in the street he went on walking blindly, on and on, till he
+found himself in desert places outside the town. Then, aimlessly, he
+turned back and walked as he had come, wandering through the city as
+though in search of mansions and gardens.
+
+Yet all the while he felt as if he could neither sit nor go, neither
+stand nor walk.
+
+He was literally obsessed by a passion, pure in its very intensity; a
+passion which at one and the same time made him long to be with its
+object, yet covered him with shame and confusion at the mere thought
+of her beauty.
+
+He returned after long hours to Ali-Shîr's palace, worn out in body,
+but yet more restless in mind. He had decided that this must be
+love--love at long last. In that case he must write verses, and began
+to catalogue the beauty of the face he had seen.
+
+He remembered, now, that they were unusual; for little Cousin Ma'asuma
+had the rare distinction of fairish hair and blue eyes. A little
+flowerful face, merry, sparkling; rebellious curling hair flecked with
+red gold--a tint of rose and creamy _champak_--
+
+All this he remembered dreamily as he laboured to fit together the
+fine mosaic of a Persian love ode.
+
+
+      "Impassioned loved one! fairest of the fair,
+       The waving tendrils of thy bronze gold hair
+       Spread round thy face each one a separate snare;
+       Thine eyes are vi'lets, centred by black bees
+       Who seek to drain their sweetness to the lees;
+       Thine eyebrows arch--"
+
+
+He got so far as this, then threw away his pen in disgust.
+
+Anyone could write that sort of stuff. He had read pages of it in
+books: had sung such rhymes by the score. But that sort of thing had
+nothing to do with his great love for Ma'asuma and hers for him.
+
+For she had loved him, of course. The reverse was incredible, absurd.
+
+He turned round and buried his face in the downy cushions that had, as
+usual, been spread for him in his favourite corner of the colonnade.
+
+He had had no dinner. He did not want any. He had refused his cousin's
+invitations with some excuse. He forgot what--it did not matter.
+Nothing in the wide world mattered but his love for Ma'asuma and hers
+for him.
+
+The moon was still bright. Not quite so bright as it had been that
+night, five days ago, when he had promised to marry someone else.
+
+Babar sat up, leant his head on his hand and began to consider how
+matters stood. Oriental in mind, marriage was to him by no means
+synonymous with love. He could legitimately have four wives at a time.
+If he liked. But honestly he felt he would rather not. Still--as
+nothing possibly could prevent his making Ma'asuma his wife--if the
+other nameless lady wanted to be his wife also, he would acquiesce. He
+would not go back from his promise. Only--what a pity he had called
+her his "Moon"! That name belonged to his love by right.
+
+So, as he sat dreaming, a voice said with the nasal twang of the
+common folk--
+
+"A letter for the Presence."
+
+The coincidence of time and place startled him. He looked up
+half-expectant of that tall, slim, female figure. But this was a lad
+in the uniform of the Palace servants. A message mayhap from one of
+the Begums. He took it carelessly from an awkward brown hand and
+opened its seal.
+
+A scent of fresh violets came to him as he did so.
+
+And the letter?
+
+It was written in the finest Babari hand--the hand he had
+invented!--with a delicacy, an accuracy at which even the inventor of
+it marvelled, and it contained but a quatrain; but such a quatrain!
+Babar's scholastic appreciation of the form forced its way through his
+emotional delight at the words. Ali-Shîr himself could not have
+written anything neater, more absolutely correct in prosody. And in
+such difficult metre too, with its enlay of rhymes.
+
+
+      "My heart has part in this thy smart.
+       Dear heart! have part in this my smart!
+       Our sighs do rise twin to the skies;
+       Thy heart, my heart, are not apart."
+
+
+And it was signed:
+
+
+      "Thy true friend Ma'asuma."
+
+
+Yea! That was worth writing! That told the tale. Babar sprang to his
+feet. The whole world seemed filled with radiance. He and Ma'asuma
+were the only people in it.
+
+But what should he answer? What should he write? Nothing but the
+truth--God's truth.
+
+"I love thee. I love thee, Ma'asuma. I love thee."
+
+In his haste, his brimming emotion, the words fell from his lips, as
+seizing pen and paper he set them down and signed them.
+
+"Is that the answer?" asked the waiting lad as Babar held out the
+missive impatiently. "Am I to take that to my mistress?" A faint
+hesitancy over the latter words made the young man look at the boy--a
+dull, rather sullen face, but not ill-looking.
+
+"Yes!" he replied joyously. "Take it to thy mistress. It is my answer,
+now and always!"
+
+The lad _salaamed_ and went, leaving Babar in a heaven of perfect
+content.
+
+Two days later, on Friday evening, however, he was waiting to fulfil
+his promise in Ali-Shîr's tomb. Absolutely Oriental as his outlook
+was, so far as marriage was concerned, he yet wondered, vaguely, if he
+were fool or knave in acting as he did. For the path of true love,
+never very rough when Kings are concerned, had been made very smooth,
+indeed, for the two young people. Babar had sent his Akâm to see his
+Yenkâm and the whole affair had been settled in five minutes with
+enthusiasm. Even the preliminaries had been arranged. It being nigh
+December, Babar should return to Kâbul and make preparations there,
+while Yenkâm would complete hers at Herât, and with the first blink of
+returning spring, the marriage should take place at some intermediate
+place. Meanwhile the young people, after Chagatâi fashion, had been
+allowed to see each other and were in the seventh heaven of delight.
+The betrothals were to be made public in a few days; though already
+Babar's conduct was suspicious. For he refrained from his cousin's
+convivial parties and mooned about in the gardens composing "Sonnets
+of the Heart," as he was pleased to call them, in his native Turkhi
+which gave him much more freedom than the severely technical Persian
+odes.
+
+These he sent as written to his dearest dear, and they invariably
+brought back the most beautiful replies, more correct, if not
+quite as genuine in feeling, as his own effusions. He felt he was,
+indeed, in luck to find so peerless a maid, perfect in beauty and in
+intelligence. One of these compositions--the last--lay in his
+waist-wallet, as he waited in Ali-Shîr's tomb. The moon had not yet
+risen, and all was dark. Yet he got up once or twice from the parapet
+rail on which he sat, and paced aimlessly up and down.
+
+In truth he was restless; vaguely dissatisfied with himself. He was
+going to explain, of course--oh, yes! he would explain; but it might
+have been better to write. Yet how could he, knowing neither her name
+nor where she lived? He could have found out of course; but that might
+have been to put his paternal aunts on the scent. They were dear
+creatures, but dreadful scandalmongers. Besides he had so much to say.
+A personal explanation would be easier; less abrupt, kinder. Not that
+he meant to back out--far from it. He was ready to be a good, just,
+generous husband; unless of course, the nameless one preferred not to
+take second place, as she must do. There was no helping that. It was
+not his fault. Love had come ...
+
+He paced quicker as he remembered the words which had so touched
+him-- "And God the Father may send a father's love to the mother of
+his son." Well! God send He might; though that would be a different
+sort of love altogether from this absorbing passion. Anyhow he could
+do no more. A Kâzi, able if necessary to perform the marriage
+ceremony, was within call. He, himself, was ready. All that was
+wanting was the lady. Surely she was late in coming.
+
+A rustle made him start and listen; but it was only the doves in the
+orange trees.
+
+No one! No one!
+
+The moon rose after a time over the garden and flooded the terraces
+with such silvern brilliance that the very pebbles on the path showed
+distinct.
+
+But no one came--no one!
+
+Could she have heard?
+
+Impossible; it was still a Court secret, and she was a religious
+recluse--so far as he knew.
+
+Besides; even if she had changed her mind, she might have come--or
+sent a message.
+
+So, at last, in rather an ill humour he went back to the Palace and
+dismissed the waiting Kâzi with a handsome fee.
+
+There was one more Friday ere he left Herât; and, feeling ill-used,
+sore, yet in a way mightily relieved, he waited in Ali-Shîr's tomb for
+another hour or so. No one should say _he_ had failed in his part of
+the bargain! He was quite ready. Besides he had told the woman plainly
+that he was not in love with her; so she had no right to feel
+aggrieved. If she did.
+
+But that could scarcely be. Every good Mussulmân knew she had no claim
+to a whole man--though little Ma'asuma had every bit of him. Yea!
+every bit. So it was as well, doubtless, that no one came.
+
+And as he went back to the palace his only regret was that he should
+have called the nameless one "My moon."
+
+The title belonged to his love, of right; but she would, she could
+never bear it because of the nameless one who had changed her
+mind--apparently; but she had not sent back his ring!
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V
+
+       Forward and onward! do not ask the task,
+       Fortune importune! Is not strife true life?
+
+
+Kâsim-beg was in a fever to leave Herât. Marriage, he said, was good,
+and it was proper to choose a cousin, who was doubtless charming;
+though for his part he believed the rather in choice by outsiders; for
+if the result was not happy there was no self blame, and self blame
+was the devil for destroying decent calm. But Kingship was more
+important still, and as the Most High had not been so very secure on
+his new throne before he had started, he simply could not afford to be
+away more than six months.
+
+And Babar could not but admit his faithful old minister was right. So
+he said farewell reluctantly to little Ma'asuma and started at the
+head of his small army for Kâbul. And as he rode up the last slope
+whence he could see the gilded city of Herât, he told himself he could
+not have done it better. He had seen everything--he ran over the list
+of the sights in his mind, and found eighty-two of them! In fact the
+only one worthy of notice which he had omitted was a certain convent.
+He flushed a little at the remembrance, and set the thought aside with
+self-complacence that he had come through the temptations of the most
+luxurious town in the world quite unscathed. He had not played any
+indecent or scurvy tricks, he had not touched wine. He had altogether
+been quite a virtuous prince. So, with characteristic buoyancy,
+despite the fact that he had said good-bye to his first and only love,
+he settled himself in the saddle, and his face for home.
+
+Here difficulties arose at once. It began to snow the very day they
+left Herât, and Babar was for taking the low road for safety's sake.
+It was the longer of course, but the hill road was at all times
+difficult and dangerous; in snow practically impassable.
+
+But Kâsim-Beg, who had been in a fuss for days, behaved very
+perversely, so that in the end Babar gave way and they started for the
+passes, taking one Binâi, an old mountaineer, as their guide. Now
+whether it was from old age, or from his heart failing him at the
+unusual depth of the drifts, is uncertain; but this is sure--having
+once lost the path he never could find it again so as to point out the
+way!
+
+However, as Kâsim-Beg and his sons were anxious to preserve their
+reputation as route-choosers, they dismounted, beat down the snow and
+discovered something like a road along which the party--much reduced
+by defections due to the delights of Herât--managed to advance for a
+day, when it was brought to a complete stand by the depth of the snow,
+which was such that the horses' feet did not touch the ground. Seeing
+no other remedy, Babar ordered a retreat to a ravine where there was
+abundance of firewood, and thence despatched sixty or seventy chosen
+men, to return by the road they had come, and, retracing their
+footsteps, to find on the lower ground any Huzâras or other people who
+might be wintering there, and to bring a guide who was able to point
+out the way. This done they halted in the ravine for three or four
+days awaiting the return of the men who had been sent out. These did,
+indeed, come back, but without having been able to find a guide.
+
+What was to be done? Nothing but place reliance on God and push
+forward. So said Babar, a light in his clear eyes as he recognised
+that he was in a tight place, that before him and his lay such
+hardships and sufferings as even he had scarcely undergone at any
+other period of his life. But then at no other period of his life had
+Love been waiting, her rosy wings fluttering, for him to win through.
+
+"Warm yourselves to the marrow this night," he said to all. "Eat your
+fill and carry firewood in place of the victuals. We shall need every
+atom of strength we can save and spend."
+
+But he himself spent a wakeful night and wrote a Turkhi verse to
+console himself. It ran thus and was rather poor; though nothing else
+was to be expected under such circumstances:
+
+
+      "Fate from my very birth has marked me down,
+       There is no injury I have not known,
+       Not one! So what care I what fortune bring?
+       No harm unknown can come to me, the King."
+
+
+They were up betimes, a long straggling party doing their best to
+struggle on by beating down the snow and so forming a road along which
+the laden mules could go. It was luckily a fine day and by evening
+they could count on an advance of three miles. What was more, as no
+snow had fallen, they were able to send back along the beaten track
+for more firewood. So it went on for two or three days. Then the men
+began to be discouraged, and Babar set his teeth. With Love awaiting
+him at the other side, he meant to get over the Pass.
+
+He only had about fifteen volunteers from his immediate staff, but
+those fifteen, headed by vitality incarnate, worked wonders. Every
+step taken was up to the middle or the breast in soft, fresh-fallen
+snow; but still it was a step, and he who followed did not sink so
+far. Thus they laboured. As the vigour of the person who went first
+was generally expended after he had gone a few paces, another advanced
+and took his place.
+
+"Lo! gentlemen, 'tis as good as leap-frog," cried the young leader
+joyously, and thereinafter they strove for steps. And as ever Babar
+came out first. "See you," he said gravely, in explanation of his own
+prowess, "'tis I brought you hither; and if we do not beat hard we
+shall be beaten."
+
+At which mild joke Kâsim laughed profusely, though he felt as if he
+could have killed himself for having thus jeopardised his young hero's
+life.
+
+The fifteen or so who worked in trampling down the snow, next
+succeeded in dragging on a riderless horse. This generally sank to the
+stirrups and after ten or fifteen paces was worn out. The next fared
+better and the next, and the next. And after all the led horses had
+thus been brought forward, came a sorry sight. The rest of the troops,
+even the best men and many who bore the title of "Noble" advancing
+(not even dismounted!) along the road that had been beaten down for
+them by their King! Some of them, certainly, had the grace to hang
+their heads. But this was no time, Babar felt, for reproach or even
+for authority. Every man who possessed spirit or emulation must have
+hastened to the front without orders; and those without spirits were
+worse than useless at such a time.
+
+"We must do without them, Kâsim," said the young King, when his
+minister would have spoken his mind. "'Twill not mend matters with
+cowards to tell them they be such. Could any tongue circle the lie I
+would praise them for their bravery, but with Death staring us in the
+face I stick to Truth."
+
+And to work also. The life and soul of the fifteen, he kept them going
+by jokes and quips and the singing of songs. Aye! even when storm and
+snow came with blinding force and they all expected to meet death
+together. Then it was that, ahead of all, Babar's full mellow voice
+rang out in such ballads as:
+
+
+                        THE HAND OF THE THIEF
+
+       The bog was black outside Kazân,
+       now it is red!
+       Last night there came a rich car-wân,
+       Blood has been shed!
+
+       Now Adham-Khân was over-lord,
+       Judging the right
+       Of quarr'l betwixt the Black-Sheep-Horde
+       And they of the White.
+
+      "Oh! Adham-Khân avenge the wrong,
+       Thou art the head."
+      "My hand holds fast the skirt that's long,"
+       Smiling he said.
+
+       Then rose in wrath young Zulfikâr,
+       Girt on his sword.
+      "Now show I him in full durbâr
+       Right is the Lord."
+
+       He saddled steed and rode away
+       Over the sand,
+       His hauberk rattling roundelay,
+       God at his hand.
+
+       And Adham-Khân, he sat in state
+       Holding his court.
+      "Now who is he who comes so late
+       What has he brought?"
+
+      "I bring a gift from the Black-Horde-chief,
+       Thy honour's friend,
+       And lay the hand of a common thief
+       On thy skirt's end."
+
+       The stiff dead hand skimmed through the air,
+       Lay like a stone.
+       Of all the court not one did dare
+       Right to disown.
+
+      "Oh! warrior hear! Against the right
+       Keep thou from strife;
+       But if the wrong is _done_ then fight
+       Fight for thy life."
+
+
+They were, in truth, fighting for dear life. And there was a chance of
+it ahead of them; for, nigh the top of the great Zerrin pass, lay a
+cave wherein shelter might be found. At least so said Binâi the guide.
+But the snow fell in such quantities, the wind was so dreadful, so
+terribly violent, it needed all Babar's courage not to give in.
+
+But the rosy fluttering wings of Love would not let him yield. He
+could not lose little cousin Ma'asuma. The very thought of her warmed
+him; the scent of her hair came to him with the snow.
+
+The drifts deepened, the possibility of path narrowed in the steep
+defile, the days were at the shortest, with difficulty could the
+horses be kept on the trampled road, yet all around was certain death
+in unfathomed snow-depths.
+
+Babar's face was stern. He was nigh his end, and he knew it.
+
+And then, suddenly, a shout from keen-eyed Tengâri, old Kâsim's son.
+"The cave! The cave! Yonder is the cave."
+
+And it was; but to all appearance disappointingly small. Not large
+enough to hold one-half of those seeking shelter, though the
+surrounding cliffs in some measure tempered the bitter fierceness of
+the wind.
+
+"The Most High had better go in," said Kâsim, as Babar set to work
+arranging what best he could for his troopers. "I will see to the
+men."
+
+But Babar shook his head and went on. He felt that for him to be in
+warmth and comfort while his men were in snow and drift, for him to be
+enjoying sleep and ease while his followers were in trouble and
+distress would be inconsistent from what he owed them and a deviation
+from that society in suffering that was their due.
+
+"'Death in the company of friends is a feast.' At any rate, so runs
+the proverb," he remarked lightly. "And indeed, Kâsim, having brought
+these poor souls to this pass, it is but right that whatever their
+sufferings and difficulties, whatever they may have to undergo, I
+should be equal sharer in all."
+
+So when he had done what he could and shown others what to do, he took
+a hoe and dug down in the snow as deep as his breast without reaching
+the ground, then crouched down in it. The day was darkening, evening
+prayer time had passed, and still belated troopers came dropping in.
+The snow was now falling so fast that the men in the dug-out shelter
+ran some chance of being smothered as they slept from sheer fatigue.
+Babar himself found four inches of snow above him as he scrambled out
+of his hole when a last party straggled in, bringing Binâi the guide,
+with the welcome news that the cave was far larger than hasty
+observation would expect, and that a narrow passage led to quite a
+spacious cavern within where there was ample room for all.
+
+Joyful news indeed! Sending out to call in all his men, Babar soon
+found himself, by one of his own extraordinary changes of luck, in a
+wonderfully warm, safe, and comfortable place. For there proved to be
+firewood within the cave, and such as had any eatables, stewed meat,
+preserved flesh, or anything else they might have, produced them for a
+common meal. Thus all escaped, as by a miracle, from the terrible
+cold, the snow, the bitter, bitter wind.
+
+And the rosy wings of Love fluttered gaily, as Babar laid himself down
+to sleep--the first sleep he had had for days.
+
+It was the turning point; though there was still distress and misery
+to come.
+
+The snow, however, had ceased to fall by the morning, the wind had
+died down. Moving with the first blink of dawn they still had to tread
+down the snow in the old way: but it was with more hope. The cave in
+which they had rested was, as they were aware, close to the beginning
+of the last steep ascent to the Great Pass. This, the shortest way,
+they knew to be impassable, and even Kâsim and his sons, warned by
+experience, did not advise its attempt. Bad enough was a lower valley
+road of which old Binâi the guide had vaguely heard. Yet it was their
+only chance, so they took it. But evening found them still in the
+defile; and such was its precipitate nature, that there was nothing
+for it but for every man to halt where he found himself, dismount,
+scrape a hole in the snow for himself and his horse if possible, and
+so await the tardy dawn to bring sufficient light for safe advance. It
+was an awful night. The retreat of the storm had brought frost; icy,
+keen, piercing; and though none of the hardy troopers actually lost
+their lives, many lost hands and feet from frostbite. Babar himself
+kept his blood warm by pacing up and down, singing at the top of his
+voice with that curious instinct of shouting which comes always to
+humanity with the grip of cold. Mayhap it cheered the others to hear
+the mellow melodious chants echoing so blithely over the snow.
+
+He sang many things, but his favourite was the
+
+
+                     SONG OF THE SMILING SHEPHERD
+
+       From Sunset until Dawn-of-Day,
+       My forehead frozen with the Frost,
+       I shut mine eyes like Wolf-at-Bay
+       And sing to find the Sheep I've lost.
+
+       When Angels walk at Break-of-Day
+       Among pale wormwood on the lea,
+       Upon the Night-of-Power, they say,
+       My smiling soul came unto me.
+
+       It had a palace of pure gold
+       In Paradise and yet it chose
+       To leave the Heat-of-Heaven for Cold
+       And help me find the Sheep I love.
+
+       So in the Dark and in the Snow
+       We twain make up one Perfect-Whole
+       And sing glad songs the while we go
+       A Smiling-Shepherd, Smiling-Soul.
+
+
+Dawn came at last and they moved down the glen. It was not the usual
+road,--that was more circuitous--but with the snow filling up the
+valley and obliterating precipices, ravines, crevasses, there seemed a
+chance of being able to manage a shorter route, and time meant so much
+to those exhausted men.
+
+Yet Babar himself halted for awhile, and so did a few of his immediate
+followers when his horse stumbled, fell, could not rise.
+
+"Take mine, my liege," said half-a-dozen voices. But the young man's
+face set.
+
+"I will not leave the beast," he said resolutely. "It hath done me
+good service and may do it again. See you! bring some of the men's
+lances and their halter ropes. Samûr and I live together, or die
+together," and he laid his young cheek to the horse's soft muzzle
+affectionately.
+
+Then starting up, he set the men to work to form a criss-cross raft or
+sledge of lances on to which Samûr was pulled by main force.
+
+"'Tis all down hill now," said he when it was finished, and seizing a
+rope strained at it.
+
+"Nay! Sire!" remarked old Kâsim drily--"If the Most Excellent choose
+to risk lives for the sake of a dumb brute, let them be the lives of
+dumb brutes, not Kings. Troopers! Six horses to save one!"
+
+Babar hung his head, but held to the rope.
+
+"Doubtless I am a brute also," he murmured half to himself, "so let me
+be dumb; save for this--God made me so!"
+
+The staunch old warrior heard the words and shook his head. Yet in his
+heart of hearts he would not have altered one jot or one tittle in his
+idol. Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar was for him the first gentleman in
+the world.
+
+"Truly," said the latter with pious cheerfulness after a time, during
+which the sledge slipped easily down the steep slopes of snow, "it is
+well said
+
+
+      'Looked at wisely with clear eyes
+       Ills are blessings in disguise.'
+
+
+But for this extreme depth of snow which till now hath seemed our
+worst enemy, we should all be tumbling down precipices and being lost
+in crevasses."
+
+This was obvious; but it cheered the party, until in the far distance
+something more tangible showed to bring sudden alacrity to outwearied
+steps.
+
+A hut surely!
+
+And that figure on the lessening snow slopes--was it a man?
+
+Still it was nigh bed-time prayers before they extricated themselves
+from the mouth of the valley and the villagers of Yâka-Aulang came out
+to meet the forlorn party, to help, and even to carry, some of them
+into warm houses, and thereinafter to slaughter fat sheep for them,
+bring a superfluity of hay and grass for their horses, and abundance
+of wood to kindle their fires.
+
+Once again Babar felt that to pass from the cold and snow into such a
+village with its warm houses, and to escape from want and suffering to
+find such plenty of good bread and fat sheep as they did, was an
+enjoyment that can only be conceived by such as have suffered similar
+hardships, or endured such heavy distress.
+
+But better by far to him than this material satisfaction, was the glow
+at his heart when an old white-headed patriarch nodding by the
+fireside, mumbled--
+
+"Never has it been done before, never since the memory of man hath
+Zerrin been passed in such snow. Never hath any man ever conceived
+even the idea of passing it at such season--Never! Never!"
+
+It was something to have done! After this, marching was easy. But the
+strain had told upon the courage of the rank and file, and once when
+the little party came upon a clan of Hazâras who disputed passage in a
+narrow defile, there was near disaster. The young King, who was in the
+rear, galloped up to find his force retreating before a deadly flight
+of arrows.
+
+"Stand!" he shouted. "Stand!" But the men would not be rallied.
+"Fools!" he cried, rising in his stirrups, a fine young figure,
+unarmoured, without sword or lance, without helmet or aught but his
+bow and quiver--for the attack was entirely unforeseen and he had
+been, for the time, off-duty--"Call ye yourselves servants to stand
+still while the master works? Lo! He who hires a servant hires him for
+his need; not to stand still like a slipped camel!"
+
+So with a wild _huroosh!_ he set his horse spurring forward. The
+reckless bravery did its work. The men roused by it turned to follow.
+The ambuscade was reached, the hill beyond climbed after the enemy,
+who, seeing the troopers were in real earnest, fled like deer. So the
+danger passed; but Babar wondered vaguely that night if it was to be
+ever so; if the great mass of humanity ever needed a flaming match ere
+they would catch fire.
+
+But there was more trouble to come, as, with such haste as was
+possible--for the snow which was very heavy that winter, hindered them
+even in the valleys--they pushed on towards Kâbul.
+
+It was one day at noon when, being almost perished with the frost,
+they had alighted to kindle fires and warm themselves ere going on,
+that a messenger on horseback arrived with ill news. The Moghuls left
+behind in Kâbul had risen, and, aided by outsiders and some of the
+immediate relations of the King, had declared for Babar's young cousin
+Weis-Khân, on whose behalf they were now besieging the Fort, which in
+capable and loyal hands was still holding out for the rightful King.
+
+"Said I not so, sire?" remarked old Kâsim drily. "The devil is in it
+when women are left alone too long."
+
+Babar flushed. "The devil is in a Moghul thou meanest."
+
+Kâsim sniffed. "The Most High's step-grandmother Shâh-Begum is of pure
+Moghul descent, I grant, if that is what my liege means. I stake my
+word she is in it. Did I not beg the Most High to send her packing
+back to Tashkend? Aye! and the boy and his mother too. Also the other
+aunt of my liege's who married the commoner Doghlat; wherefore, God
+knows, since some of us had better right to royal wives than he. But
+if 'tis a question of aunts! the Most High is soft as buffalo butter."
+
+Babar bit his lip. He felt that old Kâsim had right on his side; but
+what could one do? They were women, and he was undoubtedly the head of
+the family. But this was serious; the more so because the messenger
+said that reports had been diligently circulated to the effect that
+he, Babar, had been imprisoned in Herât by his cousins; and would
+never return.
+
+"They must know that I shall return," said the young leader grimly,
+and forthwith wrote despatches to be conveyed to known loyalists in
+the town, advising them of his immediate appearance, of which,
+however, they were to say nothing. A blazing fire on the last hill-top
+would herald his approach; this was to be answered by a flare on the
+top of the citadel, showing that it was ready for a combined
+surprise-attack on the besieging force.
+
+With these orders given stringently, Babar set out at nightfall. By
+dawn Kâbul lay before them and a glow of light from the citadel
+answered their signal fire. All therefore was in readiness, so they
+crept on to Syed Kâsim's bridge. Here Babar detailed his force,
+sending Shirim-Taghâi with the right wing to another bridge; he
+himself with the centre and left, making for the town. Here, instantly
+all was uproar and alarm. The alleys were narrow; the assailants and
+defenders crowded into them could scarce move their horses.
+
+"Dismount! cut your way through!" rang out the order and it was
+obeyed. A few minutes later Babar was in the Four-corner Garden where
+he knew the young aspirant was quartered, but he had fled. Babar
+followed in his track. At the gate he met an old friend, the
+Chief-Constable of the town, who made at him with a drawn sword.
+Babar, after his usual fashion, had despised either plate-mail or
+helmet, and when, whether from confusion of ideas arising from the
+battle of fight, or from the snow and cold affecting his eyesight, the
+swordsman failing to recognise his King or heed his cry of "Friend,
+Friend," hit a shrewd blow, Babar was like to have his arm shorn off.
+But the grace of God was conspicuous. Not even a hair was hurt.
+
+So, as quick as he could to the palace of Doghlat-commoner, where he
+found Kâsim already on the track of the traitor; but the latter had
+escaped! Here a Moghul who had been in Babar's service deliberately
+fitted an arrow to his bow, aimed at the King and let go. But the
+uproar raised around him, the cries and shouts "That is the King! That
+is the King!" must have disconcerted his aim, for he failed of his
+mark. And here also one of the chief rebels was brought in
+ignominiously, a rope round his neck. He fell at the young King's
+feet.
+
+"Sire," he whined, "what fault is mine?"
+
+The young face was stern indeed. "Is there greater crime," came the
+clear, cold answer, "than for a man of worth and family as thou art,
+to conspire and associate with revolutionaries?" Then the contemptuous
+order came sharp, "But remove that rope and let him go hang himself.
+He is of my family, no harm shall happen to him through me."
+
+So on again through the town (where the rabble had taken to clubs and
+were making a riot) in order to station parties here and there to
+disperse the crowds and prevent plunder.
+
+Thus, growing cooler, more dignified as stress ceased, to the
+Paradise-Gardens where the Begums lived. No time like the present to
+show his mettle, to let these foolish women know that he did not
+consider their intrigues worth a man's consideration. He found
+the chief-conspirator Shâh-Begum huddled up, out of all measure
+alarmed, confounded, dismayed, ashamed. All the more so when that
+brilliant young figure paused at the door to make its accustomed and
+reverential salutation. He looked well, did Babar, with the fire of
+fight still in his eyes, a certain quizzical affection about his
+mouth. "I salute thee, O revered step-grandmother," he said
+cheerfully, good-humouredly.
+
+So crossing, he went down on his knees in filial fashion and embraced
+the old lady cordially.
+
+Whereupon, of course, she began to whimper. Babar sat back and looked
+at her kindly.
+
+"Wherefore, revered one? Lo! I am not vexed. What right has a child to
+be so because his mother's bounty descends upon another? The mother's
+authority over her children is in all respects absolute, save that
+this grandson, and not the other is King of Kâbul!" Then he laughed:
+"Lo!" he added, "I am so sleepy. I have not slept all night. Let me
+rest my hand on thy bosom, grandmother, as I used to rest it on my
+mother's."
+
+The whimper changed into a storm of sobs.
+
+And afterwards when the young aspirant and the Doghlat-commoner had
+been caught and brought up for condign punishment by Kâsim, he forgave
+them both.
+
+"But the traitor deserves death, sire," stuttered the stern old
+martinet. "He hath been guilty of mutiny, rebellion. He is criminal,
+guilty; and the younger one is devil's spawn."
+
+"You mistake, old friend," said the young King quietly; "they are of
+my family."
+
+Poor old Kâsim had to content himself by assenting loudly in whatever
+company he found himself that however much the King might try to wear
+away the rust of shame with the polish of mildness and humanity he was
+unable to wipe out the dimness of ignominy which had covered the
+mirror of those miscreants' lives.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI
+
+       Yes! Love triumphant came, engrossing all
+       The fond luxuriant thoughts of youth and mind;
+       Then in soft converse did they pass the hours,
+       Their passion like the season fresh and fair.
+                                                 _Nizâmi_.
+
+
+The Judas trees were in full blossom. But a day or two before they had
+been dry branches, brown, wrinkled, to all appearances dead. Now, with
+a swiftness nigh miraculous they had flushed, every inch of finest
+twig, to rosy red under their mantle of sweet-scented bloom. The
+ground underneath them was already carpeted with fallen flowers, their
+five-petalled cups, like those of a regal geranium, still perfect
+utterly.
+
+"'Tis like the blossoming of love in the heart, is it not, little
+one?" said Babar idly, as, lying amid the spent blossoms he raised one
+to perch it coquettishly on the goldy-brown curls that rested on his
+breast.
+
+He had been married five months to little Cousin Ma'asuma but it
+seemed to him like five days. Aye! though happenings stern and sad had
+filled the interval, Kâsim had been right. Herât had been plundered by
+the arch-enemy Shaibâni. His cousins had fled, leaving wives and
+children to fall into the hands of the conquerors.
+
+At another time Babar's hot anger might have led him to attempt
+reprisals, though he knew it would be but an attempt. But in these
+first months of marriage he could not find it in his heart to leave
+little Ma'asuma for any time--if, indeed she would have allowed him to
+do so. For small, young, delicate as she was, those violet eyes of
+hers could set hard as sapphires. Aye! and have a gleam in them too,
+like any gem.
+
+The first time Babar saw it, he caught her in his arms and half
+smothered her with kisses until she bade him peremptorily put her
+down. And then they had both laughed, and Babar had vowed in his
+heart, that never had lover been so fortunate as he. His mistress
+was--what was she not? Briefly, she was all things to him. He had
+never been in love with a woman before, and his self-surrender was
+complete.
+
+Small wonder, indeed, if it were; for there was something almost
+uncanny in the beauty of the face which looked up at him, love in its
+eyes.
+
+"Put it on thine own rough head, man," she said superbly, "thou
+needest ornament more than I."
+
+And it was true. From the tiny silvern and golden slipper she had
+kicked off, to the light, gold-spangled veil which just touched her
+curly head, she was ornament personified. The dainty heart-shaped
+opening of the violet-tinted gauze bodice she wore over a pale green
+corselet was all set with seed-pearls and turquoises, hung on cunning
+little silvern tendrils. And the corselet itself! all veined with
+golden threads and pale moonstones. So with the flimsy, full, almost
+transparent muslin petticoat, pale pale green, that lay in shrouding
+folds over the violet-tinted under garment. All edged and embroidered,
+all scent-sodden with the perfume of violets--his favourite flower
+then; to be his favourite flower till his death. Truly a marvellous
+small person from head to foot!
+
+"Have a care, man," she said sternly, as he crushed her closer to him,
+"or we shall quarrel; and 'tis not good for me to quarrel--now."
+
+He released her quickly, yet cautiously; gentle as he was, he was
+always forgetting, he told himself, that she was doubly precious to
+him--now.
+
+"Lo! dear heart!" he said penitently, "we have not quarrelled these
+five days."
+
+"Not since I was angry because the tire-woman overdyed my hands with
+henna," she replied mischievously. "And thou didst tell me there were
+worse evils for tears. As if I cared; so long as my hands were not
+pretty ... for thee." She held them up for him to admire. And they
+were pretty. Delicate, and curved, and pink, like rose-petals. He
+kissed them dutifully; so much he knew was expected of him, and he
+loved the task.
+
+"And as penance for rudeness, man," she went on, her face all dimples,
+"thou wert to write me a love ode on the subject. Hast done it,
+sirrah?"
+
+"That have I," assented her lover husband gladly. "Dost know, little
+one, I string more pearls now than ever; but thou--thou hast not
+written one line since we were married; yet thou hadst the prettiest
+art."
+
+Ma'asuma lay back on her resting-place and laughed softly. "Someday,
+stupid, I will tell thee why. But now for thy verses."
+
+Babar caught up his lute and sat tuning it, his eyes wandering away to
+the girdle of snows that clipped the blue hill-horizon. They were in
+the garden of the New Year; alone, save for that dear grave yonder
+where the jasmine flowers were drooping their scented waxen stars.
+
+Dear mother! How glad she would have been to see Ma'asuma, to think of
+the grandson who was so soon to make life absolutely perfect. Yes! the
+cup of life, the Crystal Bowl could hold no more. He lost himself in
+dreams, to be roused by an impatient, "Well! I listen."
+
+Then he turned and smiled at her as he began with exaggerated
+expression.
+
+
+      "Oh, fair impassioned, whom God hath fashioned
+       My love to be,
+       Thy hands so tender, thy fingers slender
+       Rosy I see.
+       Be they flower-tinted or blood-imprinted
+       From my poor heart?
+       Torn by thy smiling, tears and beguiling
+       Feminine art.
+       Yet, sweet calamity! dwell we in amity
+       Each perfect day.
+       Yea! in the bright time. Yea! in the night time,
+       Lovers alway."
+
+
+"Sweet calamity!" she echoed, pouting her lips and trying hard to
+frown, as the song finished. "Couldst find no other title for thy
+lawful wife? And yet--" here smiles overcame her--"Lo! Babar! 'tis a
+beautiful name and I am thy sweet calamity alway, alway!" Then
+suddenly, to his dismay, she began to cry softly, the big tears
+running down her pretty cheeks in easy childish fashion. "Nay!" she
+went on, half-smiles again at his solicitude, "I am not ill,--there is
+naught wrong. 'Tis only that I am lonely when thou art doing King's
+work, which must be done. If only foster-sister would come, I should
+not be so frightened."
+
+"But my Yenkâm, thy mother, will be here--" protested Babar.
+
+Ma'asuma shook her head. "It is _now_, dear heart! And foster-sister
+will not come unless thou askest her. She said so. Couldst not write
+to her, Babar?"
+
+"But I know not foster-sister, nor aught of her, save that she was
+good to my Ma'asuma, for which, may Heaven reward her!"
+
+Ma'asuma sat up, her charming face happy in thought. "Oh! so good, my
+lord! Not a real foster-sister, either; but we sat under one veil and
+drank milk out of one cup. That was when we first came to Khorasân,
+thy Yenkâm and I. And since then she--Babar!--Be not angry but I will
+tell thee--I meant to have told thee--I should have told thee
+before--"
+
+The violet eyes showed trouble once more and Babar kissed them
+deliberately. "What, sweetheart?" he asked carelessly. He knew the
+gentle kindly heart too well to fear any revelation.
+
+"Only it was she, not I, who wrote the verses--the verses I sent--I
+was too stupid. And she is clever--oh! so clever!"
+
+Despite his certitude the young man looked startled. "So," he said at
+last, "Fortune hath not given me the grace of a poetess to wife. So be
+it. But who is this paragon?"
+
+Ma'asuma, however, was too delighted at having got over her confession
+so happily to refrain from autocratic dignity.
+
+"That I have said. She is foster-sister and of the circle of
+distinction. Thy Yenkâm can tell thee of genealogies; they tire my
+head. So write! Dost hear?"
+
+Babar laughed. He loved to take orders from those sweet lips; besides
+a certain zest came with the idea of writing to an unknown poetess.
+
+"Yea! I will write," he said meekly, "but I will have to regard _zals_
+and _zes_; for more elegant _nastâlik_ saw I never than hers."
+
+So the letter was written and despatched express to the care of his
+Yenkâm at Khorasân, and six weeks later little Ma'asuma sat beside her
+foster-sister in the summer house of the new Garden of Fidelity which
+Babar was laying out at Adinahpore, and whither he had taken his young
+wife whose daily increasing delicacy filled him with concern. Of all
+the gardens that Babar planted and watered, this was the one nearest
+his heart. In a most romantic situation, on the south side of, and
+overlooking the river, its groves of oranges and citrons grew
+untouched by hard winter frosts, while every flower, every tree of his
+beloved hill country flourished side by side with those of warm
+climates. Above it towered the White-Mountain and the Almond-Spring
+Pass, below it the valley debouched into wide fertility.
+
+And Babar was hard at work, delving away himself like any Adam; making
+a four-square cross of marble reservoirs, through which the clear,
+hill stream might run, planting new flowers from here, there,
+everywhere. The tan of his sunburnt face and hands contrasted sadly
+with the sallowing skin of the girl-wife, who, despite his care, was
+sinking under her task of son-bearing.
+
+"Then he knows not who I am," said the tall, slender woman on whose
+knee Ma'asuma was resting her pretty, weary head. "I deemed thou hadst
+told him, as we agreed." She spoke gravely and her level black brows
+were faintly knit. The rest of the face was richly beautiful in strong
+sweeping curves, but those level brows and the dark, thoughtful eyes
+beneath them held the attention. "Not that it matters," she added
+quickly, seeing tears ready to brim over the violets upturned to her.
+"After all, 'tis nothing to thy lord--or to any other man--whether I
+be widow to Mirza Gharîb Beg or no, so long as I be honourable woman.
+Therefore tell him not, now that I am here." And Babar coming in to
+see his wife found the veiled new-comer courteous in speech, charming
+in manner. Found also such favourable change in his darling's spirits,
+that a glow of comradeship for his _aide_ rose up in his soft heart at
+once.
+
+So they were very happy together, those three, and by degrees
+foster-sister's thick enshrouding veil was changed for a more filmy
+one and Babar could get a glimpse of those glorious eyes and see the
+little satirical smile about the strong curves of the mouth.
+
+They reminded him vaguely, why he knew not, of his dead Cousin Gharîb;
+but he never spoke of this to Ma'asuma. With her burden of coming life
+it would be unlucky to speak of the dead. Thus a week or two went by,
+and all insensibly the man learnt to rely on the woman who shared with
+him the charge of the girl.
+
+"The Most-Benevolent one is very good to my wife," he said suddenly
+one day, "and my gratitude can only lie in words."
+
+The Most-Benevolent bowed gravely. "Thanks are not needed.
+Ma'asuma-Begum came into this dust-like one's life, when it was
+unhappy. She hath been God's best boon to me."
+
+"And to me also," answered the young husband sadly. Do what he would
+he could not escape from fear, the shadow of impending evil seemed to
+darken his life. He had to brisk and hearken himself up to face the
+future; for perilous times were at hand. The fateful seventh month, so
+much dreaded by Indian midwives was beginning; but his Yenkâm would be
+with her daughter in a day or two, they would together take Ma'asuma
+back in her litter to Kâbul by easy stages, and all would, all _must_,
+go well.
+
+It was one glorious morning in early August when this feeling of ill
+to come, made him catch up his lute to chase away thought by song. He
+had carried little Ma'asuma himself down to the tank half surrounded
+by burnished orange trees which was the very eye of the beauty of the
+garden. They had dismissed all attendants, bidding them leave behind
+them their trays of sherbet and sweetmeats. But not even the perfect
+loveliness of hill, and sky, and garden, not even the faint flush, as
+of returning health, on the invalid's face could charm the splendour
+of Life into Babar's soul. The Crystal Bowl seemed dull, opaque.
+
+This must not be.
+
+He set the strings of his lute a-twanging and began--
+
+
+            "Clear crystal bowl. Thy wine bubbles laugh--"
+
+
+The figure seated by the tank side, its reflection in the water, rose
+suddenly as if startled, gathered its draperies round it, so, with
+face averted, strolled off into the garden.
+
+"There!" came Ma'asuma's reproachful voice, "thou hast driven her
+away, stupid!"
+
+The young man arrested in his song looked hurt. "But wherefore? 'Tis a
+good song."
+
+"Good mayhap," came the thoughtless answer, "but, see you! It reminds
+her of Gharîb-Beg who wrote it."
+
+"And wherefore not?" asked Babar swiftly.
+
+Little Ma'asuma looked scared. "Lo! There I have told thee! and I said
+I would hold my tongue! Because, see you, Gharîb-Beg married and left
+her in the old days; whether rightly as some say, or foolishly, as
+others, I know not; but 'twas so. She was religious for long years and
+when I went to the school to learn the Holy Book, we became friends.
+And oh! Babar, thou wilt never know how good she was to me when I fell
+in love with my lord--and he with me." The roguish face, looking more
+like itself than he had seen it for months, nestled on to his
+shoulder.
+
+He put his arm round the slender figure and drew it to him
+mechanically, grateful that her words had given him time to pull
+himself together.
+
+Gharîb-Beg's wife! The woman he had called "Mahâm--his moon!"
+
+"So." he said with an effort, "she was my cousin's wife; but wherefore
+... was I not told?"
+
+Ma'asuma pouted. "Because I did not at first. And then when she came,
+she would not have it--why I know not--save that mayhap, before the
+son was coming, I wanted thy praise for--for such things as verses.
+And now, my lord must say naught. Promise me he will not, or she will
+be vexed."
+
+"I will not vex her," he said diplomatically, and changed the subject
+adroitly by picking up a tiny red-silk cap half embroidered with seed
+pearls on which his wife had been working, and which had fallen on the
+path.
+
+"Lo!" he laughed, "is that the way to treat my son's head-dress!" And
+he held the ridiculous little object out on his forefinger and twirled
+it round. So the question passed. But he was of too frank a nature to
+palliate concealment and that night when the moon had risen, he found
+himself once more confronting a tall, slender figure that stood,
+aggressively this time, against a marble pillar. But there was no
+swinging lamp to cast a rose reflection between them.
+
+"Yea! Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar," said the proud voice. "It is even
+as my lord hath divined. I knew. I was the lad who brought my lord his
+mistress's message--which _I_ had written. It was to me that my lord
+gave his 'I love thee, ever, ever!' This being so, what else was there
+left to do, save what was done?"
+
+The finality of her words struck Babar like a blow. He never minced
+matters even with himself.
+
+"Naught," he said gloomily. "Naught." Then he added, "But now?"
+
+The veiled figure caught him up quickly. "Now? She must not know; she
+must never know."
+
+Babar stood still and leaning his head on his arm against the
+pilaster, looked out into the garden. It lay silvern, peaceful, a
+thing of perfect beauty, a place wherein no sinful man should walk or
+set foot. "Lo!" came the sweet voice. "I have kept--I will keep my
+lord's ring. It was not he who broke faith, but I."
+
+"The Most-Noble is very good," he said simply and left her. There was
+no more to say.
+
+Had there been more, there would have been little time for it.
+
+A hasty twinkling light showed ere long adown the palace colonnade.
+Voices came in excited whispers. Her Highness, the Begum, was not
+well. God send it might be nothing; but 'twas the fateful month.
+
+Fateful, indeed! All that night long Babar waited in a fever of
+anxiety, listening to the fitful wails, the thousand and one slight
+sounds of sudden, direful sickness. What were they doing to his
+Ma'asuma? his little Ma'asuma, his love, his heart's darling, his
+little one? Would he ever see her again?
+
+The dawn came, and still he watched, still he waited. The birds in the
+bushes began to sing--to sing forsooth! while she lay in the shadow of
+death! Heartless! cruel! For she must die! so small, so slender, how
+could she stand out against those long hours of agony. Noon passed and
+still he waited, every nerve in his strong young body wearied by
+imagined pain.
+
+It was not till sun-setting that a voice roused him as he sat crouched
+in on himself:
+
+"My lord has a daughter."
+
+He was on his feet in a second, setting the idea aside as trivial.
+What was son or daughter to him beside his dearest dear?
+
+"She?" he asked breathlessly.
+
+"My lord had best come and see," replied the kind, sympathetic voice;
+he recognised it faintly, but it made no impression on him.
+
+The small room was hot and close; full of smoke also from a useless
+fire hastily lit up. And Ma'asuma lay covered by endless quilts. But
+it was Ma'asuma herself who lay there peaceful as if already dead; but
+her face was alight with feeble smiles. Only for a moment, however;
+then the curly, goldy-brown head turned restlessly on the pillow.
+
+"I am sorry--" she murmured, "I--I wanted it to be a son, but--but--"
+the voice trailed away into weaker sobbing.
+
+"Hush! silly one!" said Babar gently, his heart in his mouth as he
+noted her looks. "What God gives is best. If she is like thee she will
+be all I need."
+
+A small trembling hand fluttered out to a corner of the coverlet.
+"Like me. I know not. Babar! What wilt thou call her, when I am gone?"
+
+The words cut him like a knife, because he knew they were true; there
+was something which told him that the dearest thing on earth to him
+was fast slipping from his grasp. Yet the simplicity of his nature
+kept him calm.
+
+"I will give her her mother's name," he said quietly.
+
+Ma'asuma sighed with content and was silent for a space. Then after a
+while her voice, weaker than ever, rose again, a low, monotonous voice
+that told of ebbing strength.
+
+"Babar! who will nurse my child? Give her not to strange women. Lo! I
+never loved strangers; nor dost thou, thou, dear heart. Foster-sister
+where art thou? Send the strangers away and the slaves, and come
+close. I want thee."
+
+One wave of Babar's hand cleared the little room, and once more came
+that faint sigh of content.
+
+"That is nice. Only thou, and I, and she, and little Ma'asuma--all the
+folk I love in the world. That is right." For a moment she seemed to
+sleep, and when she opened her eyes there were dreams in them.
+
+"Set the window wide. I would see the sunset," she said in quite a
+strong voice and when the red light flooded into the little dark room
+she lay in it peacefully.
+
+"Will it not mayhap hurt?" whispered the tall figure in white.
+
+"She is past hurt," whispered Babar back. His heart was as a stone. He
+could not have wept, he could not even feel grief.
+
+"Thy hand, my heart," came the voice feeble again, "and thine,
+sister--how warm they are and mine grow so cold--so cold. Yet that
+matters not. I am only--only the Kâzi." The ghost of a flickering
+smile hovered over the lips that, in the monotonous Arabic drawl of
+the professional priest, began on the opening sentences of the
+Mahomedan wedding service.
+
+The man and the woman standing instinct with Life, looked helplessly
+at each other and instinctively drew apart.
+
+Ma'asuma's violet eyes seemed to strive with coming darkness. "Don't,"
+she murmured. "It is not kind! Look you, I cannot see; and my hands
+are so weak. Be quick or I shall not hear. Say it quickly and then
+there will be peace, then I shall have given my lord a son--then we
+shall all be at rest. It is the last thing--"
+
+There was a second of silence and then Babar's clasp on the hand he
+held beneath that small chill one tightened, and his voice rang clear.
+
+"Before God I take this woman to be my wedded wife."
+
+And swift on the words came a woman's voice, "Before God I take this
+man to be my husband, the father of our son."
+
+A sigh of content seemed almost to end life, and there was silence for
+a space. But it was broken by a pitiful, helpless murmur, "The ring! I
+have forgotten the ring."
+
+"I have it already, sweetheart," came the woman's voice, soft, calm,
+soothing. So they stood, till the chill little hands grew more chill
+in the warm clasps that held them; finally one withdrew itself slowly,
+slowly, and Babar was left alone with Death and Love.
+
+The tall white figure fell on its knees and wept softly; but Babar
+stood still, stern, calm. What use to kiss unconscious lips? What use
+to strain at broken cords?
+
+"She hath found freedom," he said after a time. Then he turned to the
+kneeling figure. "Mahâm," he said quietly. "Thou wilt see to little
+Ma'asuma for me, wilt thou not?"
+
+It was sunrise when they laid to rest Babar's first and in a way, his
+only love. The birds were singing in the garden he had made so
+beautiful. The roses that decked the grave were full of scent.
+But Babar noticed none of these things, he moved about calm,
+self-controlled, conscious of but one thing, that he was glad he was
+not at Kâbul where he would have had wailing women and ceremonial
+condolences. Here, in the open, among the flowers, all was peace. He
+need not even realise that his dearest-dear was dead.
+
+But he had overrated his emotional strength, or rather he had
+underrated it as he always did. All the day long, as he went about as
+usual, his face haggard, his manner courteous and gentle, a storm was
+brewing within, and when sunset came again, bringing the sadness of a
+dead day with it, the tempest burst.
+
+Mahâm, her eyes red with weeping, was seated in the dusk of the little
+room where Ma'asuma had died, with the dead woman's babe on her lap
+when she looked up to see a tall, swaying figure standing at the door.
+A helpless, bewildered figure that stretched out bewildered hands to
+her.
+
+"Mahâm! Mahâm!" it cried, "save me! Save me from myself."
+
+She rose instantly, laid the sleeping infant on the bed, and went to
+him.
+
+"Thou art tired," she said, as a mother might have said it. "Come
+hither and rest awhile, my lord. Sleep will bring peace."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII
+
+       I am the dust beneath thy feet, my sweet;
+       Thou art the cloud that sprinkleth rain amain.
+       Lo! as green tongues of grasses spring to bring
+       Their thanks for moisture given to root and fruit,
+       So, all my being blossometh and saith
+       "Dear God be praised for Love of Thee and Me."
+
+
+Mahâm had her work cut out for her. But she was a wise woman and from
+the first gauged Babar's volatile, kindly, affectionate nature to a
+nicety.
+
+He had had a shock, and one with such fine-strung nerves as his
+required time for recovery. Therefore, with easy ability, she took the
+tiller ropes and steered his craft and hers through the troubled
+waters which instantly raged about him. She even, rather to their
+resentment, succeeded in pacifying Babar's step-grandmother and his
+paternal aunts as to her position (which she claimed at once) as
+Babar's wife. They had been betrothed for months, she told them;
+indeed for long years the intent to marry had been existent. So
+much so that they had her late husband Gharîb-Beg's hearty assent to
+their union. She had come from Khorasân at Ma'asuma Begum's earnest
+wish, and the marriage had taken place when it did--this she left
+hazy--entirely to please her when she was ill and ailing. Doubtless
+the dear little thing had had a prescience of her own death. Such
+angels of Paradise often had. She, Mahâm, could never hope to hold the
+same place in the King's affection; still it was lucky things had
+happened so, or the Most-Clement might have gone out of his mind with
+grief, deprived as he was in the wilds of Adinapur of the consolations
+of all his womenkind. And the gracious ladies knew how dependent he
+had always been on them, as well as on his deceased mother--on whom be
+God's peace--and his unfortunate sister. Besides, she could be useful
+in bringing up the King's little daughter.
+
+"If thou wilt give him a son 'twould be to more purpose," quoth
+outspoken Shâh-Begum.
+
+"God helping me, I will, madam," came the cool reply.
+
+"She is well spoken," admitted the old lady grudgingly, after the
+interview was over.
+
+"And of the inner circle. 'Deed! now that one comes to consider it,"
+wept Babar's Yenkâm, "more suited for the work than my fairy, who was
+ever too lightsome for such task. And, look you! there be no question
+of evil eye or such things. She loved my Ma'asuma as herself, and was
+ever good to the child. It is doubtless God's will."
+
+"Yea! Yea! God's will," snivelled fat, silly Princess Astonishing
+Beauty; but little Ak-Begum's keen eyes were soft.
+
+"There is more in it than mayhap we know," she said softly. "And she
+hath a good, clever face. So God send our kind Babar peace."
+
+Good wishes were well enough doubtless, but Mahâm felt that action
+must be taken; and at once. My lord the King must not be allowed to
+lounge at home, eating his heart out; and to this purpose she sent for
+old Kâsim and explained her views.
+
+"Lady," he replied, "I would rather, in faith, have had my master free
+of all feminine wiles. The last seven months have passed without much
+glory, and my sword rusts in its scabbard. But this I will say, for a
+woman, the cupola of chastity shows much sense. The King would be best
+away from Kâbul."
+
+"And from me," added Mahâm, coolly. "So look to it, Sir General, and
+take him--where thou canst."
+
+As it so happened, the times fell in with her desire. The Timurid
+family was at its lowest ebb; Babar himself, being, for the moment the
+only member of it which had kept his kingdom independent; the rest
+having either succumbed utterly to the great Usbek-raider or become
+mere vassals to his power. Thus the King's position was weak, even if
+he had been himself. But Mahâm's clear eyes appraised her haggard
+young King as he went about grave, silent, doing everything by an
+effort. That was not the stuff for single handed combat against Fate.
+Then sorrow set his feet firmer than ever on the path of what he
+considered right; and this mood was not one in which to rely on those
+Moghul troops of his who were ever ready to take offence at strict
+discipline. No! he must be induced to divert attention from Kâbul by
+carrying war to some further field. The further the better, so long as
+it gave those same Moghul troops opportunity for legitimate raiding.
+
+Babar himself never knew how much one woman's influence had to do with
+his resolution to march on Hindustân; even old Kâsim, though he had
+the key, did not realise how Mahâm managed to set aside his proposal
+of an attempt on Badakhshân in favour of the larger, more imaginative
+project; but it was done.
+
+So one day Babar, sad-faced still, but with a certain spring in his
+walk came to say good-bye to his little daughter and to the woman who
+quietly, unobtrusively, had done so much for him.
+
+"Yea!" she said smiling, "I will be Queen whilst thou art gone, Babar,
+never fear. Nor Shâh-Begum, nor Mihr-Nigar nor any other woman in the
+Palace shall give trouble, this time, I warrant me. And the child will
+thrive! Aye! it will thrive. So there is no gnawing thought at thy
+heart, remember--"
+
+She paused for a second and something in her face made Babar say
+hastily:
+
+"Nor in thine, I pray, kind wife."
+
+"Nor in mine," she echoed with a brilliant smile. "And now, ere he go,
+I have something for my lord--a remembrance of someone he loved well
+and whom I--respected."
+
+She put her hand in her bosom and drew out thence all warm and faintly
+scented a small crystal bowl.
+
+Babar gave a cry of delight. "The Bowl! The Bowl! How didst find it?
+Did he give it thee? Did he really give it me?"
+
+Her kind eyes smiled on him. "That I cannot say; and this is not the
+Bowl, but perchance a likeness of it. 'Twas the dear dead one, my
+lord, who told me the tale when thou didst tell it to her. So, knowing
+what sort the cup must be, since there is an old man in my native
+village who still can make them after a fashion, I sent to him
+pressingly for one. My lord will remember that 'twas in this village
+graveyard that the Crystal Bowl was found. Doubtless one of olden
+time. This is but a copy--and poor doubtless, since the old craftsman
+can scarce see--but it may serve to remind my lord--of many things."
+
+"And much kindness--" said Babar gravely, and as he took the bowl he
+kissed the hand that held it out to him.
+
+No! it was not the Bowl. It was but a dim likeness of it; but as he
+placed it in his bosom he felt vaguely that he had more than he
+deserved.
+
+The next few months passed swiftly. Once in the saddle and out of
+Kâbul, Babar's spirits began to rise. But he soon found it inadvisable
+to pursue his intentions on India. The very idea of his absenting
+himself so far, roused the insolence of the wild border clans. Here
+was their opportunity, whilst the cat would be away, to resort to
+their favourite plunder. So it was mid-winter before it was possible
+for him to advance, and by that time the complexion of affairs had
+changed.
+
+To begin with the Usbek-raider had retreated, patching up a sort of
+peace hurriedly, and returning westward over more important business.
+Then, whether by reason of Mahâm's firm hand or from mere ambition,
+old grandmother Shâh-Begum announced her intention of leaving Babar's
+protection, and going with her grandson to snatch at the sovereignty
+of Badakhshân. The crown had been hereditary in her family, she
+declared, for over 3,000 years and though as woman she could not claim
+it, she knew her grandson would not be rejected.
+
+This intention, involving as it did a breaking up of conventional
+family life, brought back Babar in protest. The old lady had never
+been on the best of terms with him, she had once almost succeeded in
+her intrigues against him, but he had always treated her generously;
+and then, worse than her defection, was that of his own mother's
+sister who insisted on accompanying her.
+
+It was intolerable! Babar went straight to his grandmother and argued
+with her; coming back irritated and annoyed by failure to make any
+impression on the old lady's obstinacy, to his own palace, where,
+without giving notice, he made his way alone to Mahâm's apartments.
+
+As he entered her room he could see her reclining amongst cushions in
+the cupola'd balcony, his little sleeping daughter in her lap. She was
+crooning to it the lullaby which Turkhomân women sing sleepily during
+a night march. Her pose was exquisite; there was a look of almost
+motherhood in her face; he paused to listen as she sang:--
+
+
+      "Sleep, croodie! Talk with God!
+       Know not the path I've trod.
+       Dad knows not! Why shouldst thou!
+       Sleep, childie! Sleep just now.
+       Don't fear! I keep awake.
+       Heigh ho! My bones do ache.
+       Heigh ho! My horse does pull.
+       Can't it see river's full!
+       No pebbles in _that_ bed,
+       Mine holds an hundred.
+       Dreams! Dreams! Who lies dead?
+       Someone in the river's bed.
+       Praise God! _He_ rests his head.
+       Hush! Hush! I hear thee, sweet.
+       Mums arms around thee meet.
+       Praise God! The night's nigh past;
+       Darling sleeps at last! at last!"
+
+
+The curious drowsiness of the rhythm held him almost silent for a
+while, so did a great surge of admiration for this self-restrained,
+kindly, capable woman who had taken her full position as his wife so
+firmly, without any feminine flutterings or sentimentalities. Truly
+that sort of thing was what he, with his volatile emotionality, needed
+to make him not only successful, but persistent.
+
+"Mahâm," he said almost timorously, "I have come back to thee--and the
+child."
+
+She gave a little cry, started to rise, then pointed to little
+Ma'asuma. "I should waken her!" she said in a low voice, "but welcome,
+thrice welcome is my lord--to me and to the child."
+
+Her voice lingered over the words; her smile had a certain gravity in
+it.
+
+"But thou," he said anxiously. "Hast not been well, wife? Thy face
+shows ill--why didst not write to me?"
+
+"Because 'twas not worth while," she replied. "And I am most better.
+The spring comes and with it health. And I have had anxiety over thy
+grandmother. What said she?"
+
+The deft turn succeeded. Babar gave vent to his dissatisfaction in no
+measured terms. "See you," he said, "Have I ever failed in my duty or
+service? When my mother and I had not even a single village nor a few
+jewels, I treated all my relations, male or female, as members of my
+family. I have made no difference between my maternal and my paternal
+connections. I say not this to appraise myself. I simply follow the
+scrupulous truth as everyone knows. And now, even my mother's sister
+desires to leave me! I am her nearest relation. It would be better,
+and more becoming for her to remain with me."
+
+Mahâm's face showed whimsical smiles. "Not, my lord, unwillingly.
+God's earth holds not a more deadly poison to happiness than a
+discontented woman. So let them go; my lord has plenty of paternal
+aunts."
+
+There was a certain patience in her tone! But Babar, still protesting,
+yielded; and set himself solemnly to settle the judicial as well as
+the executive system of his kingdom. It was about this time that he
+wrote his famous Essay-on-Jurisprudence which for many long years was
+to be a work of reference.
+
+His enquiries took him out often into the out districts which, now
+that spring was advancing were excessively pleasant, abounding in
+tulips and indeed in all plants of every description. He began again
+to write poetry; pretty things still touched by profound, if somewhat
+scholastic, melancholy such as this--
+
+
+      "My heart's a rose full flaming,
+       Its petals opened wide,
+       To give her without shaming
+       Myself and all beside.
+
+       Ah me! in vain I lavished
+       My love on her dear heart,
+       An envious thorn has ravished
+       Her hand with deadly smart.
+
+       Her life-blood is a-falling
+       To dim my petals o'er.
+       Oh, Springtime! cease thy calling,
+       This rose will bloom no more."
+
+
+He used to send them to Mahâm, who used to reply in her beautiful
+_nastâlik_ hand that was always a joy to Babar's simple delight in
+anything and everything artistic. And he wrote, also, and told her of
+the thirty-five different kinds of tulips he had gathered, and of the
+inscriptions he caused to be cut on springs and rocks. And of a
+certainty when he visited, as he did, the Garden-of-Fidelity at
+Adinapur, he must have had much to tell her of a small flowerful grave
+there, where his sad heart was laid.
+
+It was all very pathetic; sweetly pathetic. A noble young King, doing
+his duty bravely, though glad life was over for him forever.
+
+Even the crystal cup which he carried in his bosom, and from which he
+drank ever the water of the cool mountain springs, brought him only
+modified comfort. Perhaps, because, from a sense of duty to himself,
+he would not allow it to bring more.
+
+And then suddenly the whole wide world changed for him.
+
+"Mahâm! My son!--my son!" was all that he could say when urgent
+summons brought him to a smiling mother and a new-born infant.
+
+"He is like thee," she said, a tremor in her calm voice.
+
+"God forbid!" interrupted the father hastily. "God send he be like
+thee--the best woman in the world--the best--the very best!"
+
+Never were such rejoicings. The paternal aunts, who of late months had
+been let into the secret, were almost crazy with delight. And
+wherefore not? When a King has lived to be six-and-twenty without a
+son; when despite three marriages only two children have been borne to
+him, miserable little daughters, one dead, one but a few months old,
+it is time to be festive over a proper birth. And was there ever such
+a baby? So tall, so strong, so handsome and so altogether
+satisfactory. No wonder his father, who ever had a pretty wit, called
+him Humâyon. That might portend the ph[oe]nix, the bird of good omen,
+besides half-a-dozen other side meanings, each charming in its way.
+
+But Babar, leaning over the happy mother said softly, "He shall be my
+protection in the future. Lo! Mahâm! I have put myself outside myself
+as they say in the child-stories of our youth. Who was't who put his
+life safe in a gold box? Well! my life is hid in my son's. So there,
+my wife, have a care of us both--for, verily in some ways, Mahâm, I
+need looking after like an infant."
+
+The feast of nativity was a very splendid feast. Everyone who was Big,
+and everyone who was Not, brought their offerings. Bags on bags of
+silver money were piled up, until everyone was forced to confess that
+never before had they seen so much white money in one place.
+
+And the entertainments! There were fireworks and marionettes and
+conjuring tricks. In fact a perfect fair for a whole week in the Great
+Four-square-Garden on the hill.
+
+But the greatest amusement of all was one to which the Palace Ladies
+invited a select audience.
+
+It was organised by the Fair Princess who had a genius that way, and
+its _piece de resistance_ was a huge roc-egg brought in by fairies,
+which, cracking in most realistic fashion, disclosed the most
+magnificent ph[oe]nix that ever was seen, with feathers of every hue
+and plumes galore (it had, of course, a gold crown on its head) which
+monstrous bird being removed, like a tea cosy, appeared no less a
+personage than
+
+
+      "The Heir Apparent"
+
+      "Humâyon."
+
+
+Endless was the laughter, the tears, the embracings, the gratulations.
+
+But that evening as Mahâm and Babar sat hand in hand, looking at the
+sleeping infant, its mother cried suddenly--
+
+"'Tis Ma'asuma's child also, thou must remember, husband. 'Twas for
+her sake I married thee."
+
+"Not for mine own, one little bit, Mahâm?" he queried a trifle sadly.
+"Well! if that be so, I must be lover instead of husband for a time."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII
+
+      "Like a wide-spreading tree whose roots en-thread
+       Earth's bosom, gaining Life from out a grave,
+       So stood he stalwart while each weary head
+       Sought for the shelter that his courage gave."
+
+
+"Look you! what a young man sees in a mirror, an old one can see in a
+burnt brick," quoth old Kâsim crossly to Shirâm-Taghâi. "Did I not
+tell the Most-Clement that benevolence such as his, is doubtless fit
+for Paradise where man shall have shed his sins; but 'tis in this
+world, pure incentive to wickedness. To leave Prince Abdul-Risâk in
+Kâbul where, seeing he is the late King's only son, he hath some right
+to claim power, was foolish; not to believe when old servants as you
+and I, Shirâm, tell him intrigue is going on, is well nigh criminal.
+Yet God knows it all comes from kindness of heart! In truth, old
+friend, to be king one should be as Timur, the Earth Trembler, who
+never spared man, woman or child who stood in his way."
+
+"Aye," assented Shirim-Beg whose beard by this time, after long years
+of faithful service, required a purple dye to pass muster. "And yet,
+to my mind, the King is most hard on the Moghul soldiery. What means
+life to a Moghul without rapine and plunder? Bread without salt,
+friend! Bread without salt! Yet the Most-Clement is so inclement that
+thou hadst trouble to save the lives of those three last week."
+
+Kâsim gloomed. "Aye! and I know not now if I were not wrong, since
+those same are the head and front of this present offending of
+which--God save his innocence--the King takes no heed, having it
+forsooth, that my surmisings art not entitled to credit! Look you! he
+is so set on making his men wheel in step and to time, that he hath
+forgotten how quick honest rebellion can step when it chooses."
+
+It was true. Babar, profoundly happy in the birth of his son,
+profoundly absorbed in the new title of Emperor which he had, in
+consequence, bestowed upon himself, was impervious to suspicion, and
+busy expending his exuberant vitality in marshalling and
+man[oe]uvering his troops. He was out all day in camp; thus, at once,
+being more ignorant than usual of what was happening in the city, and
+having less time to listen to cautions; the latter being, in truth,
+the last words suitable to his feelings. He could not, for the life of
+him, see a single cloud ahead, and being absolutely full of good
+intentions towards his world, refused to believe that the world could
+have any ill intentions towards him.
+
+But his eyes were opened one night, and that rudely.
+
+He took his evening meal as a rule in the Four-corner Garden on his
+way back to sleep in the Secluded-Palace. It was a charming place; the
+summer house all lit with coloured lamps, hung with beautiful
+draperies; and there were ever musicians, singers and dancers ready to
+amuse the King, who lingered late at times, especially on moonlit
+nights when the garden showed entrancingly beautiful.
+
+But it was moonless and fairly early, when two friends arrived from
+the city in hot haste, full of the discovery of a plot to seize and
+assassinate His Imperial Majesty that very night.
+
+Babar downright refused to believe it. Even treacherous Moghuls, he
+said, must have some reason for rebellion; and what had he done to
+them?--Nothing! Nor to anyone else. There might be disaffection.
+In what kingdom was it not to be found? But for wide-spread
+disloyalty?--No! it was frankly impossible. So he set warning aside.
+
+Nevertheless the party broke up early and started through the darkness
+for the city. The running lanterns ahead threw light only on the
+forward path, and Babar was engrossed in solving a question of drill;
+so it was not till he reached the Iron Gate that he realised he was
+alone, save for the three or four household slaves who ran beside his
+horse. In the darkness every one of his escort had disappeared!
+
+In a second he saw that something was, indeed, amiss. But in the same
+second he saw what had to be done. Mahâm and her son must be reached
+and placed in safety. That accomplished he would have time to
+consider.
+
+But as, with a rapid order to the slaves, he turned sharp down a more
+secluded alley, a man running full tilt, brought up suddenly at the
+sight of him. It was an old friend, one Mahomed-Ali.
+
+"Thank God! I have you, Sire," cried the runner breathlessly. "Go
+back! Go back! The Moghuls are in arms, the traitor Abdul-Risâk at
+their head--I was in the market place a minute syne and they await the
+Most-Clement there. Go back! Go back!"
+
+Babar dug his spurs to his horse's flank. "Nay! I go on," he said
+recklessly.
+
+But Mahomed-Ali hung to the bridle. "Most-Clement! listen. They will
+await thee there till midnight. If the King does not come till then
+what signifies it? Naught; since the Most-High is given to gardens
+and is often late. So they are there--safe! Now 'tis not yet ten of
+the chime. If, therefore, the King will be wise, turn his horse,
+and ride out to the Camp-of-the-Veterans beyond the Hill Garden,
+I and my following--if the Most-Noble will send a token to the
+Gracious-Lady--will bring her safe thither before the carrion have
+wind of anything. Sire! 'tis the better way! To go on is certain
+death--for all--The Moghuls...."
+
+"God curse them!" muttered Babar. But he was no fool to let his own
+wild anger needlessly endanger those two precious lives. Therefore his
+resolution was taken at once, and he fumbled for his signet ring--
+
+No! not that--it might be used to ill purpose. The Crystal Bowl was
+better--none would send that but he, and so she would be the readier
+to act upon it.
+
+"Aye" he said slowly. "But mark you! I turn but to the Ditch by the
+Khorasân gate. There will I wait. Take this to the Queen and say I
+pray her come--in half-an-hour mind, in half-an-hour! If thou comest
+not by then--"
+
+His face said the rest and augured ill for failure, as, gathering the
+few slaves together lest any might escape and blab, he drove them and
+the torch bearers before him towards the further gate. With time for
+thought he reviewed the position and was satisfied at his action. At
+the worst, it meant but a delay of half-an-hour when time was
+literally no object; since it was his appearance which would start the
+traitorous scheme. He set his lip and his hand clenched on his sword
+at the very thought. Again, his retreat amongst tried loyalists might
+save the situation altogether; for he would be ready for instant
+retaliation if needs be. If not, no harm was done. He had simply spent
+the night amongst his oldest friends, the Andijân troopers.
+
+Yet, as he stood waiting in the darkness of the ditch at the Khorasân
+gate, his heart beat in his ears. He could hear nothing. And time
+passed--It must be nigh on the half hour! Time to tighten sword-belts
+... Hark! that was a jingle--the jingle of a swift borne doolie!...
+
+"Mahâm?"
+
+"My lord, I am here," came the answer and Babar shook his fist at the
+darkling city. All was quiet nigh at hand, but from the distant market
+place came sounds of rough merriment.
+
+"Till to-morrow, friends!" he muttered, then paced his horse beside
+the doolie with a whispered word or two of encouragement.
+
+Now that imminent danger was over anger, sheer, almost reckless anger
+took the place of anxiety.
+
+"To-morrow!" he whispered to himself again; "To-morrow!"
+
+But that to-morrow to which he had appealed so confidently brought
+bitter disappointment.
+
+Dawn showed him an almost empty camp. Out of all his soldiers a bare
+five hundred remained with him. The rest, with most of the Kâbul
+courtiers had slipped off to the city during the night on pretence of
+looking after their families, or saving their property from the Moghul
+plunderers. Disloyalty was widespread indeed!
+
+Kâsim-Beg, of course, was at his beloved young master's side, and so
+was Shirâm-Taghâi and half-a-score other trusty friends, all of the
+old school. They waited the livelong day for the old order to up
+saddle and away; since what could five hundred swords, be they ever so
+nimble, do against a city full of soldiers? But the order never came.
+It was close on sunset when Kâsim, impatient at the delay, suggested
+that it was time to move.
+
+"I go not," replied Babar coolly; "See you, old friend, never again do
+I seek shelter like a rat in its hole till I have no other chance. I
+fight in the open."
+
+Old Kâsim's jaw dropped. "My liege!" he exclaimed. "When fortune was
+against the Chagatâi in one place, he ever sought her favour in
+another."
+
+"And found it not, most times," put in Babar with a grim smile. "I
+have had too much of fighting and running away. I have been at it my
+life long. Now let us see how it does to fight and stick to it--to the
+death."
+
+"To the death by all means, sire," said old Kâsim with affectionate
+admiration, "but 'tis madness all the same."
+
+If it were so, there was distinct method in it. Babar threw up strange
+earthworks round his camp and disposed pickets in quaintly modern
+fashion on the points of vantage in the hills. This done he sat down
+calmly and awaited events, much to the discomfiture of those within
+the city. They were not besieged, of course, but there was an enemy to
+be reckoned with beyond the gates where an enemy should not be. Being
+hopelessly in a minority, he ought to have run away.
+
+"Lo!" said one soldier to another doubtfully, as, hand over his eyes,
+eaves-wise, he looked out keenly from the watch towers, "I dare swear
+that is the King going his rounds. How I mind me of his smile as he
+passed the meanest."
+
+"Aye!" would come the assent, "but none were mean in his army. We all
+felt brave men. At least so 'twas with me. I could have swaggered it
+with Rustam."
+
+And both pair of eyes would hold a vague regret. A regret that
+deepened as day after day skirmishes that were almost battles,
+resulted invariably in a retreat back to the walls of Kâbul for the
+night.
+
+For Babar's five hundred were ready to fight all the twenty-four
+hours, while the insurgent twelve thousand preferred their beds.
+
+And the next dawn rose calm over that orderly encampment, which it was
+no use trying to rush because of its cunning defences. Then Babar's
+cavalry had learnt to charge without an inch of spare room between
+stirrup and stirrup, so that there was no hope of passage or escape
+between that close-linked, supple, chain of lance and sword.
+
+Altogether it was disconcerting. Then no one had a moment's peace. To
+show your head beyond the gates was to bring down on you the King in
+person, heading a reckless band of picked swordsmen.
+
+"Kâsim-Beg is the best fencer in Asia," murmured a trooper with a
+slash on head and arm; "'tis small wonder I got this from him. And his
+teaching hath made even the rank and file better at swordsplay than
+our leaders--curse them--who sit at cards and drink, while we--" The
+rest was sullen silence.
+
+"Yea!" said another, with a leg bandaged. "And I got this from a mere
+back blow of the Most-Clement's. See you, he hath youth on his side,
+as well as all old Kâsim's art. I saw him, as I fell, cleave a Moghul
+to the very chin."
+
+So round the watch fires at night it became the fashion to applaud the
+prowess of the foe. With this result that in the morning, more than
+one place was vacant on the ramparts; the holder of it had slipped
+away in the night to join Babar's forces.
+
+As time went on, the latter grew more and more adventurous. His
+military skill, his personal strength, his courage, his invincible
+spirit, brought mingled admiration and dread to his enemies.
+
+"Lo! he is a true _Shaitan_," admitted one of the chief rebels. "Didst
+hear that when he was at the Khârwa Fort he amused himself by leaping
+from battlement to battlement--and there is sheer fall of a thousand
+feet to the river below."
+
+"Aye!" assented another gloomily. "And Shirbâsh saith he hath seen him
+do it with a trooper under each arm."
+
+So ran the stories, the one outdoing the other.
+
+At last, one day, just before the opposing forces began the clash of
+arms, the armies stood thrilling, aghast, expectant, as a tall young
+figure rode out alone, and in a voice that echoed and re-echoed,
+challenged Abdul-Risâk, the usurper, to single combat.
+
+The challenge was refused.
+
+"Then send your best man," cried Babar, "and may God show the right."
+
+There was a pause; and then from out the rank and file of the
+insurgents rode one Ali-Beg, and a chorus of approval went up on both
+sides.
+
+The opponents were well matched. Both young, both in the very pink of
+training.
+
+"Art ready, friend?" came Babar's clear joyous voice, and with a dash
+they were at each other.
+
+"Now God send he remembers the trick of wrist," said Kâsim-Beg under
+his breath, "for Ali-Beg hath it to perfection. He was my best pupil
+at Samarkand."
+
+But Babar remembered it. How, he felt, could he forget anything with
+so much for which to fight? His eyes blazed, not with anger--what
+cared he for the actual enemy?--he was but the dummy of possible
+defeat--but with calm will. He meant to disarm this fellow--not to
+hurt him.
+
+The horses reeled against each other, the sword arms were interlocked,
+for Babar, at close quarters, would not let his antagonist break
+loose.
+
+God and his prophets! they would be down! Nor horse nor man could
+stand that boring pressure, that invincible strength. Wrist against
+wrist; and beneath them struggling legs and tails and fear-snorting
+crests!
+
+There! over!--A confused heap upon the ground, but Babar uppermost
+with two swords in his hand.
+
+A shout of triumph rose from the five hundred. But as the discomfited
+champion rode back without his sword, another rode forward to take his
+place.
+
+This was not in the bond; still Babar, checking his laboured breaths
+to more even rhythm, threw away the second sword and sprang to his
+horse, which had risen unhurt but dazed.
+
+"Come on, friend!" he shouted; "I am ready!"
+
+This was a very different sort of adversary. A lean, ewe-necked horse,
+a nimble, dapper, little swordsman with a blade like a razor, who
+buzzed and wheeled, and settled and fled again like a hungry mosquito.
+
+Babar with his half-dazed horse was at a disadvantage for a time and
+the razor-like edge caught him on the little finger once. But only
+once. The next instant in one furious charge, a back-hander with the
+flat of the sword had sent the King's antagonist spinning from his
+saddle like a tee-totum.
+
+So it was with five champions, one after the other.
+
+Babar more and more weary, yet more and more triumphant in fierce
+vitality with every victory, unhorsed, disarmed, or routed every one
+of them. Raising a laugh, indeed, in his own favour when Yakûb-Beg,
+last but one, escaped by hard riding from the rain of pitiless blows
+which fell instead on his horse's rump, urging it to greater speed.
+
+Only once did sheer merciless anger leap to Babar's eyes, and that was
+when Nâzir, the Usbek, letting go his horse's bridle during a
+close-locked tussle of sword arms, drew a dagger with his left hand
+and would have plunged it in his adversary's heart.
+
+Then, with one wild cry of rage, Babar's hand left his sword, clipped
+his adversary round the middle, literally tore him from his horse and
+flung him head downwards on the ground, where he lay unconscious, the
+dagger still in his hand, the blood oozing from his nose and ears.
+
+"Take the carrion away," shouted the young champion, breathless, "and
+come on, if there be any more."
+
+But there were none ready for personal combat; so the battle began.
+
+It was one of Babar's best battles--at least in his own opinion. And
+it was the prelude to many another, in every one of which Babar drove
+home his lesson of sheer courage. Finally Abdul-Risâk fell into his
+hands, and from that moment there was peace; since folk could
+withstand the King's prowess, but they were helpless beneath his
+magnanimity.
+
+To be forgiven, not grudgingly or of necessity, but with open-hearted
+friendliness, was disarmament pure and simple; for all but Moghuls.
+And the Horde in this instance, disgusted at defeat, took abrupt
+French leave. Abdul-Risâk also, ever a weakling, had the gratitude and
+good taste to die comfortably and conventionally ere long, so Kâbul
+was left at peace.
+
+Such peace as Babar's life had never known before. He was in the
+plenitude of his manhood, his strength, and, even after all these
+years, the imagination warms to the picture of his glad content. A
+trifle flamboyant, perhaps, he may have been in his consciousness of
+virtue, in his very successes. But nothing came amiss to his happy
+nature. The plants he planted throve, the flowers he loved blossomed,
+he was as keen over repairing a ruined aqueduct as he had been over
+taking a fort. He knew the name of every bird and beast in his
+kingdom; he learnt their habits, when and where they are to be caught.
+He tells of the strange migration of fishes, and with keen
+appreciation of the pathos and poetry hidden in the tale, how the
+flights of summer birds are driven in stormy weather against the chill
+glaciers of the Hindu-Kush Mountains and perish in their thousands.
+Then he interests himself in his people. Knows the race of which they
+come, the language they speak, and the superstitions in which they
+believe. And he is stern over some of these. There is a celebrated
+rocking tomb much frequented by pilgrims of which he discovers the
+trick and visits his hot wrath on the manipulators, daring them to
+repeat the imposture; for deceit is the one thing he cannot forgive.
+
+So during the next three years, not only peace, but happiness reigned
+at Kâbul. Humâyon grew and flourished. A daughter and then a son were
+born, and Mahâm remained the anchor to which Babar's versatile,
+volatile, affectionate nature was moored. A woman of education, of
+natural talent, she could enter into that side of his life from which
+the majority of his companions were shut out; and between the two
+there was always the inward and spiritual tie of which the Crystal
+Bowl was the outward and visible manifestation.
+
+There was another soul, however, which touched Babar in a lower plane.
+Sultan Said Khân, his cousin, the son of the dead and dispossessed
+younger Khân of Outer Moghulistân, sought refuge at Kâbul, and there
+sprung up between the two young men perfect love, accord, and trust.
+
+"The two-and-a-half years I spent as exile in Kâbul," writes this same
+Said Khân, "were the freest from care or sorrow of any I have
+experienced, or am likely to experience. I lived on friendly terms
+with all, welcomed by all. I never had a headache (except from the
+effects of wine) and never felt sad (except on the account of the
+ringlets of some beloved one)."
+
+But Babar himself still abstained from wine, or at any rate from
+intoxication. Love had stepped in at Herât to keep him from yielding
+to the first of Said Khân's temptations, and the other form of
+amusement was never to his liking.
+
+Then there was another refugee who forty years afterwards sets
+down his impressions of Kâbul and its King. This was Haidar, yet
+another cousin, ten-year-old-orphan, whose father had been that
+Doghlat-commoner rebel of two years back.
+
+What matter? His mother had been a maternal aunt. That was enough for
+Babar. Besides the poor child had no other protector.
+
+His welcome must have made a vivid impression on Haidar, for, as one
+reads, the scene rises before one. The timid child wrapped in the one
+old shawl which the forlorn party of refugees possessed, attempting to
+kneel at the feet of that glorious figure with life or death in its
+hands. The merry laugh, the swift stoop to catch up the child and hold
+it close with comforting words. Then afterwards, the elegant mansion,
+its rooms all spread with many coloured carpets and soft cushions,
+with everything in the way of furniture, food, clothing, servants, and
+slaves, so fully prepared as to leave nothing to be desired in the
+whole building. And afterwards, again, the promises of kindness, the
+threats of severity by which the little lad's love of study was
+stimulated and encouraged. The lavish praise bestowed on any little
+virtue or new accomplishment, the quick blame for anything mean or
+lazy; these were such as most men would scarce do for their own sons.
+"It was a hard day for me when I lost my father," writes Haidar; "but
+I scarce felt the loss owing to the kindness of the Emperor."
+
+"Have a care, youngster," he would say when, study time over, young
+Haidar came as usual to play with Baby Humâyon. "He is smaller than
+thou art. Never be rough with weaklings. 'Tis not their fault. God
+made them so. And he is thy cousin, likewise."
+
+"But Humâyon holds his own already," said Mahâm, proudly. "There is no
+boy of his age in the court can come nigh him."
+
+Babar laughed and put his arm round her. "Yea! Yea! little mother! He
+is true ph[oe]nix, and we are the happiest folk in Kâbul, which means
+much." Then his face fell, he walked to the arched window-way and
+looked out over the garden.
+
+"What is't, my lord," said Mahâm, at his elbow in an instant.
+
+He looked at her affectionately.
+
+"Nothing, my moon! 'Tis only this. The dear mother lies yonder in the
+Mercy-of-God. I would not bring her back, if I could. And little
+Ma'asuma--" he paused--"I would not bring her back either, wife, if I
+could. She was too tender for this world--aye! even for me. So she
+sleeps peacefully--God rest her!--but Dearest-One--" his voice
+broke--he turned away and Mahâm had nothing to say.
+
+That thought was the fly in the pot of ointment, it was the one bitter
+drop in the Crystal-Bowl-of-Life.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX
+
+      "Bring! bring the musky scented wine!
+       A draught of wine the memory cheers,
+       And wakens thoughts of other years."
+
+
+So the months, even the years sped on bringing calm. Sometimes Babar
+felt a trifle regretful over the old storms. The glints of sunshine
+between had seemed, mayhap, the brighter for them. He was now only
+nearing his twenty-ninth year, and yet he felt almost as if life had
+ended for him. He looked round on his growing family, on his gardens,
+his aqueducts, his highly-disciplined small army; all were well in
+their way, but for all that his restless eyes followed the doings of
+Shâh-Ismael of Persia, who, young as he was, a mere boy in fact, had
+dared to send the arch-enemy, the Usbek-raider, Shaibâni Khân, a
+spinning-wheel and a spindle, and bid him if he would not fight, go
+sit in a corner and busy himself with the little present like the
+woman he was!
+
+It had been splendid, that interchange of discourtesies. First of all,
+the Shâh's demand for a treaty followed by Shaibâni's contemptuous
+advice to make no claim for kingship through his mother, who had
+withdrawn herself from the circle of distinction by her marriage;
+since he, Shaibâni, made one through his father, a Sultan and son of a
+Sultan. This was accompanied by a beggar's bowl and staff with the
+script: "In case you wish, as is fitting, to follow the profession of
+your father, I remind you of it and the verse--
+
+
+"'Clasp the bride of sovereignty close to you if you will, But don't
+you dare to kiss her until the swords are still.'"
+
+
+Shâh-Ismael, however, had been no whit behind. Back had come the
+spindle and distaff with the rhyming insult--
+
+
+      "Who boasts of his dead fathers only owns
+       Himself a dog that loveth ancient bones."
+
+
+After that, naturally, there was but one end--extermination of one or
+the other. Which would it be?
+
+Shâh-Ismael, with his thousands of disciplined and heretical
+_kizzilbâshes_, or Shaibâni Khân with his hordes of wild Mongols?
+
+"God's truth," said Babar to old Kâsim who had been ailing this while
+back, "I scarce know which to choose. I hate the Red-caps almost as
+much as the Moghuls."
+
+Old Kâsim's eyes were growing a little dim for the things of this
+world; perhaps he saw those of the next more clearly in consequence.
+"There be good men on both sides, Most-Clement. A flat face and split
+eyes count no more than a red-cap when we have lost clothes and bodies
+at the Day-of-Judgment."
+
+The shrewd commonsense of the remark clung to Babar's receptive brain
+long after the speaker had gone to his account.
+
+"Yea, I am restless," admitted Babar to calm Mahâm. "I cannot help it,
+my moon! I am not made as thou art. There was a book at Samarkand when
+I was a lad that treated of the Great Waters. And it said they rose
+and fell as the moon waxed and waned. So 'tis thou who art
+responsible, sweetheart; though God knows, thou art ever full moon to
+me." And he sat down instantly to write a _rubai_ on that fancy. He
+had not half finished it, however, when news came that drove
+everything else out of his head.
+
+Shâh-Ismael had defeated Shaibâni in full force at Meru; the
+Usbek-raider was dead, smothered in a band of escaping Mongols.
+
+"I must go," muttered the young King hoarsely; "I must go. Samarkand
+is mine by right."
+
+So, with hardly more than an hour's preparation he was off, though it
+was the dead of winter, across the snows to join forces with his
+cousin of Badakhshân.
+
+The fighting fever was on him once more. He could not, he did not even
+try, to resist it. And Mahâm let him go; she was too wise to attempt
+to chain her wild hawk.
+
+"When spring comes we will meet in Samarkand," she said quietly.
+
+He took Haidar, the boy, with him though, because the lad wept and
+refused to be left behind. And right proud was the lad, when at the
+very first fight, it was the opportune arrival of a party of his
+father's old retainers who had come out to join their young master,
+that turned the tide of victory towards Babar.
+
+"Let the name of Haidar Mirza be inscribed on the first trophy," said
+the Emperor smiling; and the boy's blood went in a surge of sheer
+delight to his face.
+
+But, despite the fact that he was able to reach the river, and settle
+himself in some measure of security at Kundez, Babar felt himself not
+sufficiently strong to attempt Samarkand without help. And there was
+none to whom he could apply save Shâh-Ismael, who had already sent him
+a letter containing guarded offers of friendship. It rather went
+against Babar's orthodox grain to ask a favour from a persecuting
+Shiah heretic; but old Kâsim's words came back to him.
+
+Yes! there was good on all sides, and--_pace_ the priests!--a man
+might be an honest fellow in spite of his saying "Ameen" in schismatic
+fashion. For Babar, like many of his like, had no taste for dogmatic
+differences and preferred to differentiate by visible and audible
+signs.
+
+So Mirza-Khân, his cousin, was despatched to Irâk in order to make the
+best terms possible, and Babar, meanwhile, sent for his family from
+Kâbul. The spring had passed to summer ere they arrived at Kundez, and
+Babar, now reinforced by some of the surrounding tribes, crossed the
+Amu and marched on to await events at the strong fortress of Hissâr.
+It was close on eighteen years since he had been encamped with his old
+uncle, Sultan Hussain, upon the opposite bank. Close on eighteen years
+since, one darkling dawn, he, a lad of thirteen, dear old Kâsim-Beg
+and half-a-hundred or so of rough, honest Andijân troopers had ridden
+through Khosrau Shâh's picket, and he, Babar, had lost the Crystal
+Bowl which Gharîb had given him.
+
+And now? He looked across to the frightened girl, the mother of his
+children, in a way the mother of himself, and thought what a
+marvellous thing Life was. Even as he saw it, limited by Birth and
+Death, isolated by those five personal, bodily senses which none could
+say he shared exactly with his fellow, how strange it was to watch the
+compensating balance at work on all things, keeping all things as it
+were to true, perfect level. He looked back over his life and saw that
+balance everywhere, save in one thing. The tragedy of Dearest-One
+remained as ever poignant, unappeased.
+
+"Thou art sad, husband! what is't?" asked Mahâm, fondly. She was ever
+quick to see his moods.
+
+"Nothing, wife," he answered gaily. "Save that today or to-morrow at
+least comes the answer from Shâh-Ismael. What will the red-cap heretic
+reply?--God knows!"
+
+So with a laugh he left her for the cares of State.
+
+But he had scarcely gone before he was back again, white, trembling, a
+gold-dust-sprinkled letter in his hand.
+
+"It hath come," he said brokenly. "It hath come--and oh!
+Mahâm--Dearest-One! Dearest-One!"
+
+He fell at her feet, buried his face in her lap and sobbed like a
+child. She must be dead, thought Mahâm, and to her lips came the usual
+blankly-tame commonplaces of consolation.
+
+"Nay, 'tis not that!" he said, recovering his calm. "She is alive and
+well--and Shâh-Ismael, who hath found her, is sending her back to me
+with all honour--" he sprang to his feet suddenly and raised his right
+arm high.
+
+"Oh, God! may my arm wither if ever it strike a blow against this just
+man, may my tongue dry up if ever it utter word of blame; I, Babar, am
+his servant for ever! There is nothing I will not do for him."
+
+"Does he not desire aught of thee in return?" asked Mahâm when Babar
+had fairly outwearied himself in joy, in confessions of past regret,
+in promises of future content.
+
+"Aye! Yea! he asks much, but not more than he has a right to ask--not
+more than I will give cheerfully. And he is sending men also, Mahâm. I
+shall have an army of sixty thousand! With that Samarkand is assured,
+and, of a truth, no man can deem it a disgrace to own justice as his
+sovereign lord! I hold it an honour."
+
+And he upheld this view of Shâh-Ismael's proposal that if the aid of
+the Persian _kizzilbâshes_ were given to conquer Samarkand, Babar
+should acknowledge the Persian Satrapy as over-lord, against all the
+criticism of his nobles; not that there was much, for it was
+indubitable that without such help Samarkand would remain unwon. And
+Babar had many arguments in favour of this nominal vassalage. To be
+part of a great Empire, was always an advantage; besides the Kings of
+Samarkand had always in the past acknowledged a suzerain lordship. It
+had given stability to the dynasty; and it was of late years only,
+since this dependence had been removed, that Samarkand had been
+bandied from one ruler to another.
+
+When a man is set on a thing, arguments for it grow in the very
+hedgerows; and Babar with the tempting bait of his sister's safe
+return before his eyes, was too full of real gratitude to hesitate an
+instant.
+
+But it was not for a month or more that he was to enter Samarkand
+victorious.
+
+It was a perfect autumn day when, after dismissing the Persian
+contingent, Babar made his triumphant entry. All along the route, high
+and low, nobles and poor men, grandees and artisans, princes and
+peasants, alike testified their joy at the advent of one who had
+already twice before come to them as King, and who had endeared
+himself to them by his kindness and generosity.
+
+The streets were all draped with cloth and gold brocades; pictures,
+drawings, wreaths, were hung up on every side. Such pomp and splendour
+no one has ever seen or heard of before or since. He was received at
+the Gate by the great men of the city, who assured him that the
+inhabitants had for years been longing that the shadow of his
+protection might be cast upon them.
+
+Babar, who was dressed, rather to their regret, in the uniform of a
+_kissilbâsh_ General (which smacked of heresy, almost of unbelief)
+responded heartily, and all eyes followed his splendid figure as he
+rode through the streets saluting the crowd right and left. He was in
+the highest spirits, for he knew that in the very Palace where she had
+been left ten long years before, his dearest sister was awaiting him.
+
+Dearest-One! It seemed almost too good to be true.--God save the man
+who had brought this happiness into his life!
+
+Impatient, headstrong in all his emotions, he would gladly have cut
+short his reception and gone straight to her; but the people would not
+be denied a sight of their hero. If the angels were crying aloud
+"Enter in peace!" and the populace was shouting "God save the
+Emperor!" the least he could do was to listen to them patiently.
+
+So it was nigh dusk before he found himself, trembling with sheer joy,
+in the Garden-Palace and saw before him a tall, slender figure in
+white--
+
+"Dearest-One! Dearest-One!" he cried and was kissing her feet, her
+hands, her thin, worn face.
+
+"Brotherling! Brotherling!"
+
+That was all they said. And then they held back to see each other. She
+saw strength, and health, and manhood such as she had scarce dreamed
+of, even for him; a man of past thirty in the very prime of all
+things. And he saw a woman of nigh forty with streaks of silver in her
+dark hair, upright, tall, but with a weariness even in her joy.
+
+"I am sorry, Dearest-One," he said humbly as he had said to her many a
+time when as a child he had grieved her.
+
+"And I am glad," she replied softly.
+
+That night the city seemed on fire. Flares blazed from every house,
+the flickering lines of countless lights seemed to interlock one
+street with another. Vast crowds surged through them, and far and wide
+rose Babar's praise.
+
+But at the door of a mosque an old white-bearded _mullah_ sat and spat
+calmly. "He wore the accursed red-cap of the schismatic--Wherefore?"
+
+And the folk who heard him looked at each other and echoed:
+
+"Wherefore?"
+
+That was the question. Asked by one to-day, it was asked by
+half-a-dozen the next, by a hundred the week after, when Babar,
+faithful as ever to his promises, had the Kutba, the Royal
+Proclamation, read in the name of Shâh-Ismael as over-lord. A thousand
+asked it when the first gold coin was struck bearing the hated Shiah
+legends. The Emperor, the man they had welcomed, was a heretic. He and
+his army wore the red-cap.
+
+Samarkand, head centre of orthodoxy, became alarmed, began to whisper.
+
+"I am no heretic, but a keeper of promises," said Babar grimly, and
+went on his way. He had become a trifle arrogant, and inclined to
+resent any interference. The Samarkand folk were rude, ignorant,
+bigoted; he would not even try to pacify them.
+
+So the winter passed and spring set in--(the plentiful drops of her
+rain having clothed the earth in green raiment)--and with the warmer
+weather the Usbeks once more appeared like locusts on the edge of the
+Turkhestân desert and the fight for Samarkand began all over again.
+
+And this time Babar with not a wish ungratified, Babar in the
+plenitude of his pride and strength, was forced to flight; for
+religious bigotry is the hardest of all foes to fight.
+
+A horde of _kizzilbâshes_, it is true, was sent by his over-lord to
+help him; but they only made matters worse. First by their
+confirmation of heresy; next by their brutality in murdering high and
+low, the sucklings and the decrepit.
+
+Sick at heart, Babar found himself once more a wanderer; once more a
+prey to the treachery of Moghul troops, from which he escaped one
+night with bare life and in his night clothes.
+
+His one consolation was that Mahâm, Dearest-One and his children, were
+safe with relatives in Khost.
+
+No! he had another consolation; for the man who had set aside wine as
+an enhancement of pleasure, now took to it as a lessener of care. The
+Cup-of-Life for him was filled again and again with the Wine-of-Death,
+and he laughed as he quaffed at its bubbles on the rim. Vaguely, too,
+came to him a sort of disgust at dogmatic creeds. He would sit and
+sing Sufic odes with fervour, and praise.
+
+Perhaps with a man of his temperament, it was only to be expected.
+
+
+      "The wine, the lamp which night and day
+       Lights us along our weary way.
+       Sâki! thou knowest I worship wine,
+       Let that delicious cup be mine,
+       Wine! pure and limpid as my tears."
+
+
+
+
+
+                               BOOK III
+
+                              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.
+
+
+---------------------
+
+[Footnote 3: Kalendars are men vowed to poverty.]
+
+---------------------
+
+
+"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:
+
+
+      "Oh, ye! who left us alone to die
+       'Neath the sultry heat of an Indian sky,
+       Who shirked the labour of life to fly
+       Back to its comfort, its jollity,
+       Lo! you have had your recompense fair,
+       Of joy and delight your proper share.
+
+       But we have struggled to hold our own,
+       Have tilled and laboured without a moan,
+       And God's great mercy a way has shown
+       To patient content as the seed was sown,
+       You in Life's garden God's harvest missed.
+       I gather it here in _Hesht-Bishist_."
+
+
+_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.
+
+
+      "My fever grows each day,
+       My slumber fades away,
+       My pains go on increasing--
+       My patience is decreasing."
+
+
+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:
+
+
+      "The world is his who gives himself to work;
+       Inaction is no fellow to ambition;
+       In wisdom's eyes all men may find repose,
+       Save only he who seeks a King's condition."
+
+
+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
+
+       Good old St. Martini patron of the drunk!
+       Lo! in thy summer thou givest potent draught
+       To warm our cockles ere the world be sunk
+       In winding sheet of snow. This is thy craft,
+       O cheerful saint! to give ere the year dies
+       A euthanasian drink of cloudless skies.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+      "Ah! would I were the morning wind
+       To braid her scented hair.
+       Ah! would I were the noonday sun
+       To kiss her cheek so fair.
+       Ah! would I were the lamp at eve
+       Where she her court doth keep.
+       Ah! would I were the happy moon
+       To watch her in her sleep.
+       My heart is like a famished wolf
+       That licks the frozen snow
+       The while it tracks its quarry far
+       Wherever it may go.
+       From morn till night I follow her
+       But she no word doth deign.
+       Oh! ice chill maid! for pity's sake
+       Give me at least disdain.
+       Wind! make each scented tress unbind.
+       Sun! set her life-blood free.
+       Lamp! make her weary for true love.
+       Moon! bring her dreams of me."
+
+
+"'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
+
+       Death stood among my flowers, his bright wings furled:
+       "This bud I take with me to that still world
+       Where no wind blows, where sunshine does not fade,
+       Yon open rose is yours," he gently said;
+       But I refused. He smiled and shook his head,
+       So empty-handed back to Heaven sped
+       And lo! by sun-scorch and the wild wind shorn
+       Ere eve, my bud, my blossom both were gone.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+[Illustration: "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."
+
+
+"Then there is no hope to save Death," said Babar sternly. He stood,
+his face blanched, amongst a group of Court-physicians, professional
+prayer-makers, astrologers, sorcerers; frail reeds at which anxiety
+caught distractedly in its despair. And they were all silent save a
+priest who mumbled of God's goodness. Prayer remained, said the
+unctuous voice.
+
+But that strong human heart was almost past petitions; it craved
+something more tangible.
+
+"Is there naught to be given--naught that I could do to make God
+listen from His High Heaven? Naught that would mayhap soften His hard
+heart?" he asked sharply: he was thinking of a ransom: many a soldier
+had had to offer one; he, himself, had given a dear one--once....
+
+Some of those who heard, looked at each other. This death to them
+meant little; but here was an opportunity for personal gain that could
+do no harm to anyone. So they whispered among themselves, and greed
+grew to some of the faces that encircled the man, to whose face it had
+never come, once, in all his life. For Babar had been giver, not
+taker. He had lavished all things on his world; he had been
+spendthrift even in forgiveness.
+
+"Is there naught, gentlemen?" he asked drearily.
+
+Then the chief-preacher spoke. "It hath been written, and is, indeed,
+approved, that in such times of stress some Supreme Sacrifice to the
+Most High may be effectual--"
+
+"But it must be Supreme," put in a coarse-faced reader of the stars,
+his mind busy with money, "a small gift will not suffice--"
+
+"Aye," added another voice. "Look, you! It must be the most precious
+possession of a man; that which he holds dearest. In this case I would
+suggest--"
+
+But Babar, who was standing, his back to the light, held up his hand
+for silence.
+
+"Then I give my life," he said quietly, but his voice rang strong and
+firm; for he had come straight from his interview with Mahâm and her
+words had roused every atom of his marvellous vitality.
+
+"Yea! I give my life--for sure there is naught that a man can hold
+more precious."
+
+Absolute surprise kept his hearers silent for a moment. The very
+suggestion in one so instinct with life, made it incredible; then
+dismay came to some faces, disappointment to others.
+
+"Your Majesty!" began his faithful servant, the Wazîr swiftly--"Our
+Emperor's life is too precious--"
+
+"Naught is too precious, friend, to save Humâyon!" came the equally
+swift reply.
+
+"Yea! the Wazîr is right," palpitated one who saw money slipping
+through his fingers. "Some lesser thing, yet still supreme, might be
+found. What of the Great Diamond--"
+
+"No stone can outweigh my son's life. No! I offer myself to God--it is
+all I have." The strong voice rang firmer than ever.
+
+"But the offering must be dear to both parties," put in a pompous
+voice. "And since, by the generosity of the Emperor, the diamond in
+question--whose value represents they say one day's revenue of the
+habitable world--was bestowed upon the Prince Humâyon, it fits in
+double manner the circumstances--"
+
+Babar turned in quick reproof and scorn to the speaker. "Knowest thou
+so little of love, friend? Lo! I am dearer to my son than many
+diamonds. Could he speak now--" Babar's voice almost broke--"he would
+say, 'I am not worth the price of thy life, my father, for it is all
+the world to me.' But he cannot speak! He is in the grip of Death, so
+I have my say!"
+
+And he flung out his right arm as he had been used to fling it out
+when leading on his soldiers to some desperate charge--"Come!
+gentlemen," he said, command in every word, "let us lose no more time.
+It is precious. I will give my all--may God be merciful!"
+
+
+The sick room was hushed. Humâyon lay motionless, unconscious, on a
+low bed set in the middle of the bare, spacious corridor. A physician
+sat to one side holding his patient's wrist, so appraising, minute by
+minute, the fluttering battle between Life and Death. On the other
+side knelt the poor mother; all unveiled, for they had sent for her,
+thinking the supreme moment was at hand, and she had no thought for
+anything save her dying son. Her right hand was stretched out in
+helpless appeal over the loved form which seemed to take up so little
+room amongst the quilts. But her left hand was held fast, consolingly,
+under the folds of a white veil which shrouded another female figure
+close behind her; for Mubârika-Begum, the Blessed-Damozel, was ever to
+the fore in sickness or in trouble.
+
+But Babar did not notice either of them. He stepped swiftly to the
+head of the bed and stood looking down on the face of his dying son.
+Almost it seemed as if he were too late; as if Life had already
+unfolded her wings and fled. Then, with eyes literally blazing with
+inward fire he stretched out his hands, trembling with nervous strain,
+and began his prayer of intercession.
+
+"O God Most High! If a life may be exchanged for a life, and they tell
+me it is so, then I, who am Babar, give mine for his, who is Humâyon!
+Let my strength bear his weakness."
+
+"Husband! No! No! Not that--" moaned Mahâm, awakened to a sense of
+what was passing. But the figure behind her bent forward and whispered
+in her ear--
+
+"Let be, sister! Canst not see that God's mist clouds his brain from
+this world. Lo! Mahâm, both thy dear ones stand before the Throne. Let
+God decide!"
+
+And with a low sob, Mahâm fell on her outstretched arms; she said no
+more; she felt nothing save that cool, tightening clasp of sisterhood
+upon her hand.
+
+The hot sunshine streamed in upon the floor, the distant sounds of
+life outside were dulled to a low murmur as of bees, and on it came
+softly-hurried steps, as Babar, with clasped hands, circumambulated
+the bed solemnly. That he knew was the ritual of sacrifice. Round and
+round patiently, his voice rising above the low sobbing of a faithful
+friend or two ...
+
+"On me, kind God! be all his suffering. May all my strength be his. I
+gave him life once, Most-Clement! Let me give it to him again! Let my
+strength be his weakness; his weakness my strength."
+
+Over and over again; over and over! The fire dying out of the man's
+eyes with the nervous strain, until his very steps hesitated--"On me
+be his suffering! On me! on me!" Then suddenly, through the room,
+thrilling every soul in it, a woman's sobbing ghost of a shriek!--
+
+"He moved! His hand moved--I felt it."
+
+Babar swayed towards the voice. "I have prevailed," he muttered. "I
+have borne it away--" threw up his arms blindly, staggered and fell in
+a dead faint on to sobbing Târdi-Beg's breast. The rest crowded round,
+awestruck, curious.
+
+"He is dead--God hath accepted the sacrifice," they said.
+
+The face of Babar's best friend worked; of that, who could say, but
+for the present it was not true.
+
+"Not he!" he cried roughly. "Give him air! 'Tis but the strain on him,
+and what that has been all these years, fools do not know. Here,
+slaves! Carry him to his chamber! Nay! Madam Mother! there is no cause
+for anxiety! H'st! no noise, you there, lest you disturb the Prince
+who in good sooth seems coming to himself!"
+
+And it was true. The nameless change which comes to a fever face when
+the crisis is passing showed clear upon Humâyon's.
+
+"Her Royal Highness had best stay with the invalid," went on
+Târdi-Beg, "I can attend the Emperor in this passing indisposition."
+
+But a veiled white figure rose quietly. "I go with His Imperial
+Majesty," said Mubârika-Begum. "There is no fear, sister; as the
+gentleman says it is but a fainting fit. The Emperor hath been
+over-anxious."
+
+So when Babar came to himself, which he did rapidly, he found the
+Blessed-Damozel bending over him.
+
+"My son?" he asked faintly.
+
+"The prince is better," she replied. "The fever hath gone--he will
+recover."
+
+Babar gave a sigh of relief and turned his face to the wall.
+
+Possibly the strain had been too much for him, coming as it did after
+long years of steady, hard work. Perhaps he had worn himself out with
+sheer, restless energy. Doubtless those ten years of drink, possibly
+even the four of total abstinence, had something to say to this
+premature break-down; for in years he was but forty-eight. Yet, deny
+it as they would, it was soon evident to all, that he had lived
+through the tale of heart beats allotted to him by Fate.
+
+Humâyon, with the speed of youth, recovered and came to his father's
+bedside; but Babar never rose again. Perhaps he would not have done so
+if he could, for he had a made a promise. He had given his life to God
+in exchange for his son's, and there was an end of it.
+
+But he was quite cheerful. Only to two people did he speak openly of
+coming death. One was Târdi-Beg who stayed with him night and day. To
+him he spoke lightly, almost jestingly, of his long desire to follow
+his example and become a _darvesh_.
+
+"For years--aye! three years--I have desired to make over the throne
+to Humâyon and retire to the Gold-Scattering-Garden! What gay times we
+have had there, friend, with the flowers, and the birds, and the
+children--and our own wits! Now shall I retire to Paradise, and God
+send it be as innocent, as guileless."
+
+And to Mubârika he talked of his beloved Kâbul and his mother's grave.
+"Lo! thou shalt lay me there, lady, for the others have children, and
+thou dost love thy Kâbul also!"
+
+Then he lay and looked at her with kindly questioning eyes, until he
+said, "It hath come to me at times, that I did thee a wrong in taking
+thee, a young girl, from thy tribe. Say, is it so? I would have the
+truth."
+
+Then she spoke softly. "Yea! it is so, Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar
+Emperor of India. Yet was the wrong righted long ago. By sacrifice
+comes life. And my people have lived in peace."
+
+"As we have," he said half-appealingly.
+
+She laid the hand she held on her forehead. "As we have, my lord."
+
+But there was one other wrong about which he was not so satisfied.
+Before death came he wanted to restore Hindal to his mother. And
+Hindal did not come. He had started from Kâbul but had been delayed by
+marriages in his tutor's family.
+
+"I must see him," complained his father. "Write and bid him come at
+once. I need him sorely."
+
+It was the one bitter drop in the cup which he drank contentedly,
+smilingly. He held an audience every day, laughing and joking with his
+old friends over past times, and when evening came he would sit with
+some woman's hand in his and talk of little things.
+
+Sometimes it was his most reverend of paternal aunts, sometimes it was
+even poor Astonishingly Beautiful Princess. And little Ak-Begum
+brought him posies of violets, or, best of all, Dearest-One would sit,
+her hand in his, and both would be unable to say anything because
+their thoughts reached so very, very far back.
+
+And there was always a joke when Mahâm gave him his medicine in the
+Crystal-Bowl-of-Life. It had found its proper use at last, he said:
+for this it was neither too big nor too small.
+
+So the days slipped by.
+
+"Why does not Hindal come? Where is he?" he said fretfully, one
+evening; and they told him that the boy had reached Delhi and would be
+with him in a day or two.
+
+"Who brought the news?" he asked, and when they said it was the
+tutor's son who had come on in hot haste to re-assure the Emperor, he
+bid them bring the messenger up, and a tall, half-grown lad appeared.
+
+"Thy name," asked Babar faintly.
+
+"Mîr-Bârdi," replied the youth.
+
+The dying man laughed, his old boyish laugh. "Master Full-of-fun," he
+translated, "a good name for the companion of my son. Say! how tall
+hath Hindal grown?"
+
+The lad hesitated. "Lo! I wear a coat the Prince bestowed on his
+servant. The Most-Clement can judge by that."
+
+"I cannot see," murmured the sick man impatiently. "Come hither, boy,
+that I may feel how tall my son hath grown."
+
+So with fluttering fingers the hand that had once been so strong felt
+the brocaded coat.
+
+"It is well," he said at last, "but I would that I had seen him. I
+wanted to give him back to his mother myself."
+
+All Christmas Day he lay but half-conscious.
+
+"Baisanghâr," he said faintly, when Dearest-One leant over to kiss
+him. And when Mahâm begged him with tears to drink his medicine,
+he did so with a smile, then thrust the cup into her bosom and
+whispered--
+
+"Lie there, friend, and bring her comfort."
+
+Towards evening he roused and sent for his nobles, and for Humâyon.
+
+"To you I leave my son," he said; "fail not in loyalty to him. And to
+you, my son, I commit my kingdom, and my people, and my kinsfolk. Fail
+not in loyalty to them."
+
+After that he lay silent, with wide-open, smiling eyes. That was his
+farewell to splendid life.
+
+Night was passing to dawn when the end came.
+
+Black fell the day for children and kinsfolk and all. They bewailed
+and they lamented. Voices were uplifted in weeping. There was utter
+dejection. Each passed that ill-fated day in a hidden corner.
+
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+On a hill-side above the town of Kâbul there lies a garden planted
+long years ago by a man who loved his world.
+
+Thither a new world comes to make holiday. The man himself has gone.
+As the white marble slab that looks up into the cloudless sky says
+shortly:
+
+
+          "Heaven is the Eternal Home of the Emperor Babar."
+
+
+But his spirit remains in the endless Spring of leaf and flower, in
+the happy vitality of the Children who still lay flowers to cover the
+words of hope.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of King-Errant, by Flora Annie Steel
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING-ERRANT ***
+
+***** This file should be named 39794-8.txt or 39794-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/7/9/39794/
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
+Google Books (Harvard University)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/39794-8.zip b/39794-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..78b8227
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39794-8.zip
diff --git a/39794-h.zip b/39794-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..846d903
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39794-h.zip
diff --git a/39794-h/39794-h.htm b/39794-h/39794-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f5fea5f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39794-h/39794-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,12463 @@
+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+<title>King-Errant</title>
+<meta name="Author" content="Flora Annie Steel">
+
+<meta name="Publisher" content="Frederick A. Stokes Company">
+<meta name="Date" content="1912">
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
+<style type="text/css">
+body  {margin-left:10%;
+       margin-right:10%; background-color:#FFFFFF;}
+
+
+p.normal  {text-indent:.25in; text-align: justify;}
+.center  {margin: auto; text-align:center; margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:24pt}
+
+
+
+p.right          {text-align:right; margin-right:20%;}
+
+p.continue       {text-indent: 0in; margin-top:9pt;}
+.text10           {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:10%; margin-right:0px; font-size:90%;}
+.text20           {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:20%; margin-right:0px; font-size:90%;}
+
+
+.poem0 {
+  margin-top: 24pt; margin-left: 0%;
+  margin-right: 0%; text-align: left;
+  margin-bottom: 24pt; font-size:90%}
+
+.poem1 {
+  margin-top: 24pt; margin-left: 10%;
+  margin-right: 10%; text-align: left;
+  margin-bottom: 24pt; font-size:90%}
+
+.poem2 {
+  margin-top: 24pt; margin-left: 20%;
+  margin-right: 20%; text-align: left;
+  margin-bottom: 24pt; font-size:90%}
+
+.poem3 {
+  margin-top: 24pt; margin-left: 30%;
+  margin-right: 30%; text-align: left;
+  margin-bottom: 24pt; font-size:90%}
+
+
+
+
+
+figcenter  {margin:auto; text-align:center; margin-top:9pt;}
+.i6    {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; text-indent:-6pt;}
+.i8    {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; text-indent:-8pt;}
+.i12    {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; text-indent:-12pt;}
+
+.t0              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t1              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:1em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t2              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t3              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:3em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t4              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:4em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t5              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:5em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t6              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:6em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t7              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:7em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t8              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:8em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t9              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:9em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t10              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:10em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t11              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:11em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t12              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:12em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t13              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:13em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t14              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:14em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t15              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:15em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t16              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:16em; margin-right:0px;}
+
+
+.quote           {text-indent:.25in; text-align: justify; font-size:90%; margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:36pt}
+.ctrquote        {text-align: center; font-size:90%; margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:36pt}
+
+.dateline        {text-align:right; font-size:90%; margin-right:10%; margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:24pt}
+
+h1,h2,h3,h4,h5   {text-align: center;}
+
+span.sc		    {font-variant: small-caps; font-size:110%;}
+span.sc2		{font-variant: small-caps; font-size:90%;}
+
+hr.W10		  {width:10%; color:black; margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt}
+
+hr.W20        {width:20%; color:black; margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt}
+
+hr.W50        {width:50%; color:black;}
+hr.W90        {width:90%; color:black;}
+
+p.hang1        {margin-left:3em; text-indent:-3em;}
+p.hang2        {margin-left:3em; text-indent:0em;}
+
+
+</style>
+
+</head>
+
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of King-Errant, by Flora Annie Steel
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: King-Errant
+
+Author: Flora Annie Steel
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2012 [EBook #39794]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING-ERRANT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
+Google Books (Harvard University)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Notes:<br>
+<br>
+1. Page scan source:<br>
+<br>
+http://books.google.com/books?id=wNIMAAAAYAAJ<br>
+(Harvard University)</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>KING-ERRANT</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="center"><img border="0" src="images/king01.png" alt="frontispiece"><br>
+&quot;I would the court painter were not a fool,&quot; she said
+regretfully.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>KING-ERRANT</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h5>BY</h5>
+
+
+<h2>FLORA ANNIE STEEL</h2>
+
+
+<h5><i>Author of &quot;On the Face of the Waters,&quot; etc</i>.</h5>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4><i>WITH FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR AND TWO<br>
+ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK-AND-WHITE<br>
+BY THE AUTHOR</i></h4>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>NEW YORK<br>
+FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY<br>
+PUBLISHERS</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h5><i>Copyright, 1912, by</i><br>
+
+<span class="sc">Frederick A. Stokes Company</span></h5>
+
+<hr class="W10">
+
+<h5><i>All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign<br>
+
+languages, including the Scandinavian</i>.</h5>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">This is not a novel, neither is it a history. It is the life-story of
+a man, taken from his own memoirs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, gentleman, apothecary, ploughboy,
+thief</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So runs the jingle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The hero of this book might have claimed as many personalities in
+himself, for Zahir-ud-din Mahomed commonly called Babar, Emperor of
+India, the first of the dynasty which we mis-name the Great Moghuls,
+was at one and the same time poet, painter, soldier, athlete,
+gentleman, musician, beggar and King.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He lived the most adventurous life a man ever lived, in the end of the
+fifteenth, the beginning of the sixteenth centuries; and he kept a
+record of it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On this record I have worked. Reading between the lines often, at
+times supplying details that must have occurred, doing my best to
+present, without flaw, the lovable, versatile, volatile soul which
+wrote down its virtues and its vices, its successes and its failures
+with equally unsparing truth, and equally invariable sense of honour
+and humour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The incident of the crystal bowl, and the details of Babar's
+subsequent marriage to Mahâm (the woman who was to be to him what
+Ayesha was to Mahomed), are purely imaginary. I found it necessary to
+supply some explanation of the curious coincidence in time of this
+undoubted marriage with the pitifully brief romance of little Cousin
+Ma'asuma; for Babar was above all things affectionate. I trust my
+imagining fits in with the general tone of my hero's life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If not, he will forgive me, I am sure. He forgave so many in life that
+he will not grudge forgiveness in death, to his most ardent admirer.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">F. A. Steel.</span></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<br>
+
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_01" href="#div1_01">BOOK I</a></h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Seed Time--1493 to 1504.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_02" href="#div1_02">BOOK II</a></h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Blossom Time--1504 to 1511.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_03" href="#div1_03">BOOK III</a></h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Fruit Time--1525 to 1530.</span></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_01" href="#div1Ref_01">BOOK I</a></h2>
+
+<h3>SEED TIME</h3>
+
+<h3>1493 to 1504</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>KING-ERRANT</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+<br>
+<div class="poem3">
+<p class="t15" style="text-indent:6%">&quot;.... for I know</p>
+<p class="t0">How far high failure overleaps the bounds</p>
+<p class="t0">Of low successes--&quot;</p>
+<p style="text-indent:25%"><i>Lewis Morris</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The fortified town of Andijân lay hot in the spring sunshine. Outside
+the citadel, in the clover meadows which stretched from its gate to
+the Black-river (a tributary to the swift Jaxartes which flows through
+the kingdom of Ferghâna) a group of boys and men were playing leap-frog.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;An <i>ushruffi</i> he falls,&quot; cried one watching the leaper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A <i>dirrhm</i> he doesn't!&quot; retorted another who had a broad, frank,
+good-natured face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There! He's done! I said so,&quot; continued the first not without
+satisfaction, for he was rival for championship.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not he!&quot; asserted the second gleefully as the stumble was overborne
+by an extra effort. &quot;Trust him and his luck! He wins! Babar wins!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Nevian foster-brother's voice was the loudest in acclaim as
+the frog-like figure with wide-spread legs, after successfully
+backing the long row of bent slaves arranged--with due regard to
+difficulty--adown the meadow-path, finally overtopped the last and
+with a &quot;<i>hull-lul-la la!</i>&quot; of triumph subsided incontinently into the
+white clover. And there it lay on its back gazing at the blue sky
+cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was that of rather a lanky boy; to western eyes a well-grown one of
+at least fifteen, with a promise of six feet and more of manhood in
+its long, loose-jointed limbs. But Babar, heir-apparent to this little
+kingdom of Ferghâna was only in his twelfth year. His face,
+nevertheless, was extraordinarily intent, with an intentness beyond
+his years, as he lay silent among the clover; for something had come
+between him and his game, between him and the work-a-day world.
+Something that came to him often with the sight of a wide stretch of
+blue sky, a narrow stretch of blue river, or even with the sight of a
+flower upon that river's brim.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How glorious! How splendid it was--this world in which he, forsooth,
+played leap-frog! The clover on which he lay, how sweet it smelt, how
+soft it was! It was just like a mantle of lambskin, covered as it was,
+till you could hardly see a speck of green, with its white, furry
+blobs of blossom.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A lambskin mantle!--that was a good description!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the sky was like the turquoises that folk brought down from the
+higher hills in the summer when they were not weaving the purple
+cloth, which somehow always got mixed up in his mind with the pale
+blue. Why both recalled the multi-coloured tulips on the mountain
+slopes was a puzzle, except that one beauty recalled another. At that
+rate, however, memory in Ferghâna would be unending, for though it
+was, as everyone knew, situated on the extreme boundary of the
+habitable world, it was abundantly pleasant!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lad's amber-tinted hazel eyes darkened as he ran over in his mind
+the excellencies of his native valley hidden away at the back of the
+Pamirs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Its snow-clad hills clipping it on all sides save the west; its
+running streams; its violets--so sweet, but not piercing-sweet like a
+rose;--its profusion of fruits! Truly, that way they had over in the
+township of Marghinân of removing apricot stones and putting in
+chopped almonds instead was excellent indeed--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Most Mighty!&quot; came a voice breaking in on his thoughts. &quot;There is
+news--bad news!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The voice was breathless, yet full of concern, and Babar sprang to his
+feet, alert in a second. A messenger stood before him; one who had
+come far and fast. And in his hand was a blue kerchief; therefore he
+was a messenger of death.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Death? Incredible in this splendid joyful world! A sudden surge of
+resentful life-blood seemed to stop the boyish heart with its
+tumultuous claim for free passage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot; he asked thickly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The answer came like a blow; dully, yet with stunning force.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your father, O King!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His father! And he, Babar, was King! In the rush of realisation
+incredulity came uppermost.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But how--?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stood there bare-headed, unbelieving, while the others crowded
+round to listen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a simple enough tragedy. Omar-Shaikh, his father had been
+feeding his tumbler pigeons on the scarp of a precipice which overhung
+the steep ravine below the fort at Âkhsi. He had been watching them
+against the blue void, throwing golden grain to make them play their
+antics, when the ground had given way beneath his feet and he had been
+precipitated on to the river rocks beneath. That was all. The little
+group of listeners showed shocked faces, but Babar, even as he heard
+the tale with dismayed grief, seemed to see the fluttering white wings
+of the startled pigeons, to see the startled soul amongst them, taking
+its flight--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whitherwards?--Gone!... Never to be seen again! Yet how clearly he saw
+him now ... short, stout, a bushy beard hiding a humorous mouth ...
+the turban without folds and with such long ends ... the tunic all
+over tight ... how often the strings had burst and how angry he had
+been at consequent childish gigglings ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sudden spasm of remorse for idle thoughts sent the son's memory back
+to his father's kindness ... a good sportsman too, though but a poor
+shot with the bow ... still with uncommon force in his fists--everyone
+he had ever hit had gone down before father's....</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The last word brought memory of a still dearer tie.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My mother?&quot; asked the boy swiftly, &quot;my mother? How--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the real meaning of what he had heard came to him. He gave a
+little short, sharp cry and cast himself face downwards on the
+sweet-smelling white clover.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And all the joy of splendid life passed from him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nevian foster-brother who worshipped him, went over to him and
+crouched beside him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is God's will, sire,&quot; he mumbled mechanically. &quot;Kwâja Kâzi says
+so, and Kwâja Kâzi is a saint.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But saintship did not interest that young human heart, face to face
+for the first time with the deprivation of death.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile those others, the bearded nobles and broad-faced courtiers
+who had crowded out at the news, looked at each other in doubt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What had best be done? The times were troublous. Their new King was
+over-young. The King of Samarkand, the King of Tashkend, his paternal
+uncles, were already on the war-path. The former almost within
+striking distance; and this news of death would hasten, not retard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In such case, might not refuge in the hills be wise? At any rate till
+Kâsim-Beg, most faithful of Governors, and Hassan-Yakoob, wiliest of
+advisers, could be recalled from the front?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But, while they still cogitated, Babar, who even at that age was not
+to be handled, rose suddenly, the tear-stains still on his sun-tanned
+cheeks. His voice, however, was firm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To horse, gentlemen!&quot; he cried. &quot;I go to secure my kingdom!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was on his lean-necked, goose-rumped Turkhestan mare Zulaikha
+almost before the words passed his lips, and ere two minutes had sped
+the low arched gateway of the city echoed and re-echoed to the hoofs
+of horses, as--the riders low bowed upon their saddles--they swept
+through in a stream of tails and tassels. So had it echoed many a time
+to the wild Turkhoman cavalry, since life in those days was one long
+war and rumour of war.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My King!&quot; said Shirâm-Taghâi spurring close as Barbar drew rein on
+the citadel terrace, and laying a detaining hand on his bridle. &quot;That
+way lies death! Thine uncles mean evil! Come with us to the hills.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For an instant the boy hesitated and his eyes sought the distant blue
+of the mountains.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There, doubtless, lay safety--but what of that unknown
+quantity--kingship?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had no ideals of it. He had not even been brought up to expect the
+chiefship. In those days succession was too uncertain for
+anticipation. But it was something now within his grasp. What if he
+lost it?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still the faces around him were anxious and their owners were old;
+they had experience. And he was so young! How young none knew but
+himself. As this thought came he felt inclined to cry out-loud for his
+mother as in his heart he was crying for her loving care.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then from the citadel came a running messenger to bid him enter
+without fear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is a trick, Sire,&quot; protested Shirâm-Taghâi. &quot;Safety lies with us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And others echoed his words; so the lad wavered, uncertain, till an
+old man seated in the sunshine mumbling to himself, his long white
+beard wagging the while, spoke chance words that gave him the clue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whatever happens is God's will, as the saints say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Five minutes afterwards the young King knelt before Khwâja Kâzi, the
+saint of his family, for his decision. He was a thin ascetic-looking
+man whose sunken eyes, hollowed by many fasts, hardened by much
+thought, but softened by the unshed tears of a lonely life, dipped
+critically into the clear, shadowless youth of the hazel ones and
+appraised the character of the young face with its fine-lipped mouth
+that tempered the strong square of the chin. And Khwâja Kâzi knew the
+inside of the boy as well. He had watched him from birth; and lawyer
+and judge by profession, had accurately gauged the volatile, versatile
+vitality which would carry him triumphantly over all the obstacles in
+the leap-frog race of life. But he saw the dangers ahead also, and he
+loved the lad as his own soul; as indeed, despite all his faults, most
+people did love Babar in fortune and misfortune, in sickness and in
+health.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the keen observer noticed how firmly the young hand closed over
+his scimitar-hilt. It was enough for one accustomed to weigh evidence
+and give verdicts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Draw thy sword, my son! and stand firm!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The decree fell on glad ears. The boy was on his feet in a second and
+the war-shout of his race rang through the smoke-grimed old hall.
+Kingship lay before him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As yet, however, the tragedy of death clouded his outlook. His dead
+father awaited burial at Âkshi, thirty miles distant; but ere he could
+start thitherwards many arrangements and new appointments had to be
+made. The novelty of power carried him far from thought. It was
+dream-like to be giving orders when but an hour before he had existed
+solely by the pleasure and permission of his father; as every other
+son in Moghulistân lived in those quaint old days.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was dark, therefore, ere he and his galloping party stumbled over
+the stone causeways leading up to the high-perched citadel at Âkshi.
+Too late to disturb the women-folk, who, outworn by wailing, had gone
+to rest. But a little knot of long-robed physicians showed him the
+dead body of his father, lying ready for the funeral on an open bier
+in the Audience Hall. Babar had often seen death before, but never in
+this guise, with watchers and flaring torches and all the insignia of
+chiefship discarded, before the poor deserted shell of power.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It impressed his emotional nature vividly, and the mystery and the
+pity of it went with him to the dim royal room--so rough in its
+ancient royalty--where his father had been wont to sleep, and where
+the very touch of the royal quilts, surcharged with the personality of
+the cold dead in whose place he lived, seemed to burn in upon his
+young body and keep it awake. Not with concern or regret for things
+past, but with keen curiosity as to what was going to happen in the
+future to one Zahir-ud-din Mahomed commonly called Babar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lineal descendant of Timur the Earth Trembler; also of the Great
+Barbarian Ghengis Khan, was he to follow in their footsteps of
+conquest? Or would he be snuffed out at once by Uncle Ahmed of
+Samarkand? Wherefore, God knew, since he, Babar, had never done his
+uncle any harm. On the contrary; if he lived, he would have to marry
+that uncle's daughter Ayesha.... Here his vagrant thoughts wandered to
+remembrance of how sick he had been from overeating himself on sweets
+at the betrothal ceremonies;--that was his very earliest <i>real</i>
+recollection--when he was five years old.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then there was Uncle Mahmud of Tashkend. Even in the dark the boy's
+cheek flushed at the mere remembrance of him; equally devoid of
+courage and modesty, of unbelieving disposition, keeping buffoons and
+scoundrels about him who enacted their scurvy and disgraceful tricks
+in the very face of the court, and even at public audiences!--of no
+outward appearance either, but all rough-hewn and speaking very
+ill ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lad, always unsparing of epithet, painted the portrait with
+remorseless hand. So his thoughts passed to Mahmûd's sons, his first
+cousins. He knew them well, but Masaud the eldest was a nincompoop,
+and as for Baisanghâr? What was there that jarred at times in
+Baisanghâr? Baisanghâr who was so charming, so elegant, so clever, so
+sweet-tempered?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here the lad's mind passed swiftly, without conscious cause, to his
+own sister, Dearest-One as he always called her; for he was given to
+caressing nicknames for those he loved. And he loved none better than
+the tall, straight girl, five years his senior, who hectored him and
+petted him by turns. But she ought really to get married; it was
+nonsense to say you preferred being a sainted Canoness!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Baisanghâr did not say that, though, he, too, refused to marry. He
+said women were unnecessary evils. Was that true? Not that it
+mattered, since he, Babar, would have to marry, because he was
+King ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">King! Would it make him happier, he wondered? Could anyone be happier
+than he had been in this splendid world? Supposing it was to make him
+unhappy? Supposing it took the charm from life ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The idle thoughts went on and on. He felt sleepy, yet he could not
+sleep. And by and by the glimmering oblong of the unglazed window kept
+him watching the slow growth of light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Out on the hills, the still dawn must be stepping softly so as not to
+waken the world too soon ... soft, sandalled feet among the snow-set
+flowers....</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The mere thought of it was sufficient to rouse him thoroughly. He
+rose, passed to the window, and thrust his young body into the chill
+air of dawn. All shadow! A deeper shadow in the valley, a lighter
+shadow in the encircling hills, and above it all the clear, grey,
+pellucid shadow of the sky.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hark! That was the dawn cry of the wild fowl on the marsh and he held
+his breath to listen like the young Narcissus, while the whole joy of
+splendid life seemed to fill his world once more. He did not
+realise--few humans do--that he was but listening for the echo of
+himself; the self which came back to him from sights and sounds, that
+many a better man might have seen and heard unmoved.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he waited and watched till the eastern sky showed pale primrose,
+and the unseen sun encarnadined the distant snows, and separated the
+white morning mists from the blue shadows of the hills.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a new day, and yonder over the brow of the road were pennons
+and lance-points. The tribesmen were coming to bury the dead, to do
+homage to the living.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a busy day, filled up with long-drawn, intricate ceremonial.
+Bare time for more than one tight clasp of tearless mother and
+tearless son, while that Dearest-One, his sister, stood by silent, the
+tear-stains still on her cheeks. But that did not matter; those three
+understood each other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And old Isân-daulet, his maternal grandmother, had set emotion aside
+also, and, stern old disciplinarian as she was, had bidden him--in
+high staccato phrases which betrayed her effort to keep calm--take his
+father's place as bravely as he could.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he did what he could, though it was a strain upon his twelve young
+years, for the long night had left him feverish and the long day with
+its need for initiative had outwearied him. So that when at last the
+ordeal was over, and he was free to seek the women's apartments for
+rest, his nerves were all a-rack, his pulse fast and irregular.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He found his grandmother alone by the big coal fire. Mother and
+sister, outwearied also, had gone to bed; the best place, the old lady
+said oracularly, for sore eyes and broken hearts. And Babar felt it
+was better so. The company of the stern-featured, soft-hearted old
+woman of whose sagacity and clear-sightedness he stood somewhat in
+awe, would be more bracing than the tears which must come sooner or
+later.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">People said he was like his grandmother. Was he, he wondered, as he
+lay prone on the sheepskin rug watching the firelight on her fine old
+face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tell me!&quot; he said suddenly, &quot;the tale of thy youth--of Jaimal and the
+lover who was slain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Isân-daulet, though she smiled, shook her wise old head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nay, child! Such tales do to stir phlegm. They are not meet when the
+humours are already disturbed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The boy leaned over on his elbows and looked up at her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Like cures like by comparison! 'Twould steady my pulse to know others
+throbbed. Feel mine, Grandam--how it beats!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She took the thin, muscular wrist held out to her and appraised it
+judicially.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will give thee a purge the morrow's morn,&quot; she said shortly. &quot;That
+will keep thy head cooler than idle tales; there is nothing for hot
+boy's blood like a purge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar's face showed obstinate yet whimsical. &quot;I will not take it,
+<i>nanni</i>, if thou wilt not tell--so there! And Kings are not to be
+coerced, see you, by black draughts, as mere boys are. And 'tis the
+first boon I have asked from thee--<i>as I am</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The ring of almost apprehension in the last words was too much for the
+old woman, who loved the lad as the apple of her eye. She laid her
+hand caressingly on the boy's hair. It was cut, Florentine fashion, to
+the ears, and the ends, outsweeping in a gentle curve were sun-burned
+browner than the rest of the dark head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is little to tell, sweetheart, save that it shows how even
+womanhood may confound strength by being resolute. It was not many
+years after my lord, your grandfather, married me in my father the
+Khân's tents upon the Steppes. He was a bold, brave man, was my lord,
+and like all bold, brave ones, he fought sometimes and won, and
+sometimes he fought and lost. 'No battle is ended save by Death,'
+remember that, O! Zahir-ud-din Mahomed! And once when he lost, his
+women--I was one--fell into the hands of Jaimal Shaikh, his enemy.
+And he--low-bred hound who knew not the first principles of
+politeness!--did not even keep me for himself!--I was not ill-looking
+in those days, my child--but sent me to his officer. I, the wife of
+Yunus Khân, Chagatâi, of the house of Timur the Earth Trembler! Well!
+the fool came decked as for a bridal with blandishments and perfumes,
+and I welcomed him. Wherefore not? for the supper was good and he
+played on the lute passably. But when that was over, and we withdrew
+smiling to the inner room, my maids locked the door by my orders,
+stabbed the silly rake to death and flung his be-scented body through
+the window to the gutter. 'Twas its proper place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old voice which had gained strength and fire in the recital,
+dropped to cold, hard finality.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And Jaimal Shaikh?&quot; queried Babar unwilling to lose a word.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He sent for me and I went. 'Why hast thou done this evil thing?' he
+asked. 'Because thou didst worse,' I answered. 'Because thou sentest
+me, the wife of a living man, to another's embrace. Therefore I slew
+him. Slay me also, if so it pleases thee.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But it did not please him. 'Take her to her husband's prison,' he
+said, 'and leave her there. They are one flesh indeed.' So I stopped
+with thy grandfather and comforted him until his star rose again. Now,
+get thee to thy bed, child, and see thou take the draught without
+demur. Remember 'God is no maker of the promise breaker.' 'Twill make
+thee feel sick, doubtless; but what matter if the result be good.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar made a wry face and laughed. &quot;Thou hast done me more good with
+thy tale, revered one! Lo! I can see thy would-be lover in the gutter
+and my esteemed grandmother, all beautiful as a bride, peeking through
+the lattice for a glimpse of his corpse--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go to thy bed, child,&quot; put in the old lady, delighted. &quot;There be more
+than pictures for thy sight now; so may the Great Maker of Kings guard
+thee, his creature.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And that night Zahir-ud-din Mahomed commonly called Babar, forgot that
+he was King in sound, dreamless, boyish sleep.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+<br>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;There's a sweet little cherub who sits up aloft To keep
+watch for the life of Poor Jack!&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">In truth, Babar needed such a cherub in the first days of his
+King-ship, for Kâsim and Hussan, his two advisers, fell foul of one
+another. The former, bluff, honest, facetious, a pious, faithful,
+religious Moslem who carefully abstained from forbidden meats and
+drinks, and whose judgment and talents were uncommonly good though he
+could neither read nor write, was for the forward policy. Hussan,
+polished, active, a man of courage who wrote excellent verses and was
+remarkable for his skill in playing polo and leap-frog, was for
+diplomacy. And against these latter qualifications even honest Kâsim's
+ingenuous and elegant vein of wit could not stand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At least in young Babar's judgment. Old Isân-daulet his grandmother
+was, however, of a different opinion, and even Dearest-One, his
+sister, ventured to rally him gently on his choice of Prime-minister.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What,&quot; asked Babar hotly in reply, &quot;is Hussan the worse for playing
+games? Is a man the worse for doing all things well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nay! but rather the better--so be it that they be men's things,&quot; she
+replied, going on imperturbably with the embroidery of a new pennon
+for her brother. It was green and violet, his favourite colours, and
+she was scrolling a text on it in crinkled gold. As she sat in the
+sunshine on the flat roof of the citadel, her bare head gleaming brown
+in the glare of light, her mourning garment of dark blue short in the
+sleeves and low at the neck showing her wheat-coloured skin, she was a
+pretty creature, though her nose was too long, her chin too short for
+real beauty: that lay in her eyes, amber-tinted like her brother's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Man's things! What be man's things?&quot; argued Babar irritably. &quot;Is
+cousin Baisanghâr no man because he could help thee embroider two
+years agone?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The princess held her head very high. It was not nice of her brother
+to import strange young men into the conversation, and distinctly mean
+of him to mention that old breach of etiquette. Had she not heard
+enough of it from her mother, ever since? Luckily grandam Isân-daulet,
+being desert-born, had not been so shocked, or life would have been
+unendurable. And as for Baisanghâr! Everyone knew he was not at all a
+proper young man, though he was so charming, so sweet-tempered, so ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! brother!&quot; she said with asperity, checking her vagrant thoughts,
+&quot;if one fool shook a baby's rattle better than another, he would be
+wise man to thee. But 'tis not I only who find leap-frog Hussan a
+smooth-tongued hypocrite. Grandmother has her eye on him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then can no harm happen,&quot; said the boy-King cheerfully, rising,
+however, with suspicious alacrity as if to escape from the subject. In
+truth he was somewhat afraid of old Isân-daulet though he tried to
+minimise his awe by asserting that very few of her sex could equal her
+in sagacity!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Events, however, had marched with great rapidity, and Sultan Ahmed,
+his uncle, was now with his army but sixteen miles from Andijân.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So something must be settled. Kâsim was for defiance and defence,
+Hussan for diplomatic and dutiful submission; since the King of
+Samarkand was, ever, indubitably suzerain-lord of Ferghâna.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Words against works,&quot; quoth honest Kâsim, who loved to be
+epigrammatic. His experience told him that if you fought fair you
+failed at times, but in the end you came out top dog in the general
+scrimmage of claims and clans.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nay!&quot; retorted Hussan, &quot;I desire diplomacy, not dare-devil disregard
+of common precautions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar, however, frowned at both as he sat listening to the council of
+war or peace. He favoured neither pugnacity nor deceit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look you, gentlemen,&quot; he said, frowning. &quot;All admit my Uncle Ahmed to
+be a fool whom fools lead by the nose; but is that cause why I should
+treat him foolishly, and so disgrace myself? I will neither fight nor
+yield till I have made him understand how the matter lies. So, let a
+scribe be brought and I will indite him a letter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No letter ever did any good,&quot; grumbled illiterate Kâsim.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Especially if it be not received nor read,&quot; suggested Hussan
+sardonically. &quot;The King of Samarkand is supreme and may refuse aught
+but a personal interview.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kâsim shot furious glances: such talk savoured to him of treason; but
+Babar only looked gravely from one adviser to the other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So be it,&quot; he said cheerfully. &quot;If he refuse reception or
+understanding, then--if so it pleases God--I can defeat him at my
+leisure. Meanwhile write thus, O scribe!--with all proper titles,
+compliments and reverences--'I, Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar, rightful
+heir, and <i>by acclaim</i> (underline that, scribe!) of this Kingdom of
+Ferghâna, do with courtesy and reasonableness point out that it is
+plain that if you take this country you must place one of your
+servants in charge of it, since you reign at Samarkand. Now I am at
+once your servant and your son. Also I have a hereditary right to the
+government. If therefore you entrust me with this employment, your
+purpose will be attained in a far more easy and satisfactory way than
+by fighting and killing a number of people (and horses) needlessly.
+Wherefore I remain your loyal feudatory Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He beamed round on the council for approval of this logical argument,
+then added hastily, &quot;And, scrivener! put 'Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar'
+large; and 'King of Ferghâna' larger still at the very end. That will
+show him my intentions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If it did, the effect was poor: for though the letter was duly
+engrossed on silk paper sprinkled with rose-essence and gold-dust,
+enclosed in a brocade bag, and sent to the invading camp at Kâba,
+the only answer to its irrefutable logic was a further advance of
+spear-points and pennons to within four miles of the citadel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kâsim was jubilant. Jocose and bellicose he routed out armouries for
+catapults, and kept long files of men busy in passing up stones from
+the river bed, while forage parties raided the bazaars for provisions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If there was to be a defence it must be the longest on record, even if
+it were unsuccessful in the end.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar himself donned mail and corselet for the first time. But he
+discarded the latter soon; it made him, he said, feel like a trussed
+pheasant, and he preferred the wadded coatee which would turn most
+scimitar cuts. It made him look burly as he strode round the ramparts,
+so that the sentries smiled to themselves and felt a glow at the heart
+remembering how young he was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The stoutness, resolution, and unanimity of his soldiers and subjects
+to fight to the last drop of their blood, the last gasp of their life,
+without yielding, filled the boy with unmixed admiration. It was part
+of the general splendidness of things which almost dazzled him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My younger troops display distinguished courage,&quot; he said gravely,
+and Kâsim hid a smile with difficulty as he replied, &quot;They have youth
+in their favour, Most Excellent. It is a great gift.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he went out and roared over the joke on the ramparts to the
+sentries' huge delight. When next the young King went his rounds,
+smiles greeted him everywhere. He was a King to be proud of, and his
+family was worth fighting for--all of them! Especially the tall, slim
+figure with close-drawn veil which would often accompany the King at
+dusk. For Dearest-One was keenly interested in things militant, and
+was free to come and go, as the Turkhi women were, with due
+restrictions. And these were few in Babar's clan, which, as
+Grandmother Isân-daulet would boast, was &quot;desert born.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But, after all, the preparations were unnecessary. The little cherub
+intervened, rather to the boy's chagrin, though he admitted piously
+that Providence in its perfect power and wisdom had brought certain
+events to pass which frustrated the enemies' designs, and made them
+return whence they came without success, and heartily repenting them
+of their attempt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An exceedingly satisfactory but at the same time a disappointing end
+to his first chance of a real fine fight; and he watched one reverse
+after another overtake his foes on the other side of the Black-river
+with almost sympathetic eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is a murrain amongst their horses now,&quot; reported the chief
+farrier one day, &quot;my sister's son who is in service with the
+Samarkandis crept over last night to beg condiments for Prince
+Baisanghâr's charger which is down--the same that the Most Excellent
+gave him three years agone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Baisanghâr?&quot; echoed Babar hurriedly. &quot;I knew not that he was--amongst
+mine enemies!&quot; Then he paused, and reason came to him. &quot;Likely he is
+with his father of Tashkend who hovers on the edge of invasion, and
+hath ridden over--there is no harm in that. What didst give the
+fellow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The farrier laughed. &quot;A flea in his ear, Most Clement! A likely story,
+indeed, that I should help our enemies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar frowned and turned away. &quot;'Twas a good horse, poor beast,&quot; he
+murmured. And afterwards, he went over to the women's quarters, and,
+as his wont was, retailed the story to those three, Isân-daulet, his
+mother and Dearest-One. The grim old Turkhoman lady was sympathetic
+about the horses, as a daughter of the Steppes must needs be, but
+stern over the necessities of war. His mother, more soft-hearted than
+ever by reason of her mourning, wept silently. But Dearest-One, was,
+as ever, a joy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I would bastinado the farrier,&quot; she said vindictively. &quot;The poor
+brute; and then think of cousin Baisanghâr. He loved the horse!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her beautiful eyes flashed and yet were melting, her long brown
+fingers gripped her embroidery closer yet more caressingly. Her
+brother sate and looked at her admiringly, yet with a certain
+diffidence. Sometimes Dearest-One went beyond him; she seemed to
+unfold wings and skim away into another world. And when he asked her
+whither she went, she would smile mysteriously and say:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou wilt unfold thy wings also, some day, O little-big-one, and find
+a new world for thyself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was little leisure now, however, for aught but watch and ward.
+Any moment of the day or night might bring assault; but the days
+passed and none came. And then one morning broke and showed a smaller
+camp than had been on the low lying river bank the night before; there
+was a bustle, too, about the still-standing tent pegs, and with the
+first glint of sunlight one Dervish Mahomed Turkhâu rode over the
+narrow bridge and demanded, on the part of his master, an audience
+with Hussan. Old Kâsim looked daggers, but there was no objecting. By
+virtue of his position as Prime-minister Hussan was the man to go, and
+he went. So out in the Place-of-Festivals beyond the gates, they met
+and parleyed: thus patching up a sort of peace, as Babar reported
+contemptuously to his faithful three. He was intensely disgusted and
+disappointed, while Kâsim looked sorrowfully at his piles of stones.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They will do for next time,&quot; he said finally, cheering himself up
+with the remembrance that there were many other claimants to the
+throne of Ferghâna to be reckoned with besides Sultan Ahmed. And by
+evening most of the garrison had found solace for their disappointment
+in overeating themselves, after the disciplined rations which
+Kâsim-Beg, mindful of the possibility of a long siege, had already
+ordained; but Babar and his foster-brother Nevian were out all day on
+their little Turkhoman horses, chasing the white deer and shooting with
+their bows and arrows at a cock pheasant or two.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They brought home one in the evening which, as the boy boasted, was so
+fat, that four men could have dined on the stew of it!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Twill do for our dinner anyhow,&quot; said Babar's mother, and
+thereinafter she and Isân-daulet bullied cooks and scullions and
+gently quarrelled with each other for a good two hours over the proper
+family recipe for making &quot;<i>ishkânah</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And afterwards they sat together in an arched sort of balcony
+vestibule between the women's apartments and the men's rooms and
+talked happily, yet soberly of the future. Old Isân-daulet indeed,
+waxed prophetic. &quot;See you, my sons-in-law will come to harm, not good.
+Ahmed has had to renounce his evil desires. Mahmûd will have to do the
+same; and let them pray God He send not punishment also.&quot; And she
+pursed up her thin lips and looked as if she knew something.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the Khânum, Babar's mother, said little; her heart was still
+sad and she crept away early to her bed, followed after awhile by
+Isân-daulet, leaving stern injunctions on Dearest-One not to sit up
+over-long.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So brother and sister were left alone, and she went and sat beside him
+as he dangled his legs over the parapet of the balcony; for he dearly
+loved looking down from a height. It was to be a dark night so he
+could see little even of the roofs below, or the slabs of stone let
+into the wall at intervals to form a sort of ladder by which a bold
+man could climb from one to the other. And beyond, all was shadow,
+darker in some places than others. Besprinkled too with stars: the
+moving star or two of a lantern in the earth-shadow, but in the sky
+those changeless, changeful beacons, those twinkling tireless stars,
+motionless in their constellations, yet ever moving on and on ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Round what?...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look!&quot; he cried suddenly, &quot;the scimitar of the Warrior is sheathed in
+the hills--my hills!&quot;--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And it was so. Orion shone to the north, setting slowly behind the
+mighty rampart of shadowed mountains in which the starry sword was
+already hidden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They sat silent for a little while, hand in hand, like the children
+that they were. And then suddenly a noise below them, made Babar swing
+his legs to the ground and stand firm before his sister.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who goes?&quot; he asked and his voice rang through the darkness; but no
+answer came.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Twas a falling stone, methinks,&quot; said his sister carelessly; yet
+even as she spoke she also sprang to her feet, every atom of her, soul
+and body alert for something, she scarce knew what.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She knew, however, in a second, for a darker shadow showed vaguely at
+the end of the balcony, vaulted lightly over the parapet, and a
+pleasant voice said gaily--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mirza Baisanghâr of the House of Timur, cousin to the King of
+Ferghâna, at your service.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Baisanghâr!&quot; echoed Babar. &quot;How camest thou?--&quot; then, even in his
+confusion remembering, as he generally did, <i>les convenances</i> for
+others he added: &quot;Thou hadst best retire, my sister, after making thy
+appropriate salutation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, for one second the girl's eyes straining through the starlight
+could see her cousin. A charming figure truly! Not dressed, like her
+brother, in country clothes, but in the silks and satins of the town.
+A dainty figure too, of middle height and slender make, yet manly
+withal. The round face, unlike the faces of his cousins, showing
+Turkhoman descent unmistakably, yet with such indescribable
+attractiveness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May the Peace of the Most High be upon you, my cousin,&quot; she said
+softly and her voice fluttered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And may His Peace remain with you, fair lady,&quot; he replied gravely,
+with the finest of Court salutes. That was all; then she withdrew and
+the shadows hid her going.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By my soul, Baisanghâr,&quot; said Babar joyously, when he had seated
+himself and his cousin side by side among the cushions, &quot;I am utterly
+rejoiced to see thee again; though how, or wherefore thou camest--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Prince Baisanghâr interrupted him with a light laugh. &quot;How, sayest
+thou? By the roof of course; have I not been in Andijân before? and
+did I not once climb hitherwards--but of that, no more! Only thou wilt
+have to set thy masons to work, coz; for by God's truth my foothold
+was but rotten more than once. Sure I must be born to the bowstring
+since sudden death will not have me elseways! Yet of all seriousness,
+I
+came nigh to being dashed to pieces. And as for wherefore? Sure I came
+in duty bound to thank my kingly cousin for his courteous gift of
+horse-medicine. Aye! and for my horse too--for the second time--since,
+thanks to the drugs, he is alive and kicking.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar sat back. &quot;Horse-medicines?&quot; he echoed. &quot;What horse-medicine?--I
+sent thee none.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Baisanghâr turned his head instantly to the darkness, and his voice
+rose perceptibly. &quot;Yet it came from thee, my cousin,&quot; he replied
+blandly, &quot;with thy salutations. In a packet of silken paper--such as
+ladies use for their trinkets, and tied with crinkled gold-thread such
+as ladies use--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea! it was I, Mirza Baisanghâr,&quot; came a voice from the darkness; a
+voice clear, unabashed. &quot;I sent it--I, the Princess Royal, so
+there is no need for fine wit to beat about the bush. I sent it,
+because--because my brother the King gave thee the horse and I was
+loth--loth it should die.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The voice trailed away faintly, and Mirza Baisanghâr's eyes brimmed
+over with soft mirth; while Babar, forgetful of all save outraged
+etiquette, said sternly:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sister! and I told thee to go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I went,&quot; retorted the voice rebelliously, &quot;so far as eyesight
+goes. None can see me and 'tis the woman's right to listen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Prince Baisanghâr laughed aloud. &quot;By the prophet! she speaks truth,
+coz; ladies have the law of listening all over the world; aye! and of
+speaking too. So let be, since we are cousins and free-born Chagatâi
+of the house of Ghengis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar stickled. &quot;Aye, <i>we</i> are; but thou art not--not on thy
+mother's side.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My mother!&quot; echoed Baisanghâr, his voice full of amusement. &quot;Lo! I
+admit it! On my mother's side I am beyond salvation, being of the wild
+Horde-of-Black-Sheep! for which may God forgive me since 'tis not my
+fault I was not born a White-Lamb!&quot; He named the two great divisions
+of his Turkhoman ancestry with infinite zest, then went on lightly:
+&quot;But I fail of myself in other ways--many of them. I made an ode
+concerning it, a while past, that sets Baisanghâr Black-Sheep-Prince
+forth to a nicety!&quot; and he began airily to hum a tune.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sing it to us, cousin,&quot; came that sweet voice from the darkness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a moment of silence, as if the hearer were startled, perhaps
+touched; then came the almost stiff reply:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My fair cousin is too kind. The ode as verse is nothing worth. And
+its subject is, beyond belief--bad! Still, since she is Princess-Royal
+and I am but her slave, the order is obeyed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So through the night and out into the stars his high tenor voice rose
+and trilled in minor quavers.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/king23.png" alt="first and third stanzas"></p>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/king24.png" alt="second stanza"></p>
+<br>
+<div style="margin-left:25%">
+<p style="margin-left:3%; text-indent:-3%">1. Some-times with pi-ous-ness I crawl<br>
+To-wards High Heav'n on whit-ed wall</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left:3%; text-indent:-3%">2. Or rest a-while on tree or flow'r<br>
+And dream but on-ly for an hour.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left:3%; text-indent:-3%">3. Back to the dust and dirt I fly<br>
+Where un-sub-stan-tial shad-ows lie.</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The quavers ceased, and there was silence from the darkness; but
+Babar's boyish voice rose cheerful as ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis good, cousin, and, in a measure, true. Yet need it not be so,
+surely. Thou hast no lack of parts. Who is more accomplished, of more
+pleasant disposition or more charming manners?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I came not hitherto to be catalogued for sale,&quot; interrupted
+Baisanghâr curtly. &quot;Of a truth I am admirable. I sing, I dance, I
+paint--yea! I paint uncommon--I could paint one fair lady's portrait
+could I but see her--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still there was silence from the shadows, and a frown came to the
+laughter-loving face. &quot;But I waste time,&quot; he continued, &quot;and I have
+much to say, for thine ear alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He spoke to the darkness, and he waited, his face softening while a
+whispering sound as of light departing feet rose for a space then died
+away in the distance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a good half hour afterwards that Mirza Baisanghâr, who knew his
+way well about the palace at Andijân, came with buoyant step down the
+spiral stairs which ended in a narrow vaulted passage that led to the
+sally-port.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His cousin, from whom he had parted most affectionately, had given him
+the pass-word, so, secure from molestation, he was carelessly humming
+the refrain of his own ode ...</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Back to the dirt and dust I fly<br>
+Where unsubstantial shadows lie.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">The light-hearted, cynical words echoed along the arches and on them
+rose a curious sound, half cry, half sob, followed by a torrent of hot
+denial.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is a lie! It is not true and thou knowest it. Why shouldest thou
+say such things of thyself, O Baisanghâr?--they--they--hurt!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young man stood still as if turned to stone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dearest-One,&quot; he whispered at last, using the familiar name he was
+accustomed to hear--&quot;Dost really care--so much?--And I--&quot; he paused
+and a mirthless laugh rang false upon the darkness--&quot;Princess--I
+cannot even thank thee--I--I dare not--save for the horse-medicines--&quot;
+Here the artificial note left his voice and with a sudden cry &quot;If I
+could--if I could, beloved,&quot; his eager hands went out and found what
+they sought, a lithe, warm, young body ready to his arms. But almost
+ere he clasped it he thrust it from him roughly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go!&quot; he said briefly. &quot;Go, girl--and forget me--if thou canst. Yet
+remember this--if ever woman's lips touch mine, they would be
+yours--but that will be never--never!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next instant he was gone. Dearest-One stood, straining her eyes
+unavailingly into the darkness for a space: then she cowered down in
+on herself and sat shivering, her wide eyes open, fixed. But there was
+nothing to be seen in her heaven or earth: nothing to be realised,
+save that he would not even touch her.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+<br>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Draw near, O Man! and lift thy dreamy eyes.<br>
+See! this the ball; this the arena too<br>
+Where, mounted on the steed of Love, the prize<br>
+Is to be won by him who--God in view--<br>
+Strikes skilfully.<br>
+The Goal is distant; narrow too the Field;<br>
+Yet strike with freedom. God will send the Ball<br>
+Thy hand as sped in faith, where it should fall.<br>
+Backwards and forward strike and if thou yield<br>
+Yield cheerfully.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Grandmother Isân-daulet proved true prophet. Ere forty days had passed
+from that patched up peace, another hasty messenger bearing a blue
+'kerchief of death had arrived at Âkshi whither the court had gone to
+celebrate the late king's obsequies. Ahmed, the King of Samarkand had
+been seized with a burning fever and after six days had departed from
+this transitory world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar was sorry. His uncle, he said, had been better than most. A
+plain, honest Turk not favoured by genius, who had never omitted the
+five daily prayers except when honestly drunk. And that was but
+seldom, seeing that when he did take to drinking wine, he drank
+without intermission for a month or six weeks at a stretch and
+thereinafter would be sober for a considerable time. So there had
+always been periods for piety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The womenkind wept, of course, for blood feuds enhanced blood
+relationships when Death the peace bringer stepped in between the
+combatants. Besides, mourning was already afoot; so they could kill
+two birds with one stone. Even Fâtima Begum, the late King's first
+wife, who, losing her premier position through childlessness had
+retreated in a huff to a separate establishment, joined in the chorus
+of wailing. And she brought her belated son Jahângir--nigh three years
+younger than Babar--to take his rightful place in the palace; much to
+old Isân-daulet's indignation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Set her up, indeed,&quot; she said with a toss of her head, &quot;her and her
+belated brat. Mark my words, had the child been lawful, 'twould have
+come betimes. But when 'tis hoighty-toighty and a separate house, only
+God knows to what an honest man may be made father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still the function was a function, and the ladies enjoyed all the
+ceremonies; for they were simple folk, content with little, and that
+little rough and rude, for all they were Queens and Princesses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar, however, wearied of all save the giving of victuals to the
+poor. He loved to see joy at a portion of <i>pillau</i> and butter cakes.
+Indeed he surreptitiously ordered more sugar for the children's thick
+milk. It made him feel hungry, he said, to see them eat it. And there
+was no better enjoyment in the world than real hunger; provided always
+that food was in prospect. For he was tender-hearted over frail
+humanity. He could not see, for instance, why the Black-eyed Princess,
+his father's last and low-born wife who was, of course, quite beyond
+the circle of distinction, should not be allowed, if it pleased her,
+to discover a roundabout relationship to the family of Timur. It did
+not alter facts. But Isân-daulet sniffed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Twill not alter her manners or her speech anyhow; though 'tis true
+in a way. We be all descended from Adam, as I tell her morn, noon, and
+night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So Babar had to listen to the Black-eyed one's wails; which he did in
+kindly kingly fashion, for he liked the good-natured, stupid, pretty
+creature. He had, however, other things to think of. His Uncle Ahmed's
+death had vaguely disturbed him; for Uncle Ahmed left no male heirs;
+and the question of succession was a burning one, since, by all the
+laws of Moghulistân, Babar had a double claim to the throne through
+his maternal grandfather Yunus Khân.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of a surety,&quot; he said to Dearest-One who was ever <i>confidante</i> of his
+ambitions and innermost thoughts, &quot;there is no doubt that, now, Uncle
+Mahmûd, as brother, succeeds of right. But at his death? Cousin Masaud
+and Cousin Baisanghâr are not so close to Yunus Khân as I. Then Masaud
+is a nincompoop, and Baisanghâr--&quot; he paused.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well! what of Cousin Baisanghâr?&quot; asked the girl hotly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar whittled away with his knife at the arrow he was making--for he
+was ever useful with his hands--ere he replied slowly:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Baisanghâr will never make a king. Wherefore I know not; but there it
+is. He is not fit for it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dearest-One was aflame in a second. &quot;Not fit for it?&quot; she echoed.
+&quot;That is not true. He is as fit for it really as--as thou art,
+brother. Only he will belittle himself! He will talk of himself as a
+shadow--an unsubstantial shadow! It is not true, it is not right, it
+is not fair, and so I told him the other night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar put down his knife and stared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou didst tell him so--but when?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dearest-One hung her head, though a faint smile showed on her face.
+She had given herself away; but she was not in the least afraid of her
+brother. Many youngsters of his age might, from their own experiences
+in love affairs, have been seriously disturbed at the idea of their
+sister speaking to a young man on a dark stair; but Babar was an
+innocent child. To him it would be but a slight breach of decorum. Yet
+something made her breath short as she replied coolly:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I met him on the stairs. It was dark, so he could not see me,
+brother; and I spoke to him as--as a mother to her son.&quot; The head went
+down a little more over the last words; true as they were in one
+sense, she knew better in her heart-of-hearts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And he--what said he?&quot; asked Babar alertly, taking his sister
+completely by surprise. With the memory of that cry &quot;Beloved!
+beloved!&quot; in her mind--it had lingered there day and night--she
+faltered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dearest-One!&quot; said the boy, grave, open-eyed, after a pause, &quot;did he
+kiss thee?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl looked up indignantly, a dark flush under her wheat-coloured
+skin. &quot;Kiss me?&quot; she echoed--&quot;he did not even really touch me--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then, suddenly, she hid her face in her hands and burst into
+tears. True--he had not touched her--he had shrunk from her eager
+body. Why? oh, why?--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar was full of concern. He laid down his knife and arrow, and went
+over to his sister. &quot;Then there is nothing to weep about, see you,&quot; he
+said stoutly, &quot;save lack of manners, and for that thou art sorry. Is
+it not so, dearest?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl's sobs changed to a half-hysterical giggle. &quot;So sorry--&quot; she
+assented, &quot;and thou wilt not tell Grandmother--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The prophet forbid!&quot; cried her brother aghast; &quot;I should never hear
+the last of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Dearest-One's tears changed to real laughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Brother,&quot; she cried, &quot;thou art the dearest darling of all! I would do
+aught in the whole world for thee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nay,&quot; replied Babar gravely, &quot;that will I never ask of thee. My
+womenkind shall have no task to do that my hands cannot compass
+alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He felt virtuous as he spoke; rather uplifted, too, by that same
+virtue. He did not know what Fate held in store for him. He did not
+dream that he would have to ask of her the greatest sacrifice a woman
+can make, and that she would make it willingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile it was gorgeous summer tide, and Hussan played forward in
+the King's game of polo, down in the river meadows. He was the best of
+forwards; the best of men consequently to the boy-King.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou art a young fool, child!&quot; said old Isân-daulet who never minced
+her words, &quot;as thou wilt surely find out ere long unless God made thee
+stupid blind. Luckily mine eyes are open; so go thy way and knock
+balls about after the manner of men.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus it was early autumn ere Babar's eyes opened; but then what he saw
+made his young blood surge through him from head to foot. The
+meanness, the deceit of it! To conspire with the ambassador from
+wicked Uncle Mahmûd at Samarkand who had come ostensibly to present an
+offering of silver almonds and golden pistachio nuts, to depose him,
+Babar, and put &quot;the brat&quot; Jahângir on the throne. And all the while to
+be playing forward in the King's game! It was too much! It was not
+fair! It was emphatically <i>not</i> the game!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Throw away bad butter while it's melted,&quot; said Isân-daulet firmly;
+&quot;Send Kâsim-Beg and other trustworthy friends to strangle him with a
+bow string! Then wilt thou be quit of such devils' spawn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar was a sportsman. Even if it came to killing the forward in
+the King's game, he was not going to do it underhand. So he looked
+round the assembly of loyalists who had met to convince him in his
+grandmother's apartments in the stone fort, and said briefly: &quot;To
+horse, gentlemen! I go to dismiss my Prime-minister from his
+appointment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But that gentleman had already dismissed himself. When they arrived at
+the citadel, they found he had gone hunting; and from that expedition
+he never returned. Someone must have blabbed; for he had posted off to
+Samarkand, rather to the boy-King's relief. It would have been a
+terrible thing to imprison or blind the best forward in the kingdom.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And even when news came that the offender had paused by the way to
+make an attack on Âkshi, and in the consequent <i>mêlée</i>, having been
+wounded in the hinder parts by an arrow from his own men, had been
+unable to escape and so had fallen a victim to the loyalists the
+boy-King was glad that Providence had taken judgment from his hands.
+Hussan had but himself to thank. As the poet said:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+
+<p class="i6">&quot;Who does an evil deed<br>
+But sows the seed<br>
+Of his own meed.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">This was finely philosophic; but it did not quite comfort the
+philosopher. The first actual experience of ingratitude and disloyalty
+made its mark upon him and sobered him. He began to abstain from
+forbidden and dubious meats and but seldom omitted his midnight
+prayers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mercifully, however, the season for polo was past, and Nevian
+Gokultâsh was almost as good at leap-frog as the deceased statesman.
+Nevian Gokultâsh, who, as foster brother, was above the possibility of
+suspicion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Truly,&quot; said Babar one evening, throwing his arm round his playmate's
+neck affectionately, &quot;rightly are thy kind named <i>Gokultâsh</i>--'heart
+of stone.' Thy love is founded on rock, whereas my brother by blood--&quot;
+he broke off impatiently--&quot;but there! 'tis not his fault--he is so
+young--two whole years younger than I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Despite the good-natured excuse which in all his chequered life, ever
+came easily to Babar's kindly nature, he felt the first chill of the
+cold world at his heart. He found to his great irritation and
+annoyance, that his <i>milieu</i> was not nearly so reasonable as he was
+himself. It was the irritation and the annoyance which besets
+capability and vitality. Other folk had not nearly such good memories,
+were not half so nimble-minded, or straight-forward, as he expected.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When, for instance, he sent an envoy to a rebellious chief, in order
+to remonstrate with him, before proceeding to arms, the wrong-headed
+man, instead of returning a suitable answer, ordered the ambassador to
+be put to death.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such, however, not being in the pleasures of God, the envoy managed to
+escape, and after having endured a thousand distresses and hardships,
+arrived naked and on foot, to pour the tale of his wrongs into Babar's
+indignant ears. Urged by wrath at such ill-manners, the boy-King
+proposed instant reprisals, and set off; but a heavy fall of snow on
+the encircling hills and a slight sprinkling on the clover meadows
+warned him that winter was approaching, and his nobles added their
+opinion, that it was no time in which to commence a campaign.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he returned to Andijân and to a boy's life of study and sport. The
+saintly Kâzi was his tutor, and kept the boy to his Al-jabr (algebra)
+and Arabic, and abstruse dialectic dissertations on the nature of the
+Kosmos. There were not many books to be read in Andijân, but Babar
+knew them all. He had the <i>Epic of Kings</i> almost by heart, and used to
+regret there were not more details about the great Jamsheed with his
+wonderful divining cup; Jamsheed who reigned with might, whom the
+birds, and beasts, and fairies, and demons obeyed; Jamsheed of whom it
+was written &quot;and the world was happier for his sake and he too was
+glad.&quot; That was something like a King!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Babar learnt also, in a rude, unrefined way, all the
+accomplishments of a Turkhi nobleman. He could strum on the lute, bawl
+a song fairly, and play with singlestick to admiration. The latter was
+Kâsim's care; Kâsim who was the best swordsman in the kingdom and who
+used to quarrel with the Kâzi as to whether the young student's
+strongest point was fencing, or the fine <i>nastalik</i> hand-writing in
+which Babar excelled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As for sport, the snow falling early brought the deer down to the
+valleys; and the undulating country about Andijân was always full of
+wild fowl, while pheasants by the score were to be shot in the skirts
+of the mountains.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The boy was growing fast and in his lambskin coat worn with the fleece
+inside, the soft tanned shammy leather without all encrusted by
+gold-silk embroidery to a supple strength that kept out both cold and
+sabre cuts, he looked quite a young man; and his high peaked cap of
+black astrachan to match the edgings of his coat and bound with
+crimson velvet suited his bright animated face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dearest-One admired him hugely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I would the court painter were not a fool,&quot; she said regretfully as
+he came in one day from the chase and held up for her inspection a
+cock <i>minâwul</i> pheasant all resplendent in its winter plumage. &quot;But he
+cannot see. When he paints thee he makes thee all as one with Timur
+Shâh and Ghengis Khân--on whom be peace--but I want <i>thee</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In truth it needed a better artist than Andijân held to do justice to
+the fire which always leapt to the boy's face when beauty such as the
+iridescent bird's struck a spark from his imagination and made the
+whole world blaze into sudden splendour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Baisanghâr might do it likely,&quot; replied Babar thoughtlessly; &quot;he hath
+a quaint turn with his brush that is not as others; and he said he
+would love to paint thy portrait--&quot; he broke off suddenly, aware that
+this was a subject which had better not have been introduced. But,
+indeed, there seemed a fate that he should always talk of Baisanghâr
+to his sister. Could it be her fault? He looked at her with boyish
+reproach, but the girl's face was lit up with smiles and dimples.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aye! he said that. Did he say more after I had gone? Tell me,
+brotherling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he walked off in dignified fashion with the cock pheasant. His
+sister thought too much of Baisanghâr. And it was time she married.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He talked to his mother quite seriously about it, and she met his
+anxiety by the calm remark:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why should she not marry Baisanghâr?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why not, indeed, now he came to think of it. Somehow it had not
+occurred to him before. But when he suggested it to his sister she met
+him with a storm of tears. She was never going to marry. She was going
+to be a sainted canoness and pray for her brother. Why could he not
+leave her alone; and Cousin Baisanghâr also, who apparently was of the
+same mind, since, though he was nigh nineteen, he had never taken a
+wife. And, if it came to weddings, was it not high time that he,
+Babar, King of Ferghâna, bethought himself of bringing <i>his</i> betrothed
+home? That would procure festivities enow, if <i>that</i> was what he was
+wanting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From which deft shaft in the enemy's camp, Babar fled precipitately.
+The very idea irked him; he had no time for such nonsense. In fact he
+wearied even of the three loving women who insisted upon consulting
+him by day and by night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But ere the winter was over yet another messenger of death arrived,
+and this one made the boy-King feel like a caged young eagle longing
+for his first flight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wicked Uncle Mahmûd after disgusting Samarkand for six months with his
+unbridled licentiousness and tyranny, until great and small, rich and
+poor, lifted up their heads to heaven in supplications for redress,
+and burst out into curses and imprecations on the Mirza's head, had,
+by the judgment that attends on such crime, tyranny, and wickedness,
+died miserably after an illness of six days.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The women wept, of course, though old Isân-daulet's tears were
+considerably tempered by smiles at her own prophetic powers. Had she
+not said that both the men who dared to attack the apple of her eye,
+young Babar, would suffer? And so they had. And now ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old lips pursed themselves and were silent. But the old thoughts
+were busy. Her grandson was, mayhap, over young to try his luck this
+year, yet for all that he was the rightful heir to the throne of
+Samarkand. In this way: Father Yunus Khân, Suzerain of all
+Moghulistân, had been suzerain also of Samarkand. None questioned
+that. Had not the triple marriage of Yunus Khân's three daughters with
+the King of Samarkand's three sons been arranged especially in order
+to put an end to the Khân of Moghulistân's undoubted claim, by joining
+the two families? Well, one of those marriages had produced no son.
+Mahmûd who had married the younger daughter, had but one son by her, a
+perfect child. But Babar, son of the eldest sister, was adolescent;
+therefore, by every right, every claim, he was the heir.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she was a wise old woman. There was no use being in a hurry.
+Samarkand might as well seethe in its own sedition for awhile. By all
+accounts the Turkhâns were up in arms; and the Turkhâns were ticklish
+folk to deal with. Then Khosrau Shâh, the late King's prime-minister
+was an able man and might be trusted to fight for what he wanted. The
+time for intervention would be when the combatants had weakened each
+other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the shrewd old woman once more proved herself right. For Khosrau
+Shâh, having plumped for the nincompoop Masaud--doubtless because
+he knew that with a nonentity on the throne, his power would be
+absolute--the Turkhâns declared for Baisanghâr, sent for him express,
+and having driven out Khosrau, who had attempted to conceal his
+master's death until his plans were completed, placed the former on
+the throne.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And here another factor came in to the wary old woman's mind. What if
+her granddaughter were to marry Baisanghâr? Babar could lay claim to
+other kingdoms when he was fit to fight for them, and thus there would
+be a down-sitting for both her daughter's children. So, most of the
+affairs of importance at Andijân being conducted by her advice,
+Kâsim's swashbuckler instincts were held in check for the time.
+Something however must be done to occupy the lad meanwhile; and the
+news that his uncle by marriage and cousin by descent, Hussain, King
+of Khorasân, meditated an expedition against Hissâr, the neighbouring
+province, prompted the suggestion that the boy-King should take
+advantage of proximity to pay his respects and make acquaintance with
+the premier prince of the age.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar's imagination was aflame in an instant. Tales of the splendid
+court at Herât were broadcast in Asia. Folk said they had even spread
+to Europe--that dim unknown horizon to which the boy's thoughts often
+reverted. And Sultan Hussain was as his father and his elder brother.
+It was always wise to make the personal acquaintance of such; it
+dispelled misunderstanding on their part, and gained for yourself a
+nearer and better idea of their strength and weakness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So one day at the beginning of winter, with stout Kâsim wrapped to the
+eyes in furs and a hundred-and-a-half or so of hardy troopers equipped
+for a mountain march, Babar started for the low passes by the White
+Hills to the valley of the Oxus river.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have a care of thy soul, my son,&quot; said the saintly Kwâja, &quot;and
+remember what the poet sings:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">
+&quot;The soul is the only thing to prize;<br>
+Heed not the body: it is not wise.<br>
+The wiles of the Devil are millionfold,<br>
+And every spell is a fetter to hold.<br>
+Thou hast five robbers to keep at bay,<br>
+Hearing and sight, touch, taste and smell,<br>
+So chain them up and govern them well.<br>
+Some things are real and some but seem;<br>
+The mundane things of the world are a dream.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">But Isân-daulet sniffed. &quot;So be it that he keep the institutes of
+Ghengis Khân as his forebears did, he will do. They be enough for a
+brave man, and death or the bastinado sufficient punishment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Kwâja looked grave. &quot;Yet be they not the law of Islâm, sister; and
+we, of the faith, are not heathens.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Heathen or no!&quot; retorted the old lady, &quot;my grandson will do well if
+he touch Ghengis Khân's height.&quot; And she sniffed again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Perhaps her words put it into the boy's head, but in this, his first
+flight beyond his hill-clipped kingdom his thoughts were with his
+great ancestors. He rather swaggered it in consequence round the camp
+fires at night, and was overbold in the chase; so that more than once
+on the higher hills Nevian-Gokultâsh had to pick him out of a
+snow-drift. But his dignity was always equal to the occasion, and when
+at last Sultan Hussain Mirza's camp showed in ordered array on the low
+ground beyond the passes, he took it as if he were quite accustomed to
+see the large pavilions, the rows on rows of orderly tents, the
+<i>laagers</i> of chained carts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He held his head very high too, as he rode down the central alley, his
+pennant carried before him by two jostling troopers. The smart
+soldiers, lavish of buckles and broideries, who lounged about, smiled
+at the uncouth troop; but each and all had a need of praise for the
+boyish leader who sat his horse like a centaur and whose bright eyes
+seemed everywhere.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is a gay enough young cockerel,&quot; admitted a scented noble with a
+smile. &quot;Let us see if his uncle will make him fight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But even if Babar had been more pugnacious than he was, sheer
+astonishment at his first interview would have kept him quiescent.
+Even Kâsim-Beg, stickler as he was for etiquette, gave up the hopeless
+attempt at ceremonial.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou art welcome, nephew,&quot; said the old man whose long white beard
+contrasted with his gay-coloured, juvenile garments, that better
+matched the vivacity of the straight narrow eyes. The black astrachan
+cap perched on the reverend head, however, suited neither. &quot;Sit
+ye down, boy, and watch my butting rams! Yonder is the Earth
+Trembler--peace be on my ancestor's grave ... and this is the
+Barbarian Ghengis--no offence meant to thine, young Chagatâi! Three
+<i>tumans</i> of gold, Muzàffar, he smashes the other's horn first butt!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man he addressed, who had been, Heaven knows why, prime favourite
+for years, and showed his position by the most arrogant of airs,
+turned to his neighbour. &quot;Not I; a certainty is no bet for me, though
+by our compact, Excellence, I would get my fair share of two-thirds
+back, if you won! But Berunduk Birlás here, having lost his best hawk
+after bustard to-day, is in a mood for tears, and would like to lose
+gold also.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Berunduk Birlás, the ablest man at the court, shook his head sadly.
+&quot;Of a truth, friend, my loss is great enough to content me. Had my
+sons died or broken their necks I could not grieve more than for my
+true falcon-jinny Brighteyes! No man could desire a more captivating
+beauty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sultan Hussain went off into a peal of laughter. &quot;Li! where is
+Ali-Shîr? Where is our poet? Brighteyes the captivating beauty who
+catches hairs, eh? There is a subject for word-play. Out with a
+<i>ghazel</i> on the spot, friend Ali.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A thin, elegant-looking man with a pale, refined face, got up and made
+a perfect salute. From head to foot he was exquisite, the Beau Brummel
+of his age.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look,&quot; nudged one young courtier to another enviously, &quot;he hath a new
+knot to his kerchief. How, in God's name, think you, is it tied?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The incomparable person paused for one second only; then in the most
+polished of voices he poured out a lengthy ode, deftly ringing the
+changes on the word &quot;<i>baz</i>&quot; (falcon) which in Persian has at least a
+dozen different meanings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A ripple of laughter followed his somewhat forced allusions, and he
+sat down again amid a chorus of applause.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar stood dum-foundered, yet in every fibre of his body sympathetic.
+Here was something new indeed! A new world very different from the
+rough and tumble clash of arms and swords and polo sticks at Andijân;
+but a world where, mayhap, he might hold his own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well done! Well done!&quot; he cried with the rest, and his uncle the
+Sultan nodded approval at the lad.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sit ye down, sit ye down!&quot; he said; &quot;and, cupbearer! a beaker of
+Shirâz wine for the King of Ferghâna!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the life of him the boy could not refrain from one swift look at
+Kâsim's face, Kâsim who was all shocked propriety at such a violation
+of the rules both of Islâm and Ghengis Khân; but after that one scared
+glance dignity came back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your Highness!&quot; he said, with pomp, waving his hand towards one of
+the butting rams, &quot;like my ancestor the Barbarian I drink water only.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A smile went round the assembly and young Babar felt a glow of pride
+that he had not fallen so far short in wit. Thereinafter he sat and
+listened with wide eyes. His uncle was certainly a lively, pleasant
+man; but his temper was a bit hasty and so were his words. Still,
+despite that and overfreedom with the wine cup, he evidently had a
+profound reverence for the faith, since at the proper hour he put on a
+small turban tied in three folds, broad and showy, and, having placed
+a plume on it, went in this style to prayers!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That night when Kâsim was snoring in the tent and the
+hundred-and-a-half or thereabouts of his followers were slumbering
+peacefully, full up of kid <i>pullao</i>, Babar lay awake. He was composing
+an ode for the first time in his life. It was a sorry composition of
+no value except that it filled him with desire to do better.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">In this world's inn, where sweetest song abounds<br>
+There is no prelude to one song that sounds;<br>
+The guests have quaffed their wine and passed away<br>
+Their cups were empty and they would not stay.<br>
+No sage, no stripling, not a hand but thine<br>
+Has held this goblet of poetic wine;<br>
+Rise, then, and sing! Thy fear behind thee cast<br>
+And, be it clear or dull, bring forth the wine thou hast.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:25%"><i>Jami</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="normal">Babar could not tear himself away from his uncle's camp. He lingered
+on and on, watching the military operations with a more or less
+critical eye, but absorbing culture wholesale.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a revelation to him, meeting men to whom fighting was not the
+end and aim of life; and these Begs and nobles of his uncle's court,
+though they were all supposed to be engaged in warfare with Khosrau
+Shâh who was holding Hissâr over the river, for his nominee the
+nincompoop, had yet time for other things.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ali-Shîr, for instance, was wise beyond belief in all ways.
+Incomparable man! So kind, so courteous. Babar profited by his
+guidance and encouragement in his efforts to civilise himself. Thus
+becoming--since there is not in history any man who was greater patron
+of talent than Ali-Shîr--one of that great company of poets, painters,
+professors, and musicians who owe everything to him, who, passing
+through this world single and unencumbered by wife or child, gave
+himself and his time up to the instruction of others.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So far, therefore, as the clash of intellect went, young Babar was
+satisfied. In regard to the clash of arms it was different. How such a
+mighty body of Mirzas, Begs, and chiefs, who, with their followers, if
+they were not double the number of the enemy over the water were <i>at
+least</i> one-and-a-half times that number, could content themselves with
+practical inaction passed his understanding.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When, too, they had such battering rams and catapults as positively
+made his mouth water! There was one of the latter which threw such a
+quantity of stones and with such accuracy that in half an hour--just
+before bedtime prayers--the enemy's fort was beautifully breached. But
+the night being deemed rather dark for assault and the troops
+preferring the safety and comfort of their trenches, no immediate
+attack was made; the result being that before morning the breach was
+repaired.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was absolutely no real fine fighting, and at this rate his
+uncle, the Sultan, would doubtless spend the whole winter on the banks
+of the Amu river, and when spring came, patch up some sort of a peace
+from fear of the floods which always came down with the melting snow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is his way,&quot; asserted Kâsim with a shrug of his shoulders. &quot;He
+leads his army forth with pomp and state, and in himself is no mean
+general; but ever it comes to naught. It is so, always, when folk take
+to rhyming couplets, and putting spices to their food. Give me orders
+that hang together, and plain roast venison.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But all the while the honest man was stuffing his mouth full of lamb
+and pistachio nuts, and Babar smiled. Still he felt that, so far as
+the art of war went, he might go back to little Andijân without fear
+of leaving behind him any knowledge worth the learning. It was
+otherwise with the culture, and he flung himself with characteristic
+vitality into music lessons, and dancing lessons, elocution lessons
+and deportment lessons, until as he entered the court audience no one
+could have told that but a few weeks before, he had been as rough and
+as uncouth as old Kâsim, who stoutly refused veneer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What I am, God made me,&quot; he would say, &quot;and if folk like it not let
+them leave. I budge not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To which uncompromising independence, one pair of hands--delicate,
+long-fingered, ivory hands--gave fluttering applause. They belonged to
+a young man who, almost at first sight, impressed young Babar more
+than anyone he had seen in all his life. He was a helpless cripple who
+yet took his part in life like any other man. Every evening his
+spangled litter would be brought into the big audience tent and set
+down just below the King's. For Mirza Gharib-Beg (who styled himself
+Poverty-prince in allusion to the meaning of his name--poor) was the
+King's son by a low-born woman who had been passionately loved. So,
+despite the fact that he had been born misshapen, ugly, and that
+ill-health had always been his, Poverty-prince still had a hold on his
+father's affection. And no wonder; since, though his form was not
+prepossessing he had a fine genius, and though his constitution was
+feeble, he had a powerful mind. There was nothing, it seemed to Babar,
+that he could not do. He could rhyme with Ali-Shîr, play the guitar
+with Abdulla-Marwârid and paint with Bahzâd. What is more, he could
+talk mysticism far better than Kamâl-ud-din, with his wagging black
+beard, who pretended to raptures and ecstasies and had written a
+portentously dull book about Sufism which he called &quot;The Assembly of
+Lovers&quot;--portentously dull and also profane--which was inexcusable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But when Poverty-prince spoke of roses and nightingales and even of
+the red wine cup, he took you into another world; and he evidently
+believed what he said, whereas Kâmal-ud-din was all pose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet the next instant the thin ugly face would show almost impish in
+its amusement and its owner would burst out with some sally that would
+set them all a-laughing; and him a-coughing for the change of air
+which was to have done him good was doing him harm; though he would
+not admit it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wherefore should I?&quot; he laughed gaily in some anxious face. &quot;A man is
+as ill as he thinks himself--he is all things that he believes himself
+to be. So I am strong, and well, and young, and deeply enamoured of a
+beauteous lady. She is called Feramors--a pretty name,&quot; and he would
+catch up a lute over which his thin, long, ivory hands would flutter
+like butterflies and sing:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">
+&quot;Say! is it Love or Death, O Feramors!<br>
+That hides behind thy bosom's pearly doors?<br>
+I care not, so I reach the heart within.<br>
+Oh! let me in;<br>
+Open the closed doors, O Feramors!&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Truly he was a marvellous person! To Babar, boy as he was, the most
+marvellous thing in the camp. How could he, cripple, suffering, almost
+dying as he was, keep life at bay as it were? How could he sit so free
+of it? He, Babar, with his health and strength was not so independent,
+though he was more so than most, for, almost unconsciously, he set
+himself as free as he could from encumbrance even of thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shrank even from so much as came to him from Gharîb, and avoided
+his cousin in consequence, spending such time as he could spare from
+his numerous lessons, and the watch Kâsim made him keep on military
+matters, in hunting amid the low hills.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it was no use. That dark, curiously be-scented tent wherein the
+cripple lay laughing at life, had a strange attraction for him. He
+took to dropping into it on his way elsewhere, until old Kâsim grew
+uneasy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He lays spells on you, my liege,&quot; he protested. &quot;They tell me he can
+do it to all young folk--so have a care!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Smear my forehead with lamp-black against the evil eye; then shall I
+be safe,&quot; laughed the boy, and yet in his heart he felt the spell.
+And, oddly enough, he liked it. He was fascinated by something in this
+distant, faraway cousin of his; so far-away that it scarcely seemed
+worth while calling him cousin. Yet, as grandmother Isân-daulet would
+say: &quot;all men were descended from Adam!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come in on thy return from the chase,&quot; said Poverty-prince one day
+when he had looked in on the scent sodden tent, a picture of youth and
+strength and health, in his fur <i>posteen</i> and his high peaked cap.
+&quot;And bring thy bag with thee for this lifeless log to see. What shall
+it contain? <i>Imprimis</i>--a brace of chameleon birds. I love to see
+their iridescent necks and the six different colours between head and
+tail--mark you! how I remember thy description, cousin-ling?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar blushed. &quot;Thou said'st thou had never seen them,&quot; he began
+apologetically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Save through thine eyes and they are good enough for most folk. Be
+not ashamed, coz, of the gift God hath given thee. And thou shalt
+bring me a fat deer and some <i>kalidge</i> pheasant--and, with luck, a
+cock <i>minâwul</i>. Then we will look at it with the same eyes--thou and
+I--&quot; A wistfulness had crept into his voice, and he said no more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the curious thing was that the bag was ever just what
+Poverty-prince had predicted, neither more, nor less.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou art a wizard, for sure,&quot; said Babar half seriously. &quot;The
+thought of thy words makes my aim sure at times, and at another sets
+my bow arm a-quiver. Wert thou to say '<i>naught</i>,' I should return
+empty-handed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So be it,&quot; laughed the cripple. &quot;Why should we kill God's pretty
+creatures?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And thereinafter two whole hunts produced nothing. Whether it was a
+fresh fall of snow in the hills that brought ill luck Babar could not
+say, but he looked at his cousin with awe.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou hast more power I verily believe,&quot; he said, &quot;than the Dream-man
+whom Uncle Hussain keeps--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For his amusement,&quot; put in Poverty-prince with a frown. &quot;But <i>that</i>
+is black magic; mine is white. I do naught. 'Tis thy mind that
+answers--&quot; he broke off and his large eyes--the only unmarred feature
+in his face--narrowed themselves to a piercing glance. &quot;Wherefore
+should I not say it, cousin? Has it not struck thee, that had'st thou
+been born crooked and not straight, or had I been born straight and
+not crooked, we should have been as two twins? That is why I like
+thee, and thou likest me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The boy sat and stared at him, almost incredulously. He could not
+imagine his youth and strength pent up in that prison of a body; and
+yet ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes! without doubt there was some tie. Else why should he feel so
+intimate--why should he speak to Poverty-prince of things which every
+decent young Mahomedan was taught to keep to himself; for instance of
+Dearest-One and the possibility of her marrying Baisanghâr?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The blood rushed to his face, however, with shame when he felt his
+cousin's hot, long-fingered, trembling hand close on his wrist in
+quick arrest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Marriage--say not the word! Dost not know? Nay--I forgot thy
+youth--and I will not soil thine ears with the tale. But we in foul
+Herât know most wickedness, most degradations. And there is that in
+miserable Baisanghâr's life that bars marriage with any woman worthy
+the name. Aye! and he knows it--poor maimed soul enmeshed for ever by
+the wickedness of one who should have protected him--May God's curse
+light on him for ever. So think not of marriage, cousin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar shook off his cousin's clasp haughtily. It was not that he
+resented having substance given to his vague doubts of Baisanghâr--it
+was better to know for sure; but interference with his womenkind was
+intolerable. And he had brought it on himself!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By your leave,&quot; he said with terrific dignity, &quot;we will speak no more
+on such private matters. 'Tis my own fault. Such subjects are not meet
+for public conversations.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Poverty-prince lay back on his cushions and kindly raillery took
+possession of his face. &quot;Not meet, sayest thou cousin-ling? Yet are
+they the best half--nay! the three quarters of life. Dost know that
+even to me, cripple, marriage hath played the major part?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar's eyes involuntarily travelled over the distorted body, the
+crumpled limbs, and Poverty-prince laughed cynically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou art right, boy,&quot; he went on; &quot;loathsome to sight and touch, what
+had I to do with weddings. But princedom weighs heavy with the pandars
+of the court. And 'twas done early. Mayhap they did not dream I would
+grow up so monstrous--as I did.&quot; He paused and his pale face grew
+paler, his hot fingers clasped and unclasped themselves. &quot;Mayest thou
+never--nay! thou will not--see fear upon a girl's face. I saw it. Dost
+understand? Nay, thou art but a child still. Thank God! I did. So she
+waits for release by my death. And then--&quot; He paused again and this
+time bright, cold raillery took possession of his face as he said:
+&quot;Thou wilt make a fine bridegroom, cousin-ling, some day! Fair maids
+will not be alarmed at thee!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Likely I shall be of them,&quot; answered the boy stoutly; and it was
+true; barring Dearest-One, the stupid, mincing creatures filled him
+with dismay.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This passed but a few days before Kâsim, who thought his young charge
+had had quite enough of the camp, proposed starting homewards. There
+seemed no prospect of the campaign coming to a close. Quite a variety
+of strategical movements had been made, mines had been dug, forts
+besieged, but the result was nil. And time was passing. Events had not
+been going smoothly at Samarkand, the moment for intervention might be
+near and Grandmother Isân-daulet had sent a messenger advocating
+return.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">None too soon, for the very same day King Hussain's runners brought
+news of a conspiracy to turn out Baisanghâr, and bring in a younger
+brother Ali-Khân.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But he is not of the blood, either,&quot; said Babar hotly. &quot;Kâsim! we
+must go back at once.&quot; The desire for conquest was stirring in him
+once more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The sooner the better, sire,&quot; replied the stout warrior, settling his
+sword belt. He had wearied terribly among the smart soldiers and was
+longing for a real raid once more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To say farewell,&quot; echoed Poverty-prince, when Babar looked in that
+night at his cousin's tent; &quot;I thought it was not to be for a week
+yet.&quot; And his hot hand clasped the cool one with a lingering touch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There was news from Samarkand,&quot; replied the lad, regret tempering the
+keenness which had come to his face with the prospect of action. &quot;And,
+cousin, it matters little--'tis but a few hours' difference--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A few hours?&quot; echoed the cripple, speaking, for the first time since
+Babar had known him, almost regretfully; &quot;that means much to one who
+has but a few days or weeks to live. Not that it does so really, coz,&quot;
+he added, recovering his usual serenity. &quot;And thou wilt spare me one
+of the hours? I dare claim so much of my twin?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The pathetic playfulness of the appeal went straight to the lad's soft
+heart; he fell on his knees beside the cushions, then sat back in the
+Mahomedan attitude of prayer. &quot;Nay, brother,&quot; he said--and there was
+quite a tremble in his young voice--&quot;say not so--I am but a poor
+creature beside thee. Thou art--truly I know not what! Sometimes I
+think an angel from God's paradise--thou art so splendid!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Knowest thou if angels be splendid?&quot; asked Poverty-prince with
+radiant raillery. &quot;For myself I know not--only this--that I shall miss
+my double--&quot; He looked at the lad's lithe limbs, at his long legs, his
+great stretch of arm. &quot;And to think,&quot; he muttered, &quot;that I might have
+been born so--My God! to think of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then suddenly he clapped his hands and gave a peremptory order to the
+servant who appeared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;See that I be not disturbed--that no one enters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He waited till they were alone, then drew something from his bosom and
+held it before him in both hands. It was a tiny crystal bowl scarce
+large enough for his finger tips. But they held the glittering thing
+lightly. It looked like a diamond body to two fluttering ivory wings,
+as he said slowly, musically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It hath lain in my breast, ever. I found it in the hand of death,&quot; he
+said dreamily, &quot;but the Riddle-of-Life ends for me, and begins for
+thee. So take it, when I have told thee how it came to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Those ivory hands of his seemed more like wings than ever as, still
+holding the bowl before him, he lay back and it showed clear against
+the shadows of the tent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou knowest,&quot; he went on, &quot;the graveyards of the hill-folk? Set on
+an hill and thick with iris flowers--the flowers of immortality--the
+green sword leaves guarding the blossoms, guarding the quiet dead
+below? It was the day I saw fear in a maiden's eyes--there was
+such a graveyard not far from her father's dwelling--he is dead now
+and she awaits the release of death amongst beneficent ladies in a
+House-of-Rest at Herât--and I bid them carry me there; for my heart
+was aflame and I cursed God for this carcase, seeing she was fair. So
+they left me there overlooking the valley, and when they had gone I
+lay amid the crushed iris and writhed--but of that no more. It hath
+passed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So, suddenly, between my empty wide-spread arms and clutching fingers
+I saw something amid the crushed blossoms. It must have been a very
+old grave on which I lay, since the iris roots matted thick upon it as
+if to hide the dead that lay in the hollow of it; for the rams and the
+winds sweeping on that high exposed spot had torn the covering of soil
+from Mother Earth's bosom. What I saw was this crystal cup. Perchance
+it had been used when the dead was laid to rest, and forgotten.
+Perchance some sad lover had set it there with flowers and tears in
+the poignancy of first grief, and gone away to love another. Who
+knows? The iris-roots had grown to a cup around it; twisted, white,
+iris-roots like dead fingers; and I took it from them. Take thou it, O
+Zahir-ud-din Mahomed, from one close to the Adventure of Death. I
+burden the gift with but one condition--if ever thou comest across a
+frightened maid--&quot; here his whole face became radiant with smiles--&quot;be
+not afraid of her. So take it cousin-ling. It is no cup of King
+Jamsheed to bring thee counsel in thy need. Yet it hath its virtue to
+those, who, like thou hast, have eyes to see. It can bring content.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Content! was this the secret of Poverty-prince's charm? Babar, bold,
+young, every fibre of him keen-strung for the Life, on the brink of
+which he stood, cared little for content. Yet he took the cup and
+looked at it curiously. Quaint of a surety! Taller than it was broad.
+Small enough to lie in the hollow of the hand. The brim over-thick by
+reason of heavy bosses below the edge: five bosses like those in blown
+glass, but oval, like eyes. The rest faintly frosted by fine
+scratchings (were they without or within?--within surely) which, were
+they letterings, would need a magnifying glass ere they could be
+deciphered. But at the bottom, so disposed that one must read in
+drinking, these words showed clear:</p>
+
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size:90%">&quot;Save the cup of life, what gift canst thou bring?&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal">That was from Hâfiz surely?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aye! divine Hâfiz,&quot; replied his cousin answering his thought boldly.
+&quot;Now, hold it to the light, cousin-ling, and see its virtue.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The boy did as he was bid, feeling dazed and dreamful. A seven-lamped
+tripod behind his cousin's cushions had been lit--at least he could
+not remember that it had been there when he came in--Seven little
+lamps ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why! those five bosses were deftly arranged to gather the light and
+send it ... God and His Prophet! How beautiful!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Through the clear eye before his eyes he saw his cousin's face--all
+glorified--splendid utterly ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That something which came to him ever with the sight of beauty, filled
+him with joy ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But stay! the bosses must be magnifying glasses also! He could read
+something.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What was it?</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><i>Ishk</i> (love)? or <i>Ashk</i> (tears)?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou wilt see more clearly when thou hast learnt to use the five eyes
+of the soul,&quot; came his cousin's voice; &quot;then thine own thoughts will
+return to thee from the Mirror-of-Life. Now put it into the bosom of
+thy fur coat. There is room there for it and majesty likewise. And now
+I will sing the Song-of-the-Bowl ere thou goest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He clapped his hands once more, and the boy sighed and rubbed his eyes
+dreamily. Surely the seven lamps had been lit? But now they were not;
+the semi-darkness of the scent-sodden tent closed in on him, and that
+was his cousin's every-day voice:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bring me my dulcimer, slave! Lo! King-ling, it suits the measure
+better than the <i>cithâra</i> and I am proud of the tune! 'Tis my own.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, after a while, the tinkling notes began, the voice rose
+plaintively:</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/king52.png" alt="p52"><br>
+<img src="images/king53.png" alt="p53"></p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Clear Crystal Bowl! Thy sun-sparkles blind</p>
+<p class="t2">Every poor soul whose eyes seek to find</p>
+<p class="t0">Way through Life's wilderness on thy bright brim,</p>
+<p class="t3">Crystal Bowl!</p>
+<p class="t2">What wilt thou bring to him,</p>
+<p class="t4">Darkness or Light?</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Clear Crystal Bowl! Thy touch, icy cold,</p>
+<p class="t2">Chills lovers lips that lay overbold</p>
+<p class="t0">Hot clinging kisses on thy bright brim,</p>
+<p class="t3">Crystal Bowl!</p>
+<p class="t2">What wilt thou bring to him,</p>
+<p class="t4">Love or Despair?</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Clear Crystal Bowl! I laugh like thy wine!</p>
+<p class="t2">Bring me Life's whole! all things must be mine!</p>
+<p class="t0">Is not the wide world mirrored in thee</p>
+<p class="t3">Crystal Bowl?</p>
+<p class="t3">I bid thee bring to me</p>
+<p class="t4">Joy, Grief, Life, Death--&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">The voice ceased and there was silence for a little while.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But in all the long after-years the memory of those tinkling notes,
+that thin voice claiming the whole of life, remained with Zahir-ud-din
+Mahomed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well! God's peace go with thee,&quot; said Poverty-prince brightly at the
+last; &quot;methinks thy boyhood is about past, and sterner stuff hath to
+come. But keep the gift of death and if thou lose it--at least
+remember my poor verses. And, coz--&quot; here the wizened face almost
+dimpled with laughter, &quot;if thou comest across the frightened maid--I
+give no names, they are an encumbrance, remember to make her not
+frightened of my twin! Farewell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a stirring night. The river had to be crossed silently in the
+very face of Khosrau Shâh's pickets (for he was holding the north bank
+for his nominee the nincompoop) and a stealthy way made skirting the
+enemy's camp, ere they could reach the hills beyond. Some of the party
+felt inclined to put Andijân tactics in force, make a rush through the
+out-posts, give and take a few sabre cuts, and so make off; but Babar,
+even though old Kâsim hesitated, had learnt something besides
+accomplishments in his uncle's camp; he had learnt that time was long,
+and that it was well to choose your own. So he rode canny.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was dawn ere they reached the last vantage ground whence they could
+see the camp they had left. It lay curiously calm and peaceful. Kâsim,
+more than half-asleep on his horse now there was no chance of a fine
+fight, yawned, and stretched his arms wide.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No more of that for me,&quot; he said lustily. &quot;I am for cut and thrust
+and a good bellyful of plain food.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I am for all things,&quot; laughed Babar. He was trying to pick out
+his cousin's tent, and as he spoke he put his hand into the bosom of
+his coat to feel for the Crystal Bowl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could not find it!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had it dropped out or what...?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must go back,&quot; he said, half to himself--&quot;I must, I must!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go back? Wherefore?&quot; asked old Kâsim. &quot;What is it, sire--to go back
+is Death; the enemy is awake by now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The boy-King looked at him keenly. &quot;Aye!&quot; he said shortly, &quot;and to go
+on is Life. I must remember, as he said. Forward! gentlemen!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">The day of delight has come and the wind brings scent<br>
+Of musk and rose and lilies and peppermint.</p>
+<p class="t5">Oh! day of delight pass slow!<br>
+God's flowers must blow.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">The day of despair has come and the wind brings dust<br>
+To bury the flowers; the song of the birds is hushed.</p>
+<p class="t5">Oh, day of despair pass swift!<br>
+Let God's clouds lift.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">The days of despair and delight have come;<br>
+Ah, me! I care not away from my home.</p>
+<p class="t5">The days of God pass swift and slow.<br>
+Allah-i-hu--allah-i-ho!</p>
+<p style="text-indent:25%"><i>Ashrâf the Exiled</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="normal">Old Isân-daulet, who had been Queen-regent to all intents and purposes
+during Babar's absence, welcomed him back to Andijân somewhat charily.
+She had sent for him in a hurry when news came that the Turkhâns of
+Samarkand had revolted against Baisanghâr, captured that prince by
+stratagem, and put Mirza Ali his younger brother on the throne.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But now the tables were turned. Baisanghâr, whom all knew to be wily
+as a fox, had not only managed to escape, but having somehow gained
+the sympathy of the townspeople, they had risen tumultuously against
+the Court-folk and the Turkhâns, had besieged the citadel which had
+not been able to hold out for a single day, and had replaced
+Baisanghâr--why only God knew!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Twill be because of his love odes, grandmother,&quot; said Babar gravely;
+&quot;there is not a house in Samarkand where a copy of them is not to be
+found.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Isân-daulet sniffed captiously. &quot;I would he would keep his love-songs
+to himself. There is Dearest-One sick as a magpie still with the shock
+of his death, and he is not dead, the good-for-nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar's lip set. &quot;He is dead to her anyhow,&quot; he said, &quot;so no more
+dreams of that, grandmother. I forbid it, and so I will tell her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hoighty-toighty!&quot; sniffed the old lady; but in her heart of hearts
+she was glad.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look you!&quot; she said to her daughter afterwards, &quot;he spoke for all the
+world like his grandfather when things went wrong. Lo! he is boy no
+longer. We must treat him as a man, with wiles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such, however, was not Dearest-One's treatment of her brother; nor was
+his of her, what might have been expected from his peremptory tone to
+his grandmother. How could it be, when he found her pale and
+dispirited, despite her joy at seeing him? He beat about the bush
+uncomfortably for quite a long time, until with characteristic
+clarity he blurted out: &quot;And, sister, thou must think no more of
+Baisanghâr--he is a worthless scoundrel--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl, ill as she was, looked as if she could have stabbed him with
+her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That he is not,&quot; she said proudly; &quot;thou art like the rest of
+them,--even the Kwâja--yea! I have talked with him concerning it and
+he knows, mayhap, more than thou dost--who confound the sinner with
+the sin. But look you, Zahir-ud-din Mahomed, were there no man on
+earth but Mirza Baisanghâr I would not have him; and yet I love him
+dearly, dearly.&quot; She sank back on her bed, hid her face in the quilt,
+and sobbed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar stood aghast, yet feeling as if he could cry too.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish thou had'st known Cousin Gharîb,&quot; he said suddenly,
+causelessly. &quot;He would have understood. I cannot--not yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he turned and left her. What was the use of trying to comfort
+anyone when you did not know the cause of their sorrow? And Joy and
+Grief, Life and Death had to come if one were to live.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then life was so full just at the present. The very story of
+Baisanghâr's escape was enough to make one's heart beat. Under
+sentence of death, and such a death! To be taken with pomp
+and ceremony to the foot of the throne in the Gokserai--the
+Green-palace--that wonderful palace, four stories high, built by the
+Great Timur in the citadel, where every kingly descendant of his must
+be enthroned, where every kingly descendant of his must die--and
+there to be strangled! With <i>that</i> before him, to have the nerve in a
+few minutes to unbrick a closed door, run to the bastion, fling
+himself over the parapet wall, and so find shelter in Kwâja Kwârka's
+house--the holiest man in the city! A thousand pities, indeed, that
+Baisanghâr had sunk so low. Aye! Dearest-One was right. One could
+condemn the sin, and yet do justice to the sinner. Yet there was a
+lack of kingliness too that was inexcusable. To allow his brother Ali
+to escape also was perhaps to err on the side of mercy, but to submit
+to be beaten by him in battle immediately afterwards was distinctly
+unnecessary!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It complicated matters, too, most dreadfully. For here was Baisanghâr,
+acclaimed by the people, more or less imprisoned in the City of
+Samarkand, and Ali-Mirza, nominated by the Court, beleaguering him
+from the Bokhâra side, while Khosrau Shâh, relieved from the necessity
+of defending Hissâr for his nincompoop by the withdrawal of Sultan
+Hussain back to Khorasân, was hastening all he knew to put in his oar
+for <i>his</i> nominee from the Hissâr side!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This being so, and neither of the three claimants having a shadow of
+right beside his, Babar's, there was nothing for it, but to be on the
+spot at once.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So kettledrums were beat and pennons unfurled, while Nevian-Gokultâsh
+saw to his young master's coat of mail, and the latter pored over the
+memoirs of his great ancestor Timur to see what wrinkles he could pick
+up in regard to the disposition of troops in a real fine fight; for,
+being a born general, he was dissatisfied with what he had seen, even
+with Uncle Hussain's smart soldiers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Only Dearest-One took no interest in the military preparations; she
+embroidered no flag with crinkled gold. She sat on the roof and
+watched the young King ride out in all his bravery and then she prayed
+God for his safety, and also for the safety of that other one, who
+deserved none.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And, for a time, both her prayers were answered. The summer passed on
+to winter and still Samarkand, the protected city that has never
+really fallen, sat gaily secure in its wide suburbs and vast network
+of fortified gardens. Scarcity, indeed, pressed harder outside the
+walls than within. Then the nincompoop whose only object apparently in
+advancing on Samarkand had been to pursue his mistress, the daughter
+of a high Court official, succeeded in marrying her, and so retreated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus Babar found himself confronting Baisanghâr supported by the
+populace, and Ali by the Court. They waited and looked at each other
+for some time; and then one morning, after preliminaries, Babar moved
+his army some twelve miles down the right bank of the river Kohik, and
+Ali-Mirza moved his down the left. So, with their armies behind them
+(though it would seem, somewhat helpless either for support or
+protection) the two young Princes each with five followers rode from
+their own side to the middle of the stream and with the chill water
+just touching their horses' bellies, agreed that if the summer came
+again they would harry Samarkand together.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After which solemn ceremonial Ali returned to his side of the river,
+and Babar to his; whence he set off to Ferghâna.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not a very distinguished campaign but it was his first. Perhaps
+it was as well it was uneventful for he was busy working his small
+army into something like discipline. Therein, he saw clearly, boy as
+he was, lay success; without it, there was nothing but one long
+succession of isolated raids, incoherent, useless, leaving the people
+ready, as they had been in the beginning, for a new, and yet another
+new conqueror.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was something, therefore, when in the next spring, he found himself
+able to restrain his troops and to punish severely many straggling
+Moghuls who had been guilty of great excesses in the different
+villages through which they had passed. It was an unheard-of idea, but
+it had a marked effect; for shortly afterwards when his camp was close
+to a place called Yâm, a number of persons, both traders and others,
+came in from the town to buy and sell, and somehow, about afternoon
+prayer-time a general hubbub arose during which every shop and every
+stranger was plundered. Yet an order that no person should presume to
+detain any part of the effects or property thus seized, but that the
+whole should be restored without reserve before the first watch of the
+next day was over, resulted in not one bit of thread or a broken
+needle being kept by the army!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a glorious victory for pure ethics and quite repaid Babar for
+having to remain for six weeks outside Samarkand. Besides, the peach
+gardens were in full bloom. It was curious going out into the pleasure
+ground of the city, to slash, and hack, and hew, and kill! But there
+was no other way for it, and many were the sharp skirmishes that took
+place with the townspeople where folk as a rule had been wont to
+disport themselves on holidays. But in war-time things got upside
+down; witness the dastardly deceit of the Lover's Cave where five of
+Babar's most active men were killed. Seduced by a treacherous promise
+to deliver up the fort if a party came thither by night, a picked
+troop was chosen for the service, with this result.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It rankled bitterly in the young commander's heart; he felt himself at
+fault for his greatest weakness--an inveterate habit of believing what
+he heard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet he had his consolations. Day by day, as he waited, doing his best
+with the small force at his command to cut off the supplies from the
+city, the number of townspeople and traders who came out to traffic in
+the camp bazaar increased, until it became like a city and you could
+find there whatever is procurable in towns. And day by day, the
+inhabitants of the country around came in and surrendered themselves,
+their castles, their lands, high and low. Only the city of Samarkand
+held out. It was in the end of September and the sun was entering the
+Balance, when Babar, weary of waiting, made a feint march to the rear
+and the garrison of Samarkand, jumping to the conclusion that he was
+in retreat, rushed out in great number, both soldiers and citizens.
+Then orders were given to the cavalry in reserve to charge on both
+flanks; whereupon God prospering the proceeding, the enemy were
+decisively defeated; nor from that time forward did they ever again
+venture on a rally. No! though Babar's soldiers advanced through the
+now leafless peach gardens to the very ditch and carried off numbers
+of prisoners close under the walls.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And still fair Samarkand stood secure. Seven whole months had the
+blockade lasted, and now the winter's cold was coming on to aid the
+garrison. In addition, the great Turkhestân raider Shaibâni Khân was
+said to be on his way with a large force to intervene in the quarrel.
+Both dangers had to be faced. Babar felt, in view of the first, that
+he must cantoon his men, and set to work marking out the ground for
+the huts and trenches; so, leaving labourers and overseers to go on
+with the work, he returned to his camp. None too soon, for the very
+next morning a hostile army showed to the north. It must be Shaibâni,
+prince of Free-lances!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing dismayed, by the fact that fully half his soldiers were away
+seeking winter quarters, Babar put the forces he had with him in
+array, and marched out to meet the enemy. Boldness met with its
+reward. Shaibâni withdrew, and after giving the young King some nights
+of sleepless anxiety went back whence he came, and Baisanghâr,
+disappointed in relief, resigned himself to despair and fled
+accompanied by two or three hundred naked and starving followers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In the whole habitable world are few cities so pleasantly situated as
+Samarkand.&quot; So wrote Babar when at the age of fifteen he found himself
+met as King by the chief men of the city, by the nobles, by the young
+cavaliers, and escorted to the Garden-Palace where Baisanghâr had
+lived. It was a great relief to him that his cousin had escaped,
+indeed he had taken no precautions to prevent his doing so. Babar's
+quarrel was not with him, but with his claim, and as the lad--for he
+was but a lad still--sat that night under the roof which had sheltered
+the deposed prince, he told himself he had been right when he had said
+to Dearest-One that Baisanghâr would never make a king. There were no
+signs of kingship in that Garden-Palace. No plans or sketches, no
+dry-as-dust schedules. Not one of the papers and models such as
+he, Babar, already carried with him. Only a lute, a dulcimer, some
+dice-boxes. Not even luxury! Poor Baisanghâr! Rightly had he called
+himself an unsubstantial shadow. His poetry was the best part of him;
+and his painting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar sitting alone in the alcoved room which Baisanghâr had evidently
+left in a hurry, lay back among the cushions of the divan and thrust
+his hand beneath them to adjust them to his head. There was something
+hard beneath their softness. He drew it out and found a small square
+frame. Of gold--no! it was green enamel and on it were set, like
+flowers, turquoises, rubies, amethysts, topazes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why did it remind him of the spring meadows about Andijân? The spring
+meadows set with forget-me-nots and tulips? It was a bit too dark
+where he was to see the pale painting it held, so he rose and took it
+to the light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dearest-One!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And with a rush came back accusingly something he had almost forgotten
+all these months of striving and stress. Poverty-prince! the
+Cup-of-Life! those bosses that gathered the Light and magnified what
+was written by Fate. Once or twice he had thought of it carelessly;
+but now...?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why had the thought come back to him?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a speaking likeness. Faint-coloured, delicate as a dream.
+Perhaps Baisanghâr had meant it to be so. It was likely he did. Poor
+Baisanghâr! For the life of him Babar could not help pity, even when
+he found the back of the frame was covered with fine writing--with
+verses!--not even when he recollected that it was to his sister that
+they were dedicated!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In truth there was little in them of offence, and Babar as he went to
+sleep that night, King of Samarkand, caught himself repeating them.
+They were certainly very neat--very neat indeed. And now that he had
+had time to think, why should not poor Dearest-One see them? They had
+given him a kindlier feeling towards the writer, so why should not
+she...?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why not, indeed! The Cup-of-Life held all things for all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes! he would send, or give her the portrait as it stood. It was
+really an excellent piece of work; and the words were perfect--the
+construction, and the <i>grammar</i> so good.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He fell asleep reciting them.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2" style="margin-left:20%; margin-right:40%">
+<h3>HEFT-AURANG<a name="div4Ref_01" href="#div4_01"><sup>[1]</sup></a></h3>
+
+<h4>THE SEVEN THRONES</h4>
+</div>
+<div class="poem2" style="margin-left:20%">
+<p class="t0">
+Seven thrones and each a star<br>
+Set in God's Heaven afar;<br>
+Seven thrones and each for thee;<br>
+Thank God there is no place</p>
+<p class="t2">Beside thy face<br>
+For me! for me!</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Seven sins! Ah! more than seven<br>
+To cast me down from heaven;<br>
+Seven sins; and each of me!<br>
+Thank God there is no place</p>
+<p class="t2">Beside my face<br>
+For thee! for thee!</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Seven stars and one a pole<br>
+To guide the wandering soul<br>
+To rest; but not for me--<br>
+There is no grace or place</p>
+<p class="t2">Beside thy face.<br>
+Ah me! Ah me!</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="normal">"Samarkand is a wonderfully elegant city."
+
+So wrote its young King the next evening. He had spent the day in
+going round his new possessions and had found them to his liking. Not
+only was the little Mosque with its carven wooden pilasters quaintly
+beautiful, but the big one was magnificent with its frontispiece on
+which was inscribed in letters so large that they could be read a mile
+off:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And Abraham and Ishmael raised the foundations of the House of God
+saying 'Lord accept it from us; for Thou art He who heareth and
+knoweth.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the gardens were a joy, the baths the best he had ever seen, the
+bakers' shops excellent, the cooks skilful. And the dried prunes of
+Bokhâra, a fruit renowned as an acceptable rarity and a laxative of
+approved excellence, were to be found in perfection. Then there was
+the Observatory built by Ulugh-Beg, his ancestor, who had been a great
+mathematician. Babar had never seen an observatory before; indeed
+there were at that time but seven in the whole world, so it was an
+honour to possess one. He spent many days poring over its astronomical
+tables, trying to understand them; and finally put on a mathematical
+master, since no science could possibly come amiss to a King.
+Meanwhile Nevian-Gokultâsh and Kâsim and all the Andijân nobles,
+bickered inevitably with the Samarkand grandees, and Babar found no
+small difficulty in keeping the peace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still, life was once more splendid; at any rate for the young King.
+But the soldiers grumbled at the lack of loot. It was all very well to
+say that the country had voluntarily submitted and was therefore
+beyond plunder, and that from a city which had suffered the
+vicissitudes of war for two years and withstood a siege of seven
+months, it was impossible to levy anything by taxation. It was all
+very well to supply the inhabitants with seed corn and supplies to
+enable them to carry on till harvest time. But charity began at home,
+and home under these circumstances was best.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The wild Moghuls deserted first; then by twos and threes, the other
+men slipped away by night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet still life was splendid. On those same clear winter's nights Babar
+could watch the stars with new-found knowledge.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If the Most Excellent would watch the barracks instead,&quot; growled old
+Kâsim, &quot;it would be well. Our men grow thin. There are scarce a
+thousand of them left, all told; and new friends are not so good as
+old ones. The Samarkandis are doubtless fine fellows, as the Most
+Excellent appears to find them; but would they follow back to Andijân
+if occasion occur?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And occasion did occur. A letter arrived from Babar's maternal uncle
+the Khân of Moghulistân who, urged doubtless by the deserters, wrote
+saying that as the former had possessed himself of Samarkand, it was
+only fair that his younger brother Jahângir, who, after all, <i>was the
+son of Omar Saikh's first wife</i> should be given Andijân.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kâsim, who with his usual frown at all letters sat listening, spat
+solemnly on the ground. &quot;Poison breeds poison,&quot; he said; &quot;I deemed
+that talk had been spilt in the blood from Hussan Yakoob's hinder
+parts four years past. But 'tis never too late for mischief when women
+are left to themselves as they are at Andijân.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But my grandmother is sagacious,&quot; began Babar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kâsim shrugged his shoulders. &quot;Saw you ever a woman who could manage a
+woman, sire? So have not I. Begum Fâtima and she have been spitting at
+each other like wild cats, and what is wanted is a stick. Now, what is
+to be said?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar spoke hotly. &quot;That I will not hear of it! No! though I might of
+myself have made my brother governor. But of myself. This savours of
+command. He knows my men have gone back! I will not hear the tone of
+authority.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Babar as he spoke felt himself tremble with anger. His voice was
+hoarse, too, and his head ached. He had been sitting up all night in
+the Observatory to watch an eclipse of the moon, and despite his fur
+coat had felt chill; for February had brought bitter winds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So be it!&quot; said old Kâsim gleefully. He was getting weary of
+Samarkandi side, and foresaw more fighting now the spring was at hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Next day a special messenger, foot in hand from Andijân, found Babar
+in bed with a severe cold. And the letter from Kwâja Kâzi did not mend
+matters. Briefly, the deserting soldiers, discontented, disloyal, were
+giving trouble, and if help were not sent at once events might come to
+a very bad termination.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That night delirium came to the young soul, as the young body lay
+fighting for breath against pneumonia.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The physician bled him, of course, and fed him with almonds and
+ginger. And they closed every door and window, so that the wood-smoke
+filled the room and such little lung-space as was left. But splendid
+youth and health were his, and after a few days he lay outwearied with
+his hand-to-hand fight with Death, looking at the letters which had
+followed fast upon each other during his illness. And each brought
+worse news than the last. Andijân was besieged. Any moment his
+women-folk might fall into the hands of the enemy. He must start at
+once. To set aside Nevian-Gokultâsh's protestations, was easier than
+to rise and dress. Once up, however, he managed the council of war
+creditably, and for a day held his own bravely, giving orders for this
+and that.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A tall, thin, haggard young figure with sharpened features and
+eager eyes defying Fate; until suddenly voice left him, he struggled
+on for an hour or two, then lay unconscious. So weak that they did
+not dare bleed him again, but mercifully left him as he was. Only
+Nevian-Gokultâsh at his right hand, moistening the dear lips with
+cotton dipped in water, while Kâsim sat still as a statue, the tears
+running down his furrowed cheeks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Was this, then, the end of that vivid young life, the like of which
+had never been seen?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the Samarkandi fellows who did not really care might go about the
+city as dogs, and yelp the news that Zahir-ud-din Mahomed their King
+was dying, nay! was dead. It was easy to see that this had been done,
+for hour by hour, day by day the Garden-Palace became more and more
+empty, more and more solitary.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A runner from Andijân, bearing further news found it so, and, anxious
+for the truth, stole upstairs on tiptoe to see for himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How still! How cold! How silent! And that half-seen form in the dusk,
+motionless among the quilts? Dead! Dead! or so close to Death that no
+alternative remained.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That night as his bells tinkled from his post-runner's pike as he ran
+past village, and field, and wood, they jangled the refrain that was
+on his mouth for all who cared to listen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Babar is dead! Life has ended! The cup is finished!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, even as the words rang out on the chill air, other words, faint,
+scarce to be heard, were startling those two sad watchers in the
+Garden-Palace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Crystal Bowl. Give it back to me ... I ... I laugh as I
+drink.... Bring me the whole, I say, the whole.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The boy's brain, faintly conscious, was taking command once more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the body obeyed. In four or five days he was reading letters of
+despair from his mother, from old Isân-daulet, from Dearest-One.
+Samarkand, they said, had been taken with troops from Andijân. Could
+not <i>one</i> man be spared from Samarkand to keep Andijân?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar had not the heart to delay, and ill as he was set off in a
+litter with such followers as he could gather together. It was a
+Saturday in March that he started; just a hundred days since he had
+entered Samarkand, and he knew he could not hope to return as King.
+&quot;<i>One hundred days only</i>,&quot; he thought, as he jolted through the peach
+gardens that were once again swelling to bud.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He reached Khojend by forced marches in a week's time; but by then he
+was on his horse again, beginning to regain strength and colour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he wondered why the people looked at him so strangely as he rode
+through the town. Did they take him for a ghost?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet he was even as one when they told him the news. Just a week
+before, on the very Saturday when he had started in such haste from
+Samarkand, Andijân had capitulated, needlessly capitulated, to the
+enemy on the news of Babar's death brought by a returning post-runner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the sake of Andijân he had lost Samarkand, and now found that he
+had lost the one without preserving the other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Worse still, he had lost a dear friend; for the saintly Kwâja Kâzi,
+protesting against the premature yielding of the citadel while there
+was yet no lack of provisions or of fighting men, had been barbarously
+martyred by being hanged in a shameful manner over the gate of the
+citadel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No wonder Babar wrote in the diary he had begun to keep: &quot;I was in a
+very distressed condition and wept a great deal.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">Blest is the soul that is lifted above<br>
+The paltry cares of Self's selfish love,<br>
+Which adds no weight to another's care<br>
+And gives no soul a burden to bear,<br>
+Which takes what comes as its part and lot,<br>
+Which laughs at trouble and worries not,<br>
+Which sleeps without malice or fraud in its breast<br>
+And rises pure from its daily rest.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:25%"><i>Jâmi</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a sad meeting, naturally, with the womenfolk Babar had hoped
+to help, and who were--somewhat contemptuously--sent to him, unharmed,
+after a few days. Or perhaps that &quot;divinity which doth hedge a king&quot;
+or whatever it was, which all his life long ensured Babar's own
+safety, extended itself to those who were dear to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anyhow they came, and fell with tears on the neck of their dethroned
+darling. Dearest-One, slim and tall, her face still showing the lines
+of conflicting anxieties, yet still sweet utterly, without trace of
+bitterness for her brother. The Khânum, too rejoiced at seeing her son
+alive and well to care so much about his loss of dignity. Old
+Isân-daulet, keener of look and sharper of tongue than ever, but with
+a world of sympathy in her stern eyes for the lad who had lost all
+save honour. For she realised that Babar had practically given up
+Kingship for the sake of his womenkind. He had had fair grip of
+Samarkand, and even with but a thousand devoted followers of his own
+to help him hold it, could, nay would have done so.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar, himself, did not attempt to deny his virtue. He never did; he
+was too frank to gloze over any of his actions, good or bad. He had
+done the right thing and he accepted the fact gravely; perhaps a
+trifle pompously; but that was his nature. In the same way, he could
+not fail to see, that what had placed him in the unfortunate position
+of having insufficient followers to hold both Samarkand and Andijân,
+was no error of judgment on his part, but simply his extreme and
+unusual justice in refusing to grind down the distressed inhabitants
+of the former city for the benefit of his soldiery. Could he only have
+shut his eyes to the usual undisciplined plunder his army would not
+have deserted wholesale.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was not introspective, but he knew, vaguely, that he had, somehow,
+had no choice in the matter. He had been born with this strong sense
+of justice, so he could not help himself; therefore despite this
+recognition of his own virtue, it slipped from him like water off a
+duck's back leaving no self-conceit behind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he welcomed his loving women quite whole-heartedly, and then wept
+more profusely than ever at the difficulty of maintaining them in
+proper fashion. Not that they wanted this. The Khânum, gentle, kindly
+soul, was only too glad that her quite capable hands should do all
+things for her darling, Dearest-One brisked up with work that took her
+out of herself, and Isân-daulet had roughed it too much in her youth
+not to enjoy the familiarity of roughing it again. And life, even at
+Khojend, a miserable place in which a single nobleman would have found
+it difficult to support his family, was not without its interests. Of
+the rather more than two hundred, and considerably less than three
+hundred followers who chose exile with their young King, quite a
+number were men of good family, whose wives and children joined them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was, therefore, company of a sort. Then Babar, despite his
+tears, was not one to give in. Inspired as he was by an ambition for
+conquest and extensive dominions, he could not, on account of one or
+two paltry defeats, sit down and look idly about him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, at any rate, he told the three loving women with his usual serious
+pomp, when he sent a request for assistance to his uncle, the Khân of
+Moghulistân, and then set off to reconnoitre around Samarkand. He
+returned ere long disappointed; but was soon on the march again
+to see his uncle in person at Tashkend. In this he was encouraged by
+Isân-daulet who remembered her brother of old. &quot;Lo! I know him. A good
+soul but a stupid. The brains of my father, Yunus, went in the female
+line. But if you beat his ears with words he will listen. And keep on
+the soft side of Shâh-Begum, my husband's widow--God rest his soul!
+Anyhow he is at peace from her! A clever woman, but like a camel in
+mud--slippery!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And this expedition was so far successful that the young leader
+actually returned from it once more at the head of some seven or eight
+hundred horsemen. Rather a wild lot, mostly free-lance Moghuls eager
+for loot and violence. But it was better than nothing, though Khojend
+was not large enough to hold them, even for a night. Mercifully,
+however, there was an enemy's fort some forty miles off, so, taking
+scaling ladders with them, they rode on to it and carried the place by
+surprise. But even one day of Babar's strict discipline was more than
+enough for the wild men of the desert, and the very next morning the
+Moghul Begs represented that, having but a mere handful of men, no
+possible benefit could result to anyone from the keeping of one
+miserable castle; and so, there being truth in this remark, they rode
+off to their desert again unabashed, leaving Babar to return annoyed,
+but not despondent. For at this particular fortress there grew a
+particular melon, yellow in colour, with skin puckered like shagreen
+leather. A remarkably delicate and agreeable melon, with seeds about
+the size of those of an apple, and pulp four fingers thick, which
+everyone agreed was not to be equalled in that quarter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was as well, certainly, to have gained <i>something</i> if only a good
+melon, and the little party at Khojend feasted on it and thanked God
+they had their boy back again safe and sound.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The summer was passing to autumn when another fit of despondency came
+to young Babar in the news of his cousin Gharîb-Beg's death. The
+invalid had lingered far longer than had been expected, but still the
+certainty that he was gone brought grief; the more so because it
+re-aroused regret for the lost Crystal Bowl; regret which had almost
+been forgotten in the clash of arms of the last few months. But now he
+had time--only too much of it--for thoughts. Not given to mysticism in
+any form, he yet wondered vaguely if the Crystal Bowl had ever
+existed, or if the whole incident had not been part of the curious
+hold Poverty-prince had had upon his imagination; and not on his only,
+but on the imagination of all with whom the cripple had come in
+contact.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now he was dead! Gone for ever, like so many friends in these last
+troublous times.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar, translucent as the crystal itself, gloomed under the shadow of
+his regrets till his mother began to fret with the fear of on-coming
+illness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Dearest-One knew her brother better. &quot;He must get away from us
+all,&quot; she said. &quot;Yea! even from old Kâsim and his warriors. Let him go
+to the White Mountains a-hunting for the winter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar would have none of it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The White Mountains? Aye! they would be splendid--there were more
+bears there than in any other part of the country. Aye! and snow
+leopard too--the lad's eyes glistened as he admitted this--but he
+<i>could</i> not leave his women-folk again, and he ought not to leave
+those who, to their own cost, had chosen to stick by him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then we will go also,&quot; said Dearest-One, nothing daunted. &quot;We are not
+of towns more than thou art, and thou canst divide thy magnificent
+army!--take a hundred men with thee and leave an hundred to guard
+Khojend!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her sweet eyes smiled at him, and he agreed. No one in all his life
+had understood him like Dearest-One, he thought; there was perfect
+confidence between them, though, strangely enough, he had never yet
+given her the portrait he had found in the Garden-Palace--the portrait
+left by Baisanghâr in his flight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why had he not done so? He scarcely knew, except that he had felt shy
+of broaching a subject that seemed buried. 'Twas best not to rouse
+coiled snakes, and Baisanghâr, who had taken refuge in Bokhâra, had
+gone out of their lives altogether; out of his, Babar's, at any rate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But everything seemed gone out of that; as the Turkhi couplet said:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">
+&quot;No home, no friends, no roof above my head;<br>
+Six feet of earth, no more, to make my bed.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">The White Mountains, however--white indeed during winter with their
+snowy slopes invading all save the tiny cleft of the valley where the
+skin tents of the little party had been pitched--soon brought back
+content. It was as if the soft covering of snow had blotted out the
+past, and the winter slipped by, full up with trivial distractions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar, returning long after dark to the encampment with half-a-dozen
+or so of bear-skins, forgot he was, or ever had been, King. And when
+early spring came on, and the bears were breeding, he took to hunting
+tulips instead. There were so many different kinds of them. Over
+thirty; and one yellow, double and sweet-scented like a rose.
+Dearest-One used to accompany him on these expeditions, for she was a
+real Moghul maiden, and the bright, cold winter had braced her up,
+until her cheeks glowed once more. Yet still Babar had never given her
+the portrait of herself, though he carried it with him more than once
+with that determination. Again, he scarcely knew why, except that it
+seemed to him the right thing to do. Why should she not have it?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But one day the brother and sister had wandered high over the melting
+snow slopes, where the flowers lay thick as a carpet. Blue spring
+gentian and clustered pink primrose, purple pansy, and deep brown
+nodding columbines above a mosaic of forget-me-not and yellow
+crowsfoot. Great sweeps and drifts of flowers where the snow-drifts
+ended, and beyond in the far, far distance, in a dip of the hills, a
+level line of clear cobalt-blue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yonder lies Samarkand,&quot; said Babar, glooming in a second with the
+thought of past defeat; but his mind, ever vagrant, followed swiftly a
+line of new thought as he narrowed his long eyes to see better. &quot;Had I
+the quaint contrivance at the Observatory there,&quot; he went on; &quot;did I
+not tell thee of it?--no!--Well! 'twas a thing with curved glasses in
+a box and it made far-off things seem near--but blurred sometimes.
+Still had I it, I could mayhap see the Green-Palace. It stands high
+above the town.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dearest-One, her hands clasped idly over her knees as she sat on a
+little peak of rock and ice that rose out of the flowers, was silent
+for a space; then she said dreamily:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Twas in the Green-Palace, was it not, where Kingship comes and goes,
+that Baisanghâr was to die that time he escaped?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar hesitated. It was the first time his sister had mentioned her
+cousin's name to him; but now that the subject had been broached,
+might it not be better to take the opportunity offered? He had the
+portrait with him. Why not have it out and have done with it? After
+all it was a fitting place; the green alp all starred with flowers
+reminded him of the Andijân meadows and they of the green enamel frame
+starred with ruby, turquoise, amethyst, topaz.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have something here,&quot; he said, fumbling in his fur coat, &quot;that I
+have meant to give thee for some months; but--I know not why--&quot; So he
+began haltingly; then warming to his subject told her in his own
+inimitable way, every tiny touch giving life to the picture, how and
+where he had found what he finally placed in her hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl who had listened coldly looked at it still more chillily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Twas not meant for me,&quot; she said at last, and her tone was as
+ice--&quot;And he prized it little, since he left it behind him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar with the returned miniature in his hand, stared at her in
+confused amaze, feeling that, of a truth, women were kittle cattle.
+One could never count on them--and all these months he had been afraid
+of exciting a storm of tears!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Distinct ill-usage was in his voice as he said gravely: &quot;But thou hast
+not seen the verses writ behind, and they are good. I stake my word
+they are excellent and correct in every elision, every poetic
+licence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It may have been the bathos in the lad's last eager protest which kept
+the pathos of poor Baisanghâr's words from making full mark, which
+kept the girl's lips from quivering overmuch, which kept the mist of
+tears from overflowing to her cheeks as the words fell on the
+flower-scented air. So little, to frail humanity, turns grief to
+laughter and smiles to tears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anyhow Dearest-One sat silent, and a faint smile curved her thin red
+lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea!&quot; she said softly, &quot;they are good verses; but he was ever a
+poet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then suddenly the poetry which lies hid at the heart of all
+sorrow, all longing, all deprivation, surged on her and her face lit
+up with passionate feeling. &quot;Give it me back, brotherling! give it me
+back. Let us leave it here! Here! on this high unknown place among
+God's flowers! Here! amid ice and snow! Here! overlooking the Palace
+where he would have died. Here! close to high heaven where there is
+understanding!&quot; Her voice had risen as her thought rose, and now
+rang out joyous, triumphant. &quot;Lo! the <i>Heft-Aurang</i> will look down on
+my face night after night and the pole star will point the way to
+him.... Ah! Baisanghâr! have patience, have patience! love will point
+the way!...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She laid the portrait face upwards to the clear blue sunshiny sky on a
+cold slab of ice that filled up--and looked as if it had filled up for
+centuries of chill summers and frost-bound winters--the wide clefts of
+the rock beside her; then stood up and stepped down amid the flowers,
+tearless, radiant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, brother!&quot; she said. &quot;It grows late. Let us descend, they will
+be waiting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar looked meditatively at the pictured face, and then at the
+one before him transfigured by emotion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So that is love!&quot; he said at last with a curious impersonality in his
+tone. &quot;Truly it is wonderful; and after all there is not so much
+difference between it and tears!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So in a flood, came back to him that one glimpse he had had in the
+Crystal Bowl of his cousin's face. He saw it again clearly; he seemed
+to hear his voice telling of the frightened maiden. He had never
+thought of her since; such things passed quickly from his boyish mind.
+But now the wonder came as to whether he <i>would</i> ever meet her. He
+might, without recognising her, since he did not know who she was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Dearest-One might know; such things were part and parcel of the
+woman's life. His sister, however, was already half way down the slope
+and he had to run to overtake her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do I know?&quot; she echoed to his question, quite calmly, having had time
+to recover her serenity. &quot;Wherefore not? Such knowledges have to be
+kept by someone; so we women guard it. She whom Mirza Gharîb-Beg
+deserted--&quot; she spoke with distinct blame--&quot;was well within the circle
+of distinction, being both of the royal house and also of the lineage
+of Sheik Jâmi, the divine poet--on whom be peace! Therefore she
+deserved a better fate than to live her life in a House-of-Rest--as I
+shall live mine,&quot; she added with conviction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But thou art so young,&quot; protested Babar, ever ready to follow any new
+lead of thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dearest-One flashed out on him in her old way. &quot;Young! One year older
+than she--so there! She was but a child, and Gharîb-Beg, remember, was
+but two years older.&quot; She paused, then added hurriedly: &quot;Did I not
+tell thee we silly women guarded such trivial knowledge as our lives?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To judge by Babar's women-folk (one of his many widowed aunts had
+joined the little camp on a visit--he had endless aunts and he seemed
+to be a favourite with all--) they guarded other trivial knowledges as
+their lives also. Babar returning home of an evening would find a
+regular Turkhi feast including goats' milk cheese fritters, made, of
+course, after the family recipe, spread out for his delectation, and
+Dearest-One never forgot to put violet essence in the thick milk. And
+plenty of sugar, for the lad had a sweet tooth. Then as they sat round
+the great, pine-log fire at night, Isân-daulet would call for a song;
+none of those niggling Persian odes, about the Beloved's Eyebrows and
+a Cup of Wine--the which was forbidden, though many good men fell away
+from grace and were none the worse for it--not in <i>this</i> world at any
+rate, and for the next who could tell since the dear Kâzi was not
+there to lay down the law ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Kâzi was a saint,&quot; interrupted Babar with certainty; &quot;I know it;
+first because the men who martyred him have all since died. That is
+one proof. Then he was a wonderfully bold man. Most men have some
+anxiety or trepidation about them. The Kwâja had not a particle of
+either, which is also no mean proof of sanctity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Old Isân-daulet chuckled. &quot;Then are all my family canonised,&quot; she
+said, &quot;and Paradise will have small peace! But sing, boy, a rattling
+Turkhomân ballad and bawl it fairly, if thou canst, now-a-days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar had learnt better than bawling over in Uncle Hussain's camp,
+and though his grandmother shook her head over his rendering of
+&quot;Toktâmish Khân&quot; still 'twas a fine song with a good stirring chant to
+it:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">
+The pale white willows grow in the sand,<br>
+Toktâmish Beg.<br>
+Choose one to hobble thy horse's leg<br>
+That thy bay steed stand.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Thy red blood drips on the yellow sand,<br>
+Toktâmish Khân.<br>
+Wilt bind his wound, wife of Mirza Jân<br>
+With thy jewelled hand?</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">The wound is doleful, the kiss was sweet<br>
+Toktâmish Kull.<br>
+Which poison, man! makes thine eyes so dull<br>
+And thy breath so fleet?</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Oh! my bay horse neighed when I did sing,<br>
+And Mir Jân's wife<br>
+Swore she would love me all my life<br>
+And gave me a ring.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Thy steed will find him a rider soon<br>
+And fair Narghiss<br>
+Will have a new lover to cuddle and kiss<br>
+Ere another moon.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">But thy mother is old; she has lost her brave<br>
+Toktâmish Khân;<br>
+Let her carry her sheaf to Death's wide barn<br>
+And dig her a grave!</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">The firelight danced on the young face as it sang cheerily. The
+Khânum, his mother, wept unobtrusively at the thought of what she
+would do if <i>her</i> young brave were to die. Old Isân-daulet beat time
+with precision; Dearest-One smiled gently; but Nevian-Gokultâsh--the
+Heart-of-Stone--held up his finger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hist!&quot; he said, &quot;a horse's steps.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not one but many. A little detachment of loyalists headed by Kâsim
+Beg, arriving in hot haste with renewed hope!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar stood up tall, strong, and threw his wide arms out as if to
+shake off inaction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whence?&quot; he asked briefly; &quot;East, west, north or south?&quot; There was
+weariness in the thought, not in the tone. He was ready to fight
+anywhere for Kingship again, though his heart sank at the futility of
+it all. Bokhâra, Samarkand, Hissâr, and half-a-dozen other chief-ships
+always changing hands. But this, a message of treaty from Ali Mirza
+who had held Samarkand since it had dropped from Babar's hand might
+mean something. So he was in the saddle and off; only to return then,
+and half-a-dozen other times, despondent, to admit that his star was
+not yet in the ascendant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Isân-daulet wearied of waiting at last, and set off herself to
+Moghulistân to levy troops to aid her grandson in the name of her dead
+husband. The Khânum went with her, and Dearest-One took the
+opportunity of retiring with one of her old aunts, to a House-of-Rest.
+So Babar was left alone. He would not remain at Khojend, however; he
+felt that he had already taken too much from the loyalists there, so
+in a state of irresolution and uncertainty he made for the border land
+of the Pamîrs beyond the White Mountains. There he remained amongst
+the nomad tribes, perplexed and distracted with the hopelessness of
+his affairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And here, as winter passed to spring once more, a saintly Kwâja--also
+an exile and a wanderer--came to visit him. And having no help to
+give, no advice to offer to one so down-cast, prayed over him and took
+his departure much affected.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And so was I,&quot; writes Babar frankly. Doubtless he was; and yet before
+sunset that very day he must have been out on the hillside, possibly
+hunting for new tulips in this new country; for he descried a horseman
+making his way rapidly up the valley.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A horseman!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Within half-an-hour, without an instant's delay, Babar had backed his
+lean Turkhomân mare and, followed by a leaner troop of such friends as
+still clung to him (Kâsim and Nevian-Gokultâsh of course amongst the
+number) was galloping for Marghinân (the place where they remove the
+stone from apricots and put in chopped almonds!). For a message had
+been sent by the governor of the town to say he was ready to give it
+up to its rightful owner, and would hope for forgiveness for past
+offences.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was then sunset, and Marghinân lay more than a hundred miles away
+as the crow flies. All that night till noon next day the little band
+rode fiercely on. On those wild hills there was no road to speak of;
+one could but follow the water-courses as the streams sought their
+level. At noon next day they drew bridle for the first time. They had
+not come far, or fast, yet so hard had been the way that their horses
+needed rest. Twelve hours to give them a chance, and also, in the
+close valley of Khojend to secure night time for the first part of the
+march, and they were off again; this time to let sunrise pass to
+sunset and sunset pass to night before they again drew rein in the
+grey dawn. Drew rein and looked at each other doubtfully. Yet their
+goal lay not four miles ahead of them, a shadowy hill crowned by a
+fort and scarce seen in the half light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the doubt was this:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had ridden for forty-eight hours up hill and down dale, over
+breakneck precipices and roaring torrents, without ever considering
+that they had no real warranty for so doing!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Governor of the town was one who was known to stickle at no crime.
+With what confidence then could they unconditionally put themselves in
+his power?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So at least urged Nevian-Gokultâsh. Others joined in, and Babar, ever
+reasonable, saw cogency in the doubt, and ordered a halt for
+consideration.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Out in the dawn, the horses, heads down, taking a nibble of grass
+between heaving breaths, the sweat running down from their polished
+backs, the tired troopers, too tired to dismount, arguing <i>pros</i> and
+<i>cons</i> wearily, until Babar rising in his stirrups, showed tall,
+straight, strong, commanding.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gentlemen!&quot; he said. &quot;Our reflections are not without foundation, but
+we have been too late in making them. We have now ridden three nights
+and two days without sleep or rest. Neither horse nor man has strength
+left. There is no possibility of retreating, since there is no place
+of safety to which we <i>could</i> retreat. Having come so far we must
+proceed. Therefore let us go forward remembering that nothing happens
+save by the will of God. Right turn, gentlemen! Forward!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And forward it proved to be from that moment. Marghinân his, the
+country people, disgusted with the late usurpers, crowded round their
+old young King.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of course Grandmother Isân-daulet was in at the finish with her horde
+of two thousand wild Moghul horsemen; who nevertheless did good, if
+barbarous, service at Âkshi, where treachery met with its just reward.
+For the Moghuls, stripping their horses, rode barebacked into the
+stream and sabred the escaping traitors in their boats.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the peach trees had not shed their blossoms before, by the Grace of
+the most High (and many real fine fights) Babar recovered his paternal
+kingdom, of which he had been deprived for two years.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Two years!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could hardly believe it as he rode through on the mantle of
+lambskins between the fort of Andijân and the river, where not so long
+ago he had been playing leap-frog when first King-ship came to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nevian-Gokultâsh!&quot; he cried suddenly, &quot;an thou lovest me! off from
+thy horse and give me a back like a kind soul. I must leap to my
+kingdom once more!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stood there laughing, the embodiment of boyish youth and energy;
+forgetful of past troubles, eager to enjoy life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ul-la-la!&quot; shouted some of the nobles catching the spirit of the
+thing and throwing themselves from their horses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So leap Babar did, not over Nevian only, but over half-a-score or more
+of the friends of his adversity including Kâsim who nearly tumbled
+over with laughter and joy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the young King, as he once more cast himself face upwards on the
+soft furry little blobs of blossom amid a chorus of applause, felt
+that the whole world was splendid indeed.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">
+Blessed is he who has not to learn<br>
+How the favour of fortune may change and turn,<br>
+Whose head is not raised in his high estate<br>
+Nor his heart in misfortune made desolate.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:25%"><i>Nizâmi</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is no use in talking,&quot; quoth Isân-daulet decisively. &quot;Send the
+trays to Ayesha Begum, my daughter, and prepare the wedding
+comestibles. It has been high time, these two years back, that
+Zahir-uddin Mahomed got himself married, but of a truth there was not
+the wherewithal. One cannot marry out of a basket. But now all is
+smooth, so send for the bride. God grant she be not so unwilling as
+the groom.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And in truth Babar, seated on the floor, of course, between his
+grandmother and his mother, looked far from happy. His hands lean,
+supple, strong, hung over his grasshopper knees, and his head--small
+for the rest of his body--had not its usual frank bearing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not unwilling,&quot; protested the young man; &quot;Lo! it has to be done,
+that I know. 'Tis the duty of Kings to marry and have sons; but, see
+you, I have no experience at all; indeed I have never been so
+circumstanced as either to hear or witness any words expressive of the
+amorous passion, and I have never seen my betrothed since I was five.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God forbid!&quot; ejaculated the Khânum piously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But how then can I love her?&quot; protested Babar; &quot;'tis not like
+Dearest-One and Cousin Baisanghâr--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A shriek of outrage drowned what he would have said. Not that either
+of the two good ladies really felt shocked, but that in dealing with
+Babar they held it wiser to adhere to the strictly conventional;
+otherwise, heaven only knew if he would not go off at a tangent as
+Dearest-One had done. Poor Dearest-One on whom the blow of uttermost
+fate had fallen at last. For a terrible tale had come to Andijân but a
+month before, snuffing out the lamps of festival like a dust-storm at
+a wedding. For who could rejoice when they thought of a poor young
+prince who was nobody's enemy but his own, like Baisanghâr, strangled
+with a bowstring by the orders of the miserable and infidel-like
+wretch, worthless, contemptible, without birth or talents, reputation
+or wisdom, Khosrau Shâh? Babar had been beside himself with rage, and
+had expended every known epithet on the murderer, who though he prayed
+regularly, was black-hearted and vicious, of mean understanding,
+slender talents, faithless and a traitor. A man who for the sake of
+the short and fleeting pomp of this vain world had done to death the
+sweetest prince, the son of his old benefactor, in whose service he
+had been and by whom he had been patronised and protected. Thus
+rendering himself accursed of God, abhorred of men, and worthy of
+shame and execration till the judgment day. Perpetrating his crimes
+too for the sake of trivial enjoyment, and, despite his power and
+place, not having the spirit to face a barn-door chicken!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young man had poured all this and much more into his sister's
+ears, hoping to comfort her, but she had only turned her face to the
+wall, and wept.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Strange, indeed, were women-folk; she had been so composed when she
+herself renounced him, but now that Death had stepped in she was all
+tears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The thought of her weeping brought him a quick excuse. &quot;Anyhow,&quot; he
+remarked, with evident relief, &quot;there can be no weddings yet awhile;
+my sister is not in condition for festivals.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Isân-daulet sniffed. &quot;Sisters are not indispensables to a marriage. So
+be good boy, Babar, and listen to reason. Do I not ever advise thee to
+thy benefit?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not ever,&quot; retorted the young King sulkily; &quot;thou did'st advise me to
+set my promise aside and let thy cursed Moghuls and others plunder
+those I had sworn to protect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not plunder, boy!&quot; replied the old lady shrilly, &quot;but to resume their
+own property.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I care not,&quot; said Babar sternly, and rising to go; &quot;I say I was wrong
+to yield. 'Twas senseless, to begin with, to exasperate so many men
+with arms in their hands. And then--Lo! grandam--I was precipitate,
+and in affairs of state many things that appear reasonable at first
+sight require to be well weighed and considered in a hundred different
+lights ere orders are given. I shall have trouble over that yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stalked away in dignified fashion, and his mother sighed. &quot;He grows
+a man, indeed. 'Tis time he married; but I wonder will she be good
+daughter to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She will be good granddaughter to me, that I'll warrant me,&quot; retorted
+Isân-daulet viciously. She would stand no nonsense from young chits.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the marriage went on, and Babar performed his part of it with grave
+politeness and propriety. He wore his wedding garments with a
+difference, and when he sat beside his bride for the first time,
+holding her hand and repeating the words after the officiating Kâzi he
+felt quite a thrill. In fact he would like to have squeezed the little
+hand he held, only it was so covered with rings and gew-gaws that he
+was afraid of hurting it. Altogether the fateful she looked rather
+small; but distinctly fetching--though of course he could not see her
+face, in her veil of jasmine blossoms. They smelt, however, rather
+sickly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was in fact all that he vouchsafed to Dearest-One who, late in
+the evening, slipped in, dressed in white from head to foot, to wish
+her darling brother happiness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I would she smelt of violets instead,&quot; he said thoughtfully; &quot;dost
+think, Dearest-One, it could have been the jasmine perfume and not the
+sweets that made me sick when I was five?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Dearest-One laughed; a laugh with a sob in it, and said to her
+mother ere she returned to her House-of-Rest:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is not fond of her, see you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God forbid!&quot; snapped Isân-daulet tartly. &quot;Lo! he will love her when
+she is the mother of his son.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Dearest-One was silent; that might be; though she doubted it. But
+for the present she was right. Babar was not in love; what is more he
+was shy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Khânum, his mother, who found her town-bred, mincing and
+thoroughly amiable daughter-in-law quite an amusing distraction, began
+by rallying him on his bashfulness; but as the first period of his
+married life went on, bringing a decrease of such affection as he had
+had, and a corresponding increase of shyness, raillery turned to
+tears, then to anger, until the gentle lady, outraged by her son's
+behaviour, would scold him with great fury and send him off like a
+criminal to visit his wife.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar had, however, some excuse for his lack of interest. Marriage had
+come to him in the very moment when he needed all his vitality to keep
+his newly-recovered throne. What he had said to his grandmother
+concerning his overprecipitate permission for modified plunder had
+been true. The inconsiderate order, issued without sufficient
+foresight had caused commotions and mutinies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Moghuls, still dissatisfied, had marched off in a huff; good
+riddance of bad rubbish, as Babar said, though he chafed inwardly at
+not having been able to control them amicably. Still the Moghul Horde
+had ever been the authors of every kind of mischief and devastation.
+Five separate times had they mutinied against him; and not only
+against him--that might have pointed to incompatibility of temper on
+his part--but against every one in authority, especially their own
+Khâns.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was in the breed. True was the verse:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">
+&quot;If the Moghul race had an angel's birth<br>
+It still would be made of the basest earth;<br>
+Were the Moghul name writ in thrice-fired gold<br>
+'Twould be worth no more than steel, wrought cold.<br>
+From a Moghul's harvest sow never a seed,<br>
+For the germ of a Moghul is false indeed.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Thank God! he was no Moghul; he was Turkhomân born and bred!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before winter came on, indeed, the position of affairs had become
+critical. Half the nobles had sided with young Jahângir who still
+claimed the throne, and fighting was general all over the valley of
+Ferghâna. To shut himself up in the town of Andijân for the winter
+months would only be to leave the enemy free to ravage the country
+outside. He therefore chose a spot on the skirts of the hills and
+cantooned his army there. A pleasant spot with good cover for game! An
+excellent sporting ground, in fact, containing plenty of mountain
+goats, antlered stags, and wild hogs. In the smaller jungle, too, were
+excellent jungle fowl and hares.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, when such sport palled, there were always the foxes, which
+possessed more fleetness than those of any other place. Babar rode
+a-hunting every two or three days while he remained in those winter
+quarters, and regaled himself on the jungle fowl, which were very fat.
+Keeping an eye all the time, however, on the enemy's movements, and
+guarding Andijân, where the Khânum and old Isân-daulet appeared to
+have forgotten wars and war's alarms in something more cognate to
+their woman's hearts; something that was almost too delightful to be
+true.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar, when he first heard of the delightful prospect, was all that
+could be desired. Affectionate, overjoyed, proud. What else could he
+be when his mother hung round his neck hysterically, and even
+Dearest-One's pale cheeks flushed at the future.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He shall be my son as well as yours, brotherling,&quot; she said. &quot;Lo! I
+will be his best-beloved aunt. So that settles it, and all silly
+women's talk about my marrying somebody--does it not, O King!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Babar, as he sat holding his sister's hand as in the old days, saw
+a vista of happiness before him. It would be delightful. Imagine
+having a son of his very own! Ayesha Begum could not complain of his
+coldness on that visit, and he returned to his camp jubilant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the knowledge of what was to come, made him restless. Of what use
+was an heir, unless he was heir to something tangible? Ferghâna,
+divided against itself, was no permanent position for either claimant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But what of Samarkand? There, his cousin Ali (who had no claim) had
+just beaten Weis, his younger brother who had a claim, doubtless,
+through his mother: but after his, Babar's, since she was the younger
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sat on the snowy slopes waiting for <i>bara-singha</i>, or bear, and
+ciphered it out; he came back to camp and talked it over with Kâsim
+and the nobles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Praise be to God!&quot; said the old swashbuckler, &quot;we may see some fine
+fighting once again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were to see more than they had bargained for; since, when with
+the advancing spring Babar and his army arrived before Samarkand it
+was to find that they were pitted, not against the weakling Ali and
+his half-hearted troops, but against the great Usbek raider, Shaibâni
+Khân, who, God knows why or wherefore, had attacked Bokhâra, taken it,
+marched on to Samarkand, taken it by the treachery of a woman, and was
+now there in undisputed possession. Babar felt that to attack the
+position overtly with his small force was madness. But what of a
+surprise? The Usbek horde were strangers. Babar himself had been
+beloved, during his short reign of a hundred days. If once he could
+find himself within the walls, the people of Samarkand might declare
+in his favour. At any rate they would not fight for the Usbek. <i>That</i>
+was certain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was worth a trial. But those who were to attempt the forlorn hope
+must be picked men, and there must be no attacking force before the
+city. That would put the garrison on the alert.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the meantime he would go to the mountains; one thought clearer in
+high places.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Summer was nigh on, ere preliminaries were settled, and Babar
+with his picked band, ready for swift attempt, stood on the heights of
+Yâr-Ailak once more. Above him, unseen in the darkness of the moonless
+night was the flower-carpeted alp where Dearest-One's face watched the
+stars wheel. The <i>Heft-Aurang</i>, the seven thrones, showed in ordered
+array on the purple velvet of the night. Was one of them kept vacant
+for him, he wondered, or had Baisanghâr's poor ghost found it? Babar's
+mind was ever full of such whimsical thoughts; they came to him,
+unasked, making his outlook on life many-facetted, many-hued, like the
+iridescent edge which had set a halo round all things in the Crystal
+Bowl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The future seemed thus glorified to him as he sat looking out over the
+unseen city in the valley beyond.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His nobles, his comrades, were sitting round him, revelling over the
+camp fire; holding a sort of sacramental feast before the dangerous
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come!&quot; cried Babar, turning, a light on his face brighter than the
+firelight; &quot;let us have a bet on when we shall take Samarkand.
+To-night, to-morrow or never!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To-night!&quot; cried Nevian-Gokultâsh and the others followed suit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Half-an-hour afterwards they were in their saddles, low-bowed upon
+their peaks, light scaling ladders slung alongside, riding for all
+they were worth. Now or never! The time was ripe. Shaibâni Khân
+himself, lulled in security, away on a marauding expedition, the
+garrison unalarmed, confident.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was midnight when they halted in the Pleasure-ground before the
+walls of Samarkand. Here Babar detached eighty of his best men. They
+were, if possible, to scale the wall noiselessly by the Lovers'
+Cave--most deserted portion of the fortifications,--make their way
+silently to the Turquoise Gate, overpower the guard and open the
+doors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar himself, with the remainder of his men was to ride up to the
+Gate and be ready to force their way in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How still the night was! The stars how bright! The Seven Thrones
+wheeling in their ordered array to the dawn. What had Fate ordered in
+his life? Babar, waiting, his hand gripped on his sword-hilt in the
+dark way of the Gate, listened eagerly for a sound. The horses' hoofs,
+deadened by enswathing felt, had made no sound, the very chink of
+steel on steel had not been heard. All was silent as the grave.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What did Fate hold in store? Hark, a sentry's sleepy call: &quot;What of
+the hour of the night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What, indeed?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then in one second, tumult, uproar, a clashing of sword on sword.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Gate! Open the Gate!&quot; shouted Babar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A swift bombardment of dull blows--stones, anything on iron bolts and
+bars. A shiver, a sudden yielding, and the wide doors swung open.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An instant after Babar was through the gateway, King of Samarkand. He
+knew it, even as he galloped on through the sleeping streets to the
+citadel. A drowsy shopkeeper or two, roused by the clatter, looked out
+from the shops apprehensively, then offered up prayers of
+thanksgiving. So, by ones and twos, the city woke to relief and
+gratitude. By dawn the hunted Usbeks had disappeared; dead or fled.
+And the chief people of the town, bringing such offerings of food
+ready dressed as they had at hand were flocking to the Great Arched
+Hall of the Palace, to do homage to their new King, and congratulate
+him on his success.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar received them with his usual frank, simple dignity. For nearly a
+hundred and forty years, he said, Samarkand had been the capital of
+his family. A foreign robber, none knew whence, had seized the kingdom
+unrighteously. But Almighty God had now restored it, and given him
+back his plundered and pillaged country which he would proceed to put
+in order.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did it to his heart's content! He was now nineteen, the birth of
+his son was nigh at hand, and all must be ready for the expected heir.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the next month or two passed in preparations and congratulations.
+Babar, who felt the strength of the pen as well as that of the sword,
+wrote endless letters to the neighbouring princes and chiefs, assuring
+them of his favour, and requesting like return from them. These he
+despatched duly accredited with rose-scent and gold-dust and brocaded
+bags; but not so many came back as went out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Moghulistân was slow to recognise the value of peaceful persuasion,
+and looked askance at the young general who could surprise so wily a
+foe as Shaibâni Khân and yet think it worth while to write missives
+like a scrivener.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But one letter came which brought the young King unmixed delight; for
+it was from the incomparable Ali-Shîr at Khorasân; an incomparable
+letter without one word astray; a pure pleasure from start to finish.
+The young King answered it boldly: even daring so far as to write a
+Turkhi couplet of his own composing on the outside thereof; a Turkhi
+couplet that was not half-bad; for he was growing to be a man in mind
+as well as body.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So all things went merry as a marriage bell. His grandmother, his
+mother, and the mother of his expected heir, arrived by slow marches
+from Andijân and were lodged in the Birthplace and Deathplace of
+Kings, the Green-Palace. And Dearest-One came too in the white
+robes of a sainted canoness, eager to take up her position of
+aunt-in-ordinary; a position of honour with the Chagatâi family. Babar
+himself had half-a-dozen or so such Benificent-Ladies ready for all
+festivities, all condolences.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, one hot night, he found himself looking distractedly at the moon
+in a balcony of the women's apartments.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hurrying feet and whisperings had gone on, it seemed to him, for
+hours.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But these feet did not hurry; they lagged.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A daughter! a miserable daughter!&quot; said his mother's voice, full of
+tears. &quot;Lo! I wonder Ayesha could think of such a thing ... It is
+unpardonable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us say no more,&quot; put in Isân-daulet. &quot;When a woman disgraces
+herself, the less said the better. We will get thee a more dutiful
+wife, sonling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even Dearest-One's face was downcast utterly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A daughter!&quot; echoed Babar and paused. Then he said eagerly: &quot;May I
+not see it, motherling?--'Tis my first child, anyhow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And they showed it him, a naked new-born baby wrapped in a cotton
+quilt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It looks old; as if it had been born a long time,&quot; he said
+reflectively; then his fine, strong, young hand touched the tiny
+crumpled fingers tentatively. &quot;Lo! they are like little worms,&quot; he
+said and laughed aloud suddenly, a gay young laugh. &quot;She is not bad,
+my daughter. I will call her 'Glory of Women.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And almost every day he would find time to go in to the women's
+apartments and look at her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But, after a month or forty days, the little Glory of Womanhood went
+to share the Mercy of God.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was his first child, and at the time he was just nineteen.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">
+A Moment's Halt--a momentary taste<br>
+Of Being, from the Well amid the Waste,<br>
+And lo!--the phantom Caravan has reached<br>
+The Nothing it set out from.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:25%"><i>Omar Khayyam</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="normal">Fate had called a halt in Babar's life. A court had once more gathered
+round him, and, as King of Samarkand, a city of colleges and culture,
+this was of different stamp from that of Andijân. It occupied itself
+with other things than the edge of a sword-blade or the merits of a
+polo-ball.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo!&quot; said Mulla Binâi the poet, his voice lubricated with artificial
+adulation to extreme oiliness, &quot;I have at last found fitting memorial
+for the magnificent victory of the King in these poor words:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p style="margin-left:5%; text-indent:-3%">&quot;'Tell me, my soul, the conquering day<br>
+Fateh Babar Bahadur,' I say.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">The horrid doggerel, with its inlay of numerical letters giving the
+date of Babar's surprise of Samarkand, was allowed to pass muster in
+that crowd of flattering courtiers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Only Kâsim Beg, bluff as he had been from the beginning, said,
+smartly:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good enough, if so be 'tis accurate; but of that, thank God, I know
+naught; for whilst thou rememberest fine fights by dots and strokes, I
+keep them by the dents on my good sword.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old noble disliked Binâi; he disliked all poets in general; but
+this one in particular. He knew nothing good of him but his <i>riposte</i>
+to Ali-Shîr--who was worth ten of him since he had at least been born
+a Beg and who, before he was bitten by the mad craze for jingling
+words, had struck a good few shrewd blows for the right. Besides, he
+had been author and patron of many useful inventions, and it was not
+his fault if the gilded youth of Herât named every new fashion after
+him, and when he, in consequence of an earache, bound up his face with
+a kerchief, bound up theirs also and called it <i>à la mode</i> Ali-Shîr.
+Still Binâi's <i>riposte</i> to the sarcasms which had driven him from
+Herât was a good joke. To order a ridiculous pad for the ass he was to
+ride and call it the Ali-Shîr pad! The recollection of it always made
+good old Kâsim laugh broadly. The humour of it suited his sturdy
+outlook. An outlook that was disturbed by the jingle-jangle of words
+and wits that began to arise about his young master. It was all very
+well, and affairs were doubtless in a most prosperous state. All the
+same there was no counting on any continuance of fine weather with
+half-a-dozen claimants to the throne and Shaibâni-Khân close at hand.
+The Usbek raider was no man to give in because of one reverse; his
+whole life was war.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So Kâsim frowned at culture, and as Prime-Minister looked to his
+weapons.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not however for many months that his fear came true and
+Shaibâni, reinforced, appeared again on the horizon of Babar's world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But when he did, the young King set aside everything else and buckled
+on his sword once more with zest. He had been studying military art in
+his great ancestor Timur's memoirs, and was eager for a pitched
+battle. No sooner, therefore, did Shaibâni's hordes show themselves,
+than the young general marched to meet them, and, over-impatient,
+precipitated a collision before his own re-enforcements of over five
+thousand men had time to join him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it was his first pitched battle, he was keen as mustard, and had
+planned it all out on paper beautifully on strategical lines.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the astronomers were to the fore with a lucky conjunction of
+stars.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the right and left wings marched out in orderly array, and wheeled
+admirably to meet the first attack of their flank. But somehow this
+separated Babar from his staff of veterans, who possibly did not
+believe in the virtue of disciplined movements; and though in person
+he led a dashing and impetuous charge of his centre on the foe, which
+drove the Usbeks back to the point of rout, Shaibâni would not accept
+defeat. He stood firm, despite his officers' advice to withdraw while
+he could, and continued the wild desert tactics of repeated charges on
+the enemy's flank, repeated withdrawals to wheel and reform.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Babar's army, but half-disciplined, divided by conflicting ideals
+became hopelessly confused. His Moghul troops, refusing to obey
+orders, reverted to their old habit of killing and plundering, with
+the result of rout--complete absolute rout.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That night the young leader, stern and calm, despite the ache at his
+heart for his own broken ideals as well as for the loss of the many
+Begs of the highest rank, the many admirable soldiers, the many
+devoted friends who had perished in the action, held a council of war
+in the citadel as to what had best be done under the circumstances.
+Capitulation on terms, or unconditional defence?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Belief in their leader and the devotion of the Andijân nobles carried
+the day against the more lukewarm Samarkandis. It was resolved to hold
+the citadel to the death, to the very last drop of blood; and with
+vitality renewed by the need for immediate action Babar set to work
+strengthening the fortifications. Here at any rate he was master;
+bricks and earth could not disobey orders; they must remain where they
+were put.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet most of the nobles sent away their wives and families secretly.
+Babar's mother and sister, however, refused to leave their beloved one
+whose fortunes they had followed for so long through thick and thin.
+Grandmother Isân-daulet, also, remained of course. Her brave old heart
+rather gloried in the thought of a siege, and with all the hatred of a
+desert-born Chagatâi, she hated the Usbek raider who had dared to beat
+her grandson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Though on that point she and Babar had many words. He reviling her
+Moghul horde as the cause of his failure; she asserting it to be his
+cramping conditions which had prevented the success of the old methods
+of warfare that had served his fathers well enough.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As for Ayesha Begum she had long since retired in a huff to her own
+relations, making as her excuse the plea of grief for the death of the
+little Glory of Womanhood. But Babar knew better. She had not cared at
+all. Her other plea that he did not love her was more to the purpose.
+Anyhow it was as well, thought the young husband grimly; she would
+only have wept and been uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For discomfort was inevitable even from the very beginning of the
+siege; at any rate for the men. The nightly round of the ramparts
+alone entailed lack of proper sleep, since but a small portion of them
+was ridable, the rest had to be done on foot. And so long was the
+circuit that, starting at dusk, it was dawn before every place had
+been inspected. Still, even with the small force at his command, Babar
+kept the foe at bay, though, more than once he had a narrow squeak of
+it. Once when a feint attack of Shaibâni's on the Iron-Gate covered a
+daring escalade at the Needle-makers Gate. An escalade that was all
+but successful. Four of the attacking party were actually over the
+wall, dozens of others were swarming up it, when one Kuch-Beg, noble
+by birth and by nature, caught a glimpse of someone where someone
+should not be. To draw his sword single-handed as he was, and spring
+to the attack was the work of an instant. It was an exploit for ever
+to be cited to his honour, though his ringing war-shout brought three
+more heroes to his aid. Even so, there were but four against dozens;
+but furious blows, daredevil recklessness do much, and almost before
+the nodding guards were roused, the danger was over, the escaladers
+driven back, to fall a confused heap of ladders and men leaving a dead
+body or two on the ramparts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Kâsim Beg sallied out again and again to engage the enemy's
+pickets and returned, bringing heads to set on pikes upon the walls.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For war was war in those days; there was no talk of Red-Crosses and
+ambulance-wagons.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And yet two women went about inside the fortress, bandaging wounds and
+applying simples. For the Khânum, Babar's mother, could not bear to
+see pain, and though old Isân-daulet sniffed at new fangled ways,
+asserting that men could but die once and that it was waste of time to
+tend a common soldier as though he were a noble, she came of a
+fighting tribe and could give many an inherited recipe for the healing
+of cuts, the prevention of wound fever. Then Dearest-One despite her
+youth, had a claim, as one who had renounced the world to freedom for
+good works; so mother and daughter went about in their close white
+veils applying the simples which the old woman pounded and compounded,
+and doing all they could for the brave men who were helping the
+beloved of their eyes to keep his kingdom. They could do no less; they
+could do no more; so at least said the Khânum, as often in the dark
+nights the mother and daughter lay awake trembling in each other's
+arms, listening during an attack or a sally.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Grandmother Isân-daulet would fall foul of them for their red eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When a man comes in to his food,&quot; she would say, &quot;reeling from blows
+at his head or sick at stomach with hunger, 'tis no comfort to him to
+see tears, or the signs of tears. Thou sayest, daughter, thou can'st
+do no more for thy son? Then I can. I can make him angry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And she did: so that Babar went from his breakfast with his soft heart
+hardened to disdain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dearest-One used to admire her grandmother's pluck. Not to care if one
+hurt the beloved for his good! That was great. And she would wring her
+hands tight and say to herself: &quot;I told him long ago that there was
+nothing I would not do for him; but there is nothing, nothing I can
+do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the months dragged by. Harvest came and went without bringing fresh
+supplies to the beleaguered fortress, and Shaibâni, cynical, somewhat
+afraid of his daring young antagonist, withdrew from actual collision,
+and contented himself with blockade. Starvation would do the work
+without his aid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The grain for the horses had already given out; however, while the
+leaves lasted the mulberry trees and the rose-wood trees in the
+fortified gardens were stripped and did for fodder. But the winter
+winds ended this supply, and the shift was made to keep some few
+horses alive with the rispings of wood moistened with water and
+sprinkled with salt. A sorry appearance was that of the poor steeds on
+such miserable fare; but Babar's charger did better, with a daily
+share of his master's bread; though the big-boned lad could ill
+spare it. For all alike were on short commons; and they grew shorter
+day by day. The dying horses were killed and eaten, the donkeys went
+next--then the cats and dogs. When matters came to this pass, however,
+night after night men--brave men--began to let themselves down over
+the wall and make their escape. The haggard young King never knew when
+he called a council of war, what trusted, what honoured face, might
+not be absent. Yet still he clung to that last drop of blood. The oath
+might have been foolish, since, as the ancients said, a fortress can
+only be maintained by the joint action of head, and feet, and hands;
+that is to say by generalship, two friendly forces on either side, and
+a good supply of water and stores as the starting point of all. Still
+he had made it, and he meant to stick to it. The others might go if
+they pleased.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I could only secure thine and my mother's and my grandmother's
+safety,&quot; he said to Dearest-One--&quot;the other few women also,&quot; he
+added--&quot;though there is little fear for them, they count not enough
+for harm; and Shaibâni hath his army well in hand. That is how he
+scored against me. Those accursed Moghuls of my grandmother's would
+not obey orders. If they killed a man they plundered him--and what is
+that, when a turning movement hath been ordered? Ah! it was devilish!
+devilish!&quot; And the tall, thin, young figure would throw out its arms
+almost appealingly. For Babar was ever high-strung, and his nerves
+were going.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gave himself no rest either. Night and day he was always on the
+watch. So it did not matter so much to him as to others when Shaibâni
+Khân, changing his tactics, commenced making the darkness hideous by
+beating large kettle drums and sounding the alarm. Yet the young King
+shook his fist over the battlements at his foe, who had now pitched
+his headquarters tent close to the Lovers' Cave, and said to
+Dearest-One, &quot;It is not fair, and yet it is! I would do it in his
+place--and yet I don't know--I don't know!&quot; He was very near the end
+of his tether, yet his grip was tight as ever and he would sit on the
+top of the gateway with a crossbow and shoot at everyone and
+everything living that showed itself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I struck a palish white-coloured horse to-day,&quot; he said to his sister
+with a cruel exultant look in the eyes that had always been so tender
+for God's dumb creatures, &quot;and it fell dead--would it had been a man!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Dearest-One turned pale. This was worse than death; worse than
+anything--anything in the wide, wide world!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She lay face downwards beside her mother that night and thought, and
+thought, and thought, until the grey dawn came. Then she sat up and
+looked at her mother sleeping beside her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes! it was best. The plan was worth the trying at any rate; and she
+would be the only one to suffer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She lay down again, and laid her head on that gentle, loving, sleeping
+breast. And the motherly arms, unconscious as they were, closed round
+her and held her fast until she, too, slept, outwearied. That morning
+she was closeted with her grandmother for hours, and at the midday
+meal the old woman's eyes showed red; but Dearest-One's were clear and
+bright; when the mind is made up there is no use in tears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The evening was stormy. The bitter east wind swept along the ramparts
+and drove the dust in blinding clouds into the eyes of all. The very
+foe ceased from their disturbing shouts of alarm, and on many a post
+the sentry slept awhile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Did one at the wicket gate by the Lovers' Cave sleep or did he not;
+and did the white-robed figure that slipped after dusk through the
+deserted streets pass out, unseen, to challenge fate in the Usbek
+leader's camp?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Or did Dearest-One send a message only?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Or was it only chance which the very next morning brought the
+ultimatum to the haggard young King? Who knows? Certain it is it came.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no reason, Shaibâni wrote, why those who had been brave foes
+should not be brave friends. None could deny the King of Samarkand's
+bravery; few would care to deny his own. Why then should they not be
+friends? A marriage was ever the best way of securing peace. Let Babar
+therefore give his sister Khanzâda Begum in lawful marriage to his
+foe--who, be it said, was in strong enough position to take her--and
+so form a lasting alliance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My sister!&quot; burst out Babar in a fury. &quot;Go back to the savage
+Usbek Shaibâni, robber, raider, sir ambassador; and tell him that
+Zahir-ud-din Mahomed is not his peer--he is his master!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was all very well in the saying; it sent the blood, growing a bit
+sluggish from sheer starvation, flooding to heart and brain; but
+afterwards when the envoy had gone, and the hungry anxious faces of
+the few who still remained to him showed bitter disappointment, he
+leant his head on his hands drearily in the quiet of the women's room,
+and tried to put himself in the place of those bearded Begs to whom a
+woman's honour or happiness or indeed affection, was, as a rule, of
+small account.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could not, of course, assent; and yet it seemed a pity that he
+could not.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And while he sat crouched in upon himself, spent and weary,
+Dearest-One herself came and crouched beside him and laid her pretty
+head on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Brother!&quot; she said, &quot;I have heard. Come let us talk it over as in old
+days. So let me hold thy poor hand as we used to do; for we have ever
+been friends, Babar-ling--have we not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her voice was calm and steady despite the clamant note of tears that
+was in every word.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Talk not of it, sister! I will not have it,&quot; he muttered; and his
+voice was broken, husky. &quot;By God and his prophet! I could strike him
+dead for the thought that I could be such a cur as even to think of
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shrank just for a second. &quot;Many men would think it naught,&quot; she
+said, &quot;but it is because it means much to thee that thou must think.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will not think,&quot; he cried passionately, &quot;I will not be coerced. I
+will not be cozened. I, Babar, take the consequence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He left her, baffled, yet still determined, to return to the charge in
+a day or two; and in starvation times a day or two means much. So
+much, that she spoke sternly with finality.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wilt thou kill thy mother by thy pride, Babar? Listen! Long years ago
+I said I would do aught for thee--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I answered I would never ask aught,&quot; interrupted her brother
+hotly; but she went on unheeding:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And now thou deniest me the right to save thee. I who have so few
+pleasures. Lo! as thou knowest, my heart is dead for love; and this
+man--this Shaibâni--is not all bad--I--I know he is not. Brotherling!
+women have borne more for love than I shall have to bear maybe--for
+the man must be kind in a way--for--for if it ended, Babar--he could
+take me--without marriage--so grandmother says--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar started up with an oath. &quot;So she also is against me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet in his heart of hearts he knew that the old woman spoke truth. It
+was generous in Shaibâni even to offer marriage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will not have it!&quot; he cried. &quot;I will not yield! I would sooner kill
+thee, myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou wilt kill--us all,&quot; she said calmly. Then she broke down and
+clung to him sobbing. &quot;Let it be, brotherling, for my sake. There is
+so little I can do--let me do this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The quick tears of understanding ran down his cheeks, but he shook his
+head and left her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, after a day or two, yet another proposition came from Shaibâni to
+his brave foe. Babar might go with bare life, taking his womenkind
+with him if he chose, provided he capitulated utterly and acknowledged
+he was beaten.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were parleyings and parleyings and who knows what secret
+promisings beside, what innocent lies, what heart-broken yielding on
+Babar's part. At last, protesting vainly that had he had the slightest
+hope of relief, or had he had another week's stores remaining he would
+never have listened to either threats or entreaties, he agreed to
+capitulate for bare life to him and his. His mother, his sister, his
+grandmother, these three must share his freedom. The others must take
+their chance of horses, or remain, unharmed. Grandmother Isân-daulet,
+however, flatly refused to come. She was too old, she said, to be
+cocked up on a horse for days. She was not afraid. Thrice, already,
+when she was young and good-looking she had fallen into the enemies'
+hands and had been unmolested--save once and how that business ended
+Babar knew. So, being now wrinkled and undesirable she would just
+remain and mayhap give Shaibâni a piece of her mind. So her horse had
+better go to Mingilek-Gokultâsh who was perchance over good-looking.
+It was ever best not to put temptation in men's way. Besides
+Dearest-One might like to have her foster-sister with her. It was
+convenient to have some woman one could trust beside one in dangerous
+times.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As the old woman spoke, she held her granddaughter by the hand, and
+her old fingers tightened themselves on the young ones with a grip
+firm as steel, soft as a caress. And Dearest-One stooped and kissed
+the old face on the lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So by midnight all was ready for the preconcerted escape. The few
+sorry horses left in the citadel were standing saddled, the enemy's
+pickets, it is to be presumed, were looking another way. Babar,
+fierce, miserable, helped his mother to her pad and settled the
+stirrups for her. He could scarcely see for the hot tears held back so
+angrily in his eyes. He could scarcely speak for the hard-held breath
+that seemed to choke him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Defeated, flying for his life--No! not for his own only; for theirs
+also!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gave a glance round at his party. &quot;Is everyone there? Is everyone
+ready?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And from the midst of the little crowd clustering round the fugitives
+with sobs and tears a voice came clearly:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea! brother! I am ready.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was Dearest-One's voice. That must be she leaning from her horse to
+whisper a word to old Isân-daulet who stood waving farewells.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then in God's name let us begone, and end the business,&quot; he shouted
+fiercely, leapt to his charger, dug spurs to its flanks and was off
+careless of disturbance. He had sold himself for the sake of those who
+loved him, man and woman alike; but the blackness as of death was
+before his eyes; he could not think; he could do nothing but dig spurs
+to his horse, and ride on recklessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the night itself was dark as death; he had to rein up amid the
+great branches of the Soyd Canal, and with difficulty rallied his
+party to the right road. Yet, still entangled in the intricacies of
+the irrigated fields, there was time for no other thought save that of
+getting as far from Samarkand as possible before the dawn. Since
+though the Usbek leader himself had given order for free pass, his
+followers, still less his allies, were not to be trusted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sky was grey with coming day before they reached the comparative
+safety of a wild valley set amid encircling hills. Here Babar called a
+minute's halt to breathe the horses, and for the first time turned to
+take stock of those who followed him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His keen eye took in his mother's veiled form. But that bundle like a
+sack of corn, that crumpled heap like a withered rose leaf--neither of
+these were Dearest-One? <i>She</i> rode! In a flash, a sense of pride at
+her upright carriage on her horse came to him, even as a suffocating
+leap of his heart made him speechless for a second. An awful fear
+seized him. He knew, and yet he would not know what had happened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Khanzâda Begum!&quot; he muttered hoarsely. &quot;Where--where is she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No one spoke, and anger--hopeless, helpless anger and grief kept him
+silent. Then someone said almost fearfully:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mayhap in the night time--in the darkness--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is a lie!&quot; burst out Babar. &quot;It is a lie!--I have been tricked!&quot;
+Then something of the innate truth that was ever in his soul made him
+pause. He ought to have known--he ought to have guessed. Foes were not
+usually so generous, and he saw himself not altogether free from
+blame. &quot;I have tricked myself--I ought to have known,&quot; he burst out.
+&quot;I--oh! may God's curse light on everyone--everyone--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he stood, his face turned towards the distant city for a moment,
+then with a reckless laugh he loosed the rein on his horse's neck and
+threw his arms above his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come on!&quot; he shouted as the horse bounded forward. &quot;We are free! Let
+us ride to hell--to hell and damnation!&quot; And his laughter echoed back,
+bringing terror to his mother's heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is beside himself,&quot; she cried. &quot;After him, Kâsim--for God's sake
+keep him from harm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Kâsim and Kambar-Ali his squire, were already at the gallop, and
+the sound of their horses' feet followed Babar as he fled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From what?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From everything in the wide world. From anger, love, remorse, helpless
+grief, even from resolve not to be beaten. His nerves were unstrung;
+for the moment his one thought was escape.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But only for a moment. The sound of those galloping hoofs behind him
+brought immediate self-control, immediate grip on kingly dignity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned back on his saddle to cast a word that would re-instate him
+in sanity to those following fools.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A race!&quot; he cried gaily. &quot;Come on! A race let it be!--Ten
+<i>dinars</i> ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But even as he spoke, he overbalanced. Perhaps he felt giddy, perhaps
+the girths on his starving horse were all too slack. Anyhow the saddle
+turned with him and he fell; fell clear on his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was up again, however, ere they reached him, standing unsteadily
+with dazed eyes, passing his hand gently backwards and forwards over
+his brow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What was it all about?&quot; he murmured cheerfully. &quot;I've clean forgotten
+it all.&quot; And he had.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He mounted again after a minute and rode on; but the memory of that
+night had gone out of his mind for ever and aye.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">Think, in this battered Caravanserai<br>
+Whose doorways are alternate Night and Day,<br>
+How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp<br>
+Abode his Hour or two and went his way.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:25%"><i>Omar Khayyam</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Those first few days of despair were as a dream. The world and all
+that is in it showed to Babar's eyes like a phantasy of sleep. He lay
+and rested at a friendly village, passing from the extreme of famine
+to plenty; from an estate of danger and calamity to peace and ease.
+The nice fat flesh, the bread of fine flour well baked, the sweet
+melons and excellent grapes in great abundance, all these made him
+feel sensibly the pleasures of peace and plenty; for enjoyment after
+suffering, abundance after want, come with an increased relish and
+afford a more exquisite delight. It was the first time in his life
+that he had passed from the injuries of his enemies and the pressure
+of actual hunger to the ease of security, and he revelled in it like
+the wholesome-hearted, and, for the time, mindless creature that he
+was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But memory of a sort came back to him after a few days and he grew
+restless; so they marched on. And as he rode over the hills or walked,
+leading his mother's pony, discontent began once more to leaven his
+glad content. The world in these lower lying districts was beautiful
+in the early springtide, but there was something more in life than
+mere beauty. There was something else needed to make it splendid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will go back to where we were in the White Mountains,&quot; he said one
+day. &quot;I was happy there and so was Dearest-One.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the first time he had mentioned his sister's name, and his
+mother looked at him anxiously. But he said no more. Nature was
+dealing in kindly fashion with him and bringing memory back by slow
+degrees.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But at Bishâgher, where they halted a few days, it was like to have
+been otherwise, for there they came across an old duenna of Babar's
+mother who having been left behind in Samarkand because of the
+scarcity of horses, had, nothing daunted, trudged after her mistress
+on foot. The two women sobbed on each other's necks, while the one
+told and the other listened to the piteous tale of a marriage, which
+after all had not been so bad as it might have been, because of old
+Isân-daulet's masterful spirit. But they said nothing to the menfolk
+about it all. It was as well that their boy should hear as few details
+as possible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And here--the first possible place for news since those long months of
+siege--tidings came of family deaths at Tashkend. It was fourteen
+years since Babar's mother had been there and seen her people, and
+now, when they were hopeless, homeless, and when, moreover, she had
+her old governess to serve her once more, the time seemed fitting for
+a visit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So she went, and for the first time for many years Babar was left
+alone without any hostages to fortune.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And one of the first things he did with his liberty was to climb a
+certain hill all set with flowers, which he and his sister had climbed
+one spring day in the past. The gentians were as blue, the primulas as
+pink as ever, and the mosaic of forget-me-nots and yellow crowsfoot
+lay almost inconceivably bright as ever. The blue sky, grazing ground
+for fleecy white flocks of clouds, stretched away beyond the hills to
+that faint bluer line of distant Samarkand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All was as it had been. And the green enamel frame set with jewels,
+like flowers, lay on the transparent ice where she had put it. He had
+not noticed that before; one could see through the slab--see green
+grass-blades, and a half opened flower bud that had been held in chill
+prison for years and years and years--It was quaint, utterly, when her
+face, her portrait had gone! The rain had washed it away. The vellum
+on which it had been painted lay white as snow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes! quaint utterly. The icy grip had kept its hold, the warm sunshine
+had let slip its prize. He sat down idly, his head resting in his
+hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes! her face had gone! What matter now if there was place or grace
+beside it for another? Poor Baisanghâr! and poor--infinitely poorer
+Dearest-One! For the first time the full meaning of what had happened
+came over him; he turned round passionately, hid his face among the
+flowers and cried like a child.</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><i>Ishk</i> and <i>ashk!</i> Love and tears. How little divided them. So the
+thought of his dead, crippled cousin came to him and the memory of
+that vivid, fate-defying face stood between him and despair. The
+Crystal Bowl! Yes! he would laugh as he quaffed: life had brought him
+strange adventures; let her bring more! He was ready for them--quite
+ready, in his manhood, to take what the years might hold. For boyhood
+had gone. That had capitulated with Samarkand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not formulate all this clearly; he simply felt it. Felt the
+keen joy in life come back to him as he sat up once more and looked
+out over God's beauties with still swimming eyes; and the tears were
+magnifying glasses!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A quaint conceit that might be worked up into a couplet or perchance a
+quatrain. Baisanghâr would have done it finely: he worked well on such
+finniken fancies. But he had been wrong in the verses he had written
+on the back of the enamel frame. Were they there still? Aye! they had
+been protected from the tears of rain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He read the lines over, feeling as he read them that there was
+something in them that lacked. So, as he felt, words came to him; for
+he was born with that artistic temperament which cannot help trading
+on its own most sacred emotions; perhaps because such natures see
+vaguely that individualism is a snare to the soul, that all things
+worth recording are part of a Greater Personality than their own. And
+the outcome of feeling and words ran thus:--</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">
+&quot;Seven thrones, seven sins, seven stars,<br>
+But not one thing that bars<br>
+Life's love, Life's tears.<br>
+The crushed grape fills the bowl<br>
+With wine for the sad soul<br>
+Beyond these years.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">He jumped up feeling quite pleased with himself, for they were the
+first verses in that measure he had ever composed!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After this when he was wandering barefoot over hill and dale, he would
+sit down when he found some pleasant spot and string rhymes together;
+for he was in a backwater, mentally and bodily. For twenty years he
+had battled with Fate over trivialities; since what, after all, were
+Ferghâna and Samarkand and Hissâr? Only tiny little bits of God's
+earth. He was beginning to be a trifle weary of it all, to long for a
+larger horizon. So he sent off on the pretext of getting news, the few
+followers who had remained with him while he, Nevian-Gokultâsh,
+and another wandered farther and farther, higher and higher up the
+White Mountains until they reached the Roof-of-the-World. And there
+they lodged awhile in the felt tents of a shepherd and lived on
+sheeps'-milk, cheese and buckwheat-cakes. Their host was a man of some
+eighty years; but his mother was still alive, and of extreme age,
+being at this time no less than one hundred and eleven years old, and
+in full possession of her faculties. Indeed, the circumstances of the
+great Timur's invasion of India remained fresh in her memory owing,
+doubtless, to her having been in her youth greatly interested in one
+who had been in his army.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was a hale old woman, smoke-dried yet apple-cheeked, who loved to
+hear herself talk, especially when the tall good-looking young
+stranger sat at her feet, fixing his hazel eyes that were at once so
+sad and so merry on her whirling pirn as she twisted the brown wool
+for the blankets.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How it whirled, and leaped, and spun, as the withered old hand jerked
+the thread! So the Hand of Fate jerked men's lives, setting them
+spinning like tops into the shadows, out into the firelight again;
+always, always spinning!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So the Great Khân was feeding his dogs, being in those days infidel,
+when Shaikh Jumâl-ud-din the divine came to him. 'Am I better than
+this dog?' quoth Timur, 'or is he better than I?' And the Shaikh
+smiled. 'If the King has faith he is better than his dog; but if he
+has no faith, then is his dog better than he, since the dog believes
+in a master.' So the Great Khân said the Creed immediately.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wah!&quot; murmured the circle of shepherds; but Babar would press for
+tales of the Great Invasion. And sometimes the old lady would begin at
+the very beginning, and tell how Timur's soldiers, imitating their
+leader, would make their left arms straight as the letter &quot;I&quot; and
+their right arms crooked as a &quot;K&quot; and so write death in the blood of
+their enemies. How they let fly their arrows as the moon lets fly
+shooting stars so that the blood-sodden hillsides showed like a drift
+of red tulips. Or she would drone on--it was a long story--over the
+&quot;Battle of the Mire,&quot; where the enemy not having strength to fight,
+sought help from the magic rain-stone, so that though the sun was in
+the Warrior, a host of dark clouds suddenly filled the sky. The
+thunder resounded, the lightnings flashed, the water descended from
+the eyes of the stars until the voice of Noah was heard praying a
+second time for deliverance from the Deluge. Then the beasts of the
+field swam like fishes, the skin of the horses' bellies adhered to the
+crust of the earth. The feathers of the arrows damped off, their
+notches came out, neither men nor horses could move by reason of the
+rain ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So she would maunder on until Babar would say impatiently:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Get on to India, mother! I would fain be there myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he would hardly listen as she, once more beginning at the very
+beginning, would detail the eight-hundred-thousand men, provided with
+rations for seven years and each accompanied with two milch-kine and
+ten milch-goats, so that when stores were exhausted they might live on
+milk, and when milk dried up they could convert the animals themselves
+into provisions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was all doubtless very wise of Timur--God rest his soul!--who was
+ever great on the commissariat; but he, Babar, preferred the laconic
+remark in his great ancestor's autobiography, &quot;The princes of India
+were at variance with one another. Resolved to make myself master of
+the Indian empire. Did so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was however the more intimate personal experiences which the old
+woman held by virtue of that dead &quot;interest&quot; of hers, which fired
+Babar's imagination; but these fragments of a half-forgotten past were
+not always to be got at. The long years of common round and daily task
+had overlaid them; it needed a subtle touch upon the instrument to
+make it vibrate once more. But Babar found a key. There was a certain
+Turkhomân ballad called &quot;The Maid-of-the-Spring,&quot; which invariably
+unlocked the old woman's memory. So, often, as they sat over the camp
+fire at night, Babar, smiling to himself, would say, &quot;A song, a song!
+Let us sing 'The Maid-of-the-Spring' together once more, grandmother!
+There is none sings it as thou dost.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Which was true! Still the toneless treble of the old voice whining
+away like the fine whing of a mosquito did not sound so bad against
+the rich baritone. And the youngest maiden could not have nodded and
+becked more, or looked more arch. And perhaps the old heart beat as
+quickly as a young one; such things do not go by age.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And this is what they sang in somewhat monotonous antiphon:</p>
+<br>
+<p style="margin-left:5%; text-indent:-5%;">
+<span class="sc">He</span>.<br>
+Maid of the Spring! I'm thirsty! I pray<br>
+A drop of water! I must away.<br>
+God bless you, my girl! And don't be slow!<br>
+Give me a drink and let me go.</p>
+<br>
+<p style="margin-left:5%; text-indent:-5%">
+<span class="sc">She</span>.<br>
+I don't give drinks to strange young men<br>
+Who come a-swaggering down the glen;<br>
+Naught you'll get from my pitcher to-day,<br>
+Drink for yourself and go your way.</p>
+<br>
+<p style="margin-left:5%; text-indent:-5%">
+<span class="sc">He</span>.<br>
+Maid of the Spring! I cannot alight,<br>
+I'm far too tired! I'm wearied quite!<br>
+I haven't time! God bless you, my dear!<br>
+Give me a drink--I <i>can't</i> stay here.</p>
+<br>
+<p style="margin-left:5%; text-indent:-5%">
+<span class="sc">She</span>.<br>
+The birds sing sweet in the spring, they say,<br>
+It's sweeter still when <i>I</i> tune my lay,<br>
+But tired man should sleep in his bed--<br>
+Farewell! God's blessing be on your head.</p>
+<br>
+<p style="margin-left:5%; text-indent:-5%">
+<span class="sc">He</span>.<br>
+Give me some water, you pretty dear!<br>
+If I'd only time, you need not fear.<br>
+My darling! a drink from that stoup of thine,<br>
+Be it water or be it wine.</p>
+<br>
+<p style="margin-left:5%; text-indent:-5%">
+<span class="sc">She</span>.<br>
+Many men travel along this way,<br>
+All are thirsty but none can stay.<br>
+Take my pitcher and drink if you will,<br>
+A thirsty man must have his fill.</p>
+<br>
+<p style="margin-left:5%; text-indent:-5%">
+<span class="sc">He</span>.<br>
+Your brows are arched by a pen, I swear,<br>
+Your teeth are pearls--I will treat you fair,<br>
+Get down from my horse and wait an hour.<br>
+Give me your lips, my sweet, my flower.</p>
+<br>
+<p style="margin-left:5%; text-indent:-5%">
+<span class="sc">She</span>.<br>
+Roses and violets grow our groves,<br>
+No one may pluck them but he who loves.<br>
+My brother has slaves, and sticks a-main;<br>
+Drink and be off--it soon will rain!</p>
+<br>
+<p style="margin-left:5%; text-indent:-5%">
+<span class="sc">He</span>.<br>
+Darlingest dear! let it storm or rain,<br>
+My wide felt cloak shall shelter us twain.<br>
+Pitcher and all, leap up and ride,<br>
+We'll find a kiss at the water's side.</p>
+<br>
+<p style="margin-left:5%; text-indent:-5%">
+<span class="sc">She</span>.<br>
+My love! my love! have you come at last?<br>
+Drop the pitcher and hold me fast!<br>
+There are my lips before we fly<br>
+Out to a new world--you and I.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And now for India!&quot; Babar would cry when the applause was over. &quot;I
+want to hear about the size of it, and the fruit and flowers of it,
+and all about it. See you, grandmother, begin and tell me of the young
+woman thy man met at Lahore--then thou wilt remember to a nicety!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the summer passed, until old Isân-daulet arriving from Samarkand
+with news of Dearest-One, set Babar's mind a-jogging once more over
+his enemy Shaibâni. But there was nothing to be done in winter time:
+such a bitter cold winter, too. More than one man died of it, and even
+Babar himself admitted that, after diving sixteen times in swift
+succession into a river that was only unfrozen in the middle by reason
+of its swift current, the extreme chilliness of the water quite
+penetrated his bones; as well it might.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then early spring brought a great grief which gave pause to energy.
+Nevian-Gokultâsh was done to death, by a scoundrel who was jealous of
+Babar's affection for him, and who had the temerity to say that
+faithful creature had fallen over a precipice when he was drunk.
+Nevian, who adhered so strictly to the law of Islâm! Nevian, who had
+always sided for sobriety, who had been to the full as urgent as old
+Kâsim Beg against a King giving himself up to wine. Babar, helpless to
+follow the murderer, felt deeply the death of his playmate in
+childhood, the companion of his boyhood. There were few persons for
+whose loss he would have grieved so much or so long. For a week or ten
+days, he thought of nothing else and the unbidden tears were ever in
+his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After this, a great restlessness set in, fostered by old Isân-daulet,
+whose whole life had been one long succession of battles and murders
+and sudden deaths, and whose belief in Moghul troops never wavered.
+Why, she suggested, not go to his uncles the Khâns at Tashkend? His
+mother had been ill; she would like to see him once more. And if his
+tongue was sufficiently careful amongst his thirty-two teeth, he might
+get substantial help.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For what?&quot; gloomed Babar--&quot;to get back Âkshi and lose Andijân or get
+Andijân and lose Âkshi? 'Tis all one in the end.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not the fine fighting, child!&quot; replied the old lady craftily. &quot;That
+is the same, be it in <i>Gehannum</i> or <i>Bihisht</i>.&quot; (Hell or Heaven.)</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was undoubtedly true; and there was no good to be gained by
+rambling from hill to hill as he had been doing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, once more, the young adventurer gathered together a very scanty
+band of followers; for old Kâsim Beg, who till then had never left
+him, had come to words with Isân-daulet over these same Moghuls, and
+refused to accompany him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I say not, sire,&quot; remonstrated the wise old soldier, &quot;that these men
+are bad soldiers for me; but they are for the Most Exalted, who has
+ideas of discipline. Besides, I care not to risk my own neck for a
+chance. In obedience to the Most Exalted's commands I beheaded quite a
+number of these men in the last campaign, for marauding. Wherefore,
+therefore, should I go amongst their mourning relatives? I will come
+if there be fighting. Then there is no leisure and little desire for
+private revenge; blood can be let anywhere and one corpse is as good
+as another.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So Kâsim went with his immediate adherents towards Hissâr; and Babar
+set off to Tashkend with rather a heavy heart. In a somewhat didactic
+mood also, for resting for a day or two beside a spring in the lower
+hills, he caused a verse to be inscribed on a stone slab which formed
+one side of the well where the water gushed in from the hill above, to
+disappear into the earth when it had run through a masonry trough.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Many a man has rested and has drunk<br>
+Thy water, and like thee, O spring, has sunk<br>
+Swift to a grave where he lies all forgot,<br>
+Conqueror or vanquished, libertine or monk.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">He was not, however, at home in the <i>rubâi</i>, as he had not, at that
+time, studied with much attention the style and phraseology of poetry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Indeed, one of his first actions on reaching Tashkend was to submit
+some of his compositions to the Khân who had pretensions to taste, and
+who, moreover, wrote verses himself; though his odes, to be sure, were
+rather deficient in manner and substance. The younger poetaster,
+however, did not get either explicit or satisfactory criticism, and
+came to the conclusion that his uncle had no great skill in poetic
+diction. He did not know, for instance, that in the Turkhi language it
+was allowable, by poetic licence, to interchange certain letters for
+the sake of the rhyme.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He will think thee a nincompoop,&quot; stormed Isân-daulet. &quot;Why did'st
+not show him thy sword play?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He may see that ere long,&quot; quoth Babar, grimly, and went straight
+away to write the first <i>ghazel</i> of six Couplets he ever composed.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">
+&quot;I have found no faithful friend<br>
+In the world save my own sad soul.<br>
+Dear heart! thou must give and spend<br>
+On thyself thy confidence whole.<br>
+Nightingale sings to the rose,<br>
+Roses give scent to the bird,<br>
+Dreams one of the thorny foes?<br>
+The other of passion deferred?<br>
+The exile must live apart,<br>
+To his coffers none give or lend.<br>
+The banished one holds his heart<br>
+To his soul as lover and friend.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">He was quite pleased with this effusion and sang it at a festive party
+soon after with great gusto; but the next morning he found that the
+golden clasp of his girdle had been stolen by one of the appreciative
+audience!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Moghuls again!</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER X</h3>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;A blow or two and then the Fighting ends,<br>
+The Sword seeks Scabbard, and the Warrior wends<br>
+Through Death's wide Door. Were it not wiser then<br>
+To sleep until Retreat its message sends?&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">So, vaguely thought Babar as life went on dully with the family party
+at Tashkend. Most of his servants had left from absolute want; one, or
+at most two attendants were all that he could muster when he went to
+pay his compliments to the Khân, his uncle. Once, indeed, he
+accompanied the latter on a foray; but it was a useless sort of
+expedition. He, the Khân, took no part, beat no enemy; he simply went
+out and came back again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young man spent much of his time with his mother who was
+convalescing but slowly; and she naturally, after so many years of
+absence, saw much of her sisters and cousins; most of them elderly
+women, inclined to make much of the handsome young King-errant whose
+melancholy never could withstand the faintest joke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For all that Babar, at the bottom of his heart, was utterly
+dissatisfied with himself and his world. Never since the debacle at
+Samarkand had he found himself again, the light-hearted, intensely
+vital person, who, taking things as they came, could yet turn them to
+his own uses. He began to tell himself privately that, rather than
+pass his life as he was now doing, homeless and purposeless, it would
+be better to retire into some corner where he might live unknown and
+undistinguished; that, rather than exist in distress and abasement far
+better were it to flee away from the sight of man, so far as his feet
+could carry him. In his infancy he remembered he had always had a
+strong desire to see China, but had never been able to accomplish his
+wish because of being a King and having a duty towards his relations
+and connections.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now he no longer had a throne. Now, his mother--the only tie left, for
+Ayesha his wife had never returned to him--was safe with her mother
+and her brother.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, therefore, was the time. His mother, however, he knew well would
+not support the proposition; besides he had still a few followers who,
+having attached themselves to him with very different hopes, would be
+bitterly disappointed at his project. He could not bear to hurt
+anyone's feelings, so he devised a plan in order to get away quietly.
+He had never seen his other uncle, the younger Khân of Outer
+Moghulistân. Why should he not go, in this slack time, and pay him a
+visit?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There seemed, indeed, no reason against this; and Babar was on the
+very point of starting when a messenger arrived hot haste, to say that
+the younger Khân himself was on his way to see his nephew and his
+nephew's mother!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a blow; Babar's plan was utterly disconcerted, but being, like
+all his race, full of family affection, he set off with ever so many
+elderly Khânums with beautiful high-sounding names to meet his uncle.
+Such a meeting as it was; so many embracings and kneelings and yet
+more embracings; some ceremonious, others quite without form or
+decorum. After which the great circle of cousins and aunts, and uncles
+and nephews, sat down and continued talking about past occurrences and
+old stories till after midnight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His younger uncle had, according to the custom of his tribe, brought
+Babar a complete dress of state. A cap embroidered with gold thread, a
+long frock of China satin ornamented with flowered needle-work. A
+cuirass of fine chain-mail, Chinese fashion, with a whetstone and a
+purse-pocket from which were suspended a lot of little trinkets such
+as women wear, including a bag of perfumed earth. He looked very smart
+in it indeed, and when he returned to his own, tricked out in all this
+finery, they declared it was only by his voice they recognised him;
+that they had thought he was some grand young Sultan!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Life at any rate did not seem quite so empty; since the two Khâns,
+having got together, began to propose a joint expedition to recover
+Andijân--<i>for Babar</i>, being an understood corollary so long as they
+remained under the influence of stern old Isân-daulet, who ruled her
+sons in matriarchal fashion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So they set off with flaunting pennons and kettledrums, after the
+manner of Moghul armies, and at their first halt held a muster of
+the troops, also in the Moghul fashion. In groups of three, three
+horse-tail standards were erected, and from the centre staff of each a
+long strip of white cloth was fastened, on the loose end of which
+stood the foot of the leader of that division. All around, in a huge
+circle, the troops were drawn up. Then with many ceremonials and
+sprinklings of mares'-milk spirit, each leader estimated the total
+number of the force. The final verdict being received with a wild
+war-shout; and then, at full speed, the whole army galloped
+centre-wards, the foremost troopers drawing bridle within a foot or
+two of the standards. On this occasion Babar looked with a certain
+awe, yet some misgiving, at no less than thirty thousand wild horsemen
+of the desert.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he had more certain aid than this. He found that he was not all
+forgot in the little valley at the extreme limit of the habitable
+world; and the country people welcomed his return with acclaim. So as
+soon as he could, with that curious distrust of Moghul blood, which
+makes the name given to the dynasty he founded in India so quaintly
+ironical, he parted company with his uncle's forces, and pushing on
+with such of his own people as had come together, sought for fine
+fighting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he got it. Still reckless, almost without definite aim, he
+followed swift on every opportunity for a skirmish. When he saw a body
+of the enemy, he advanced at full gallop without minding order or
+array; and in nine cases out of ten the sheer daredevil clash
+succeeded. The enemy could not stand the charge and fled without
+exchanging blows. But sometimes his ill-luck with the Moghuls pursued
+him. Once when he, with his staff, was waiting outside Andijân for the
+return of a messenger. It was about the third watch of the night, and
+some of them were nodding, others fast asleep on their horses, when
+all at once the saddle-drums struck up with martial noise and hubbub.
+The few men who were with Babar were seized with a panic and took to
+flight; except three, all the rest ran off to a man. In vain these
+four galloped after the fugitives; in vain they horsewhipped some of
+them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All their exertions were ineffectual to make them stand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was nothing for it but to try and check the pursuers themselves
+as best they could. So the four turned, stood and discharged flights
+of arrows, until the enemy was almost within sword thrust; then,
+wheeling swiftly, they galloped on to take up a fresh position of
+offence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In this way they covered and protected the retreat, until by good
+fortune they fell in with a patrol party of their own. Then, of
+course, came immediate charge, to discover that the pursuers were
+Moghuls from his uncle's force, who were out on a pillaging expedition
+of their own! In this manner, by a false alarm, the plan which Babar
+had conceived came to nothing, and he had to return after a fruitless
+journey.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Truly, if the young man had wished to throw away his life, he could
+scarcely have dared Fate more recklessly. More than once he found
+himself almost alone facing stupendous odds. Once, when surprised at
+night in negligent security without advanced guard and without
+<i>videttes</i>, he had to gallop out almost unarmed to meet a large body
+of the enemy and found himself in the midst of them with but three
+supporters. Even so Fate was against him. He drew out of his quiver by
+mistake a green-tipped finger guard instead of an arrow, and being
+unwilling to throw it away because his uncle the Khân had given it to
+him, lost as much time in returning it to its place as would have
+sufficed for the despatch of two arrows, and, ere he was ready, his
+companions had been swept back by the onslaught and he was alone. To
+draw up to his ear and let the foremost foe have it for all he was
+worth was easy, but at the same instant an arrow struck him on the
+right thigh unsteadying his aim, and the next moment that foremost foe
+was on him and smote him such a blow on the head with a sword, that,
+despite his steel cap he was nigh stunned. And then, through his
+having neglected to clean his sword after swimming a river, it had
+rusted a little in the scabbard and he lost time in drawing it. Still,
+he won through that time, and, despite continual anxiety and
+irritation because of the behaviour of the Moghul troops which his
+uncles detached to help him, and who <i>would</i> insist on plundering and
+were with difficulty restrained from putting honourable prisoners to
+death, he was fairly successful, until a final act of treachery threw
+him on his beam ends, and he was forced to retreat, fairly beaten.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was invited to a parley by the enemy and the Moghuls urged him to
+accept the invitation, and by hook or by crook, to seize or murder the
+leaders. Babar was indignant. Such artifice and underhand dealing
+were, he said, totally abhorrent to his habits and disposition. If he
+made an agreement for peaceful interview, he would not violate it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nor did he. But whether from perversity or sheer stupidity, his orders
+were disobeyed, and he found himself committed to battle in the very
+heart of the opponents' defences, and without a sufficient force to
+secure success. Even then he challenged Fate, by waiting for personal
+retreat a full hour or more, unwilling, as he thought, to leave some
+of his friends in danger. Finally news came that having been beaten,
+at the other side of the city in about as much time as milk takes to
+boil, they, and half Babar's men, had escaped long before by another
+gate!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Only about twenty men were left to the young King. It was no longer
+season to tarry; they set off, a great band of the enemy's troops in
+full pursuit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then commenced a memorable ride for life. Man after man dropped
+out, maimed by the flights of following arrows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Help! Help!&quot; cried a well known voice behind him and Babar instantly
+turned bridle to aid a dear friend. But those who rode on either side
+the young King would not have it; this was no time to defy Death. It
+was the time to keep hold on Life. So, with strong hands upon his
+reins, Babar had no choice but to ride on. There were but eight of
+them left now; a wearied, hurried band of hunted men struggling
+through broken glens remote from the beaten road. The enemy behind was
+now out of sight, but, as at sunset the fugitives passed into more
+level ground, a shadow darker than the shadows of evening should be,
+showed on the plain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Placing his men under cover, Babar dismounted, and on foot, ascended
+an eminence to see what this might be. When suddenly from behind, a
+number of horsemen showed coming towards them. It was too dark to see
+their number but, doubtless, it must be a detachment in pursuit, and
+the only hope flight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is no use, sire,&quot; said a noble, &quot;going on thus. They will
+outweary and take us all. Better by far, that you and Kâli-Gokultâsh
+choose two extra horses from amongst us, your devoted servants; so by
+keeping the four horses at full speed you may escape--it is a last
+chance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar shook his head. To leave anyone dismounted in the midst of
+the enemy was beyond him; so he set his teeth and rode on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Most High is heavier than I am,&quot; urged an entreating voice at his
+elbow, &quot;and it is my lord they want, not this slave whose horse is
+fairly fresh.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar set his teeth again; but he felt the truth of the words and
+exchanged horses. Jân-Kâli could slip aside down some ravine. They
+would not follow him. It was he, Zahir-ud-din Mohamed Babar, that was
+wanted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again came the plea--&quot;My horse is fresher than the Most High's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And yet again Babar exchanged steeds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On and on, the horses flagging, followers dropping out, until but two
+remained--the King and his foster-brother Kâli-Gokultâsh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sire!--you had best go on!&quot; muttered the latter as his horse stumbled
+and almost fell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whither?&quot; called back the King bitterly. &quot;Come on! be it Life or
+Death, let us meet it together.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And ever and ever, as they went on blindly, he paused to look back, to
+wait ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And once, when he looked back there was no one near at hand. Only in
+the far distance, coming closer and closer, dark figures--were there
+two or more?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But now, alone, hopeless, the worst seemed over. Babar dug spurs into
+his horse, weary but willing, and was off with renewed vigour in his
+veins. It was himself against the world once more! He would fight it
+out to the end--the bitter end!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was now dark and before him lay a hill. If he could reach it, and
+dismount, he might trust to his own nimbleness in climbing. But his
+horse was dropping, and two of the pursuers were within bowshot, ere
+he could fling himself from his steed on rising ground and dash up a
+glen to the right. He did not pause to shoot, though he had arrows in
+his quiver. A few of these he had stuck in his belt as he flung off
+his accoutrements piece-meal; they were for use at the last--the very
+last!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But voices followed him; eager, protesting voices. They were no
+enemies; neither were they friends. But they could not leave a King in
+such a desolate situation Let him confide in them and he might yet
+find safety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a desperate chance; still it was a chance. And there were but
+two of them. One brave man could surely keep them in check--or kill
+them before he died. Babar pulled up, went back to his horse and faced
+Fate. So, all that night, they rode together, and when dawn came, one
+of the troopers commandeered some loaves of bread. All that day they
+lay watchfully in hiding, and when night came they passed on to a
+half-ruined house on the outskirts of a town. Here the troopers
+brought Babar an old fur coat; which was welcome, for the nights were
+bitterly cold. They also brought him a mess of boiled millet-flour
+pottage, which he ate and found wonderfully comfortable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So comfortable, that having lit a fire, Babar actually fell asleep
+beside it, despite his imminent danger, despite his distrust of his
+comrades who were for ever whispering amongst themselves. But he was
+outwearied after three nights' riding, and two days of watchful
+hiding. Indeed when they roused him at dawn on the pretext that there
+were spies about, and that a change was imperative, he was so spent
+and outdone that he felt inclined to bid them do their worst, or leave
+him to his fate. Yet he followed them dully, to a garden on the
+outskirts of the town--as well die there as elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it was a primrose dawn, with a promise of brilliant sunshine, and
+the garden, partially walled, held a few flowers, a few birds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It needed no more to re-arouse vitality, and Babar, with fresh vigour
+in his veins after his few hours of sleep, began to emerge from the
+slough of despondency in which he had passed the last three days.
+These would-be guides of his were doubtless traitors; could he escape
+them?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The day passed on to noon. Babar, in a corner of the garden, performed
+his religious ablutions and recited his prayers, adding to them the
+consolations of poetry by repeating the couplet:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">
+&quot;Long or short be your tenancy past<br>
+You must quit the Palace-of-Life at last.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">That was a self-evident proposition, and as such gave his simple,
+clear-sighted soul much comfort. So much so, that he fell asleep under
+the trees, and dreamt a dream of victory and triumph.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From which he awoke to find three men standing over him, to hear
+whispers of how best to seize and throttle him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To spring to his feet and face them did not take long.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ill-begotten, treacherous hounds!&quot; he cried, ablaze with anger. &quot;So
+canst thou dare when Babar sleeps--let us see who will lay hands on
+him awake!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The villains fell back; but at that moment the tramp of horsemen was
+heard beyond the garden wall, and one of the trio laughed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Crow away, cockerel!&quot; he cried. &quot;Mayhap, hadst thou trusted us at
+first we might have let thee escape according to our oath. But now is
+the work of death taken out of our hands; for yonder comes a troop to
+seize thee and save our promise unbroken.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned as he spoke to welcome the newcomers, then started. For the
+horsemen hurrying in to the garden were not Babar's foes, but his
+friends!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Kutluk! Babâi!&quot; cried the young King, recognising two of his most
+devoted adherents. They flung themselves from their horses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The King! Long live the King!&quot; they shouted, as bending the knee at a
+respectful distance they rushed forward to fall at the feet of their
+dear leader.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had been a wonderful ride for life; yet in a way a needless one, as
+Babar told his uncles when he rejoined them. Since, had he but known,
+as he afterwards discovered, that the following party was not a whole
+detachment, but only a band of twenty troopers, he and his seven would
+of course, have made a stand and engaged them with every hope of
+success.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not that it would have made much difference; for both the elder Khân
+and the younger one had become weary of their expedition, and on news
+of the Great Usbek raider Shaibâni's appearance in their country, had
+retired in hot haste to their dominions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So Babar once more was at the end of his tether. The Moghuls he told
+his grandmother, to her great dudgeon, were no good as conquerors.
+Nature had made them pillagers, and an inch of plunder was worth more
+than an ell of honour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is out of joint with life,&quot; said his mother, weeping.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Old Isân-daulet sniffed. &quot;Try him with a pretty girl,&quot; she suggested.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Khânum shook her head. &quot;He is not that sort--he will not even
+marry and that is nigh shameless--since he is one and twenty, yet
+without a child. 'Tis hard indeed on a woman of my age to have no
+grandchild.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Except Dearest-One's boy,&quot; said the old woman, her stern face
+softening. &quot;Lo! perfidious barbarian though the father be, I should
+like to see the child. It should have the makings in it of a man--from
+its mother.&quot; And she was silent for awhile; perhaps she was thinking
+of that night in Samarkand when a girl had waited patiently for worse
+than death. Then she spoke:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;See you, daughter! Your boy is not all King, no more than he is all
+my grandson. He hath material for half-a-dozen different persons in
+him and he hath not yet made choice of which to take. Lo!--mayhap--I
+have had too big a hand in the pease-porridge. Let be a bit. Let him
+do as he likes for a while and if that be to leave us for the time--so
+be it. Hurry not God's work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was wise advice. None wiser. So for two whole years, the King was
+King-errant indeed. Even whither he went none know. Most likely he
+fulfilled his boyhood's desire to see China; but this much is certain.
+He and a few intimate friends, not half-a-dozen at most, wandered for
+months and months. Over the White Mountains likely, amid eternal
+snows, across the high lying steppes to Kashgâr, and so onwards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Or perhaps from Tashkend he may have wandered over high plateaux and
+past wide lakes to the Great Tian-Shan mountains. But either way, from
+some high peak, he must have caught one glimpse at least of a sight
+never to be forgotten. The sight of the wide plain of Eastern
+Turkhestân lying like a lake of pale amber beneath an encircling rim
+of snowy pearls, that change to rubies in the sunset. Marvellous
+indeed! All around the everlasting hills contemptuous of man and his
+finite work, glittering icily on that ever-present haze of dust, which
+effaced alike, the sand of the central desert, and the faint fringe of
+cultivation on the skirts of the hills. Over a thousand feet of golden
+dust-pall covering the corpses of the six sand-buried cities of
+Khotân!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Buried when, and how? And wherefore, in God's name, did humanity found
+its houses on the Moving Sands?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fine stimulation here, for the imagination of a poet born.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar must have sat and looked, sat and learnt from the slow
+invincible march of the sand waves piled by the desert winds,
+something of the strength of patience. Slow and sure. Under the gentle
+call of a summer breeze, mayhap, one sand atom shifting place; then
+another and another. But in the end, a high-piled wave, ready to fall
+over and engulf what lay beyond, when the whistle of the winter winds
+rang over the wastes, rousing the hidden devil in those harmless sand
+grains, to whirls of death.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Shifting, shifting; never still for a second. Unearthing there,
+burying here.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With what end?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And doubtless Babar heard the oft told tale of the Muâzzim of Kâr, and
+of the minaret of the mosque which the sand can never hide for long;
+which even in these later days the dry biting winds of the desert lay
+bare, ever and anon, until the golden final of its blue dome shines
+bright as ever over the wide plain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Perhaps,--being a poet born--he may have tried to put the legend into
+verse with better success than the following:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">
+The Preacher preached; his words were austere<br>
+So was his Life. &quot;Oh! sinners, hear!<br>
+I oft have warned you--oft and amain,<br>
+Gentle and stern; yet all in vain.<br>
+From off my feet by order of God<br>
+Shake I the dust in which I've trod.<br>
+I rend my garments, go on my way.<br>
+Not for my soul His Judgment Day.<br>
+No more I preach, no more will I warn;<br>
+Wait till the resurrection morn!&quot;<br>
+He left the pulpit; garments he rent;<br>
+Forth from the Lord's own House he went.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i6">&quot;Thou com'st with me,&quot; he said as he strode<br>
+Past the Muâzzim. &quot;Thine the road<br>
+Of Mercy too.&quot; The singer bowed,<br>
+Bit at his lips, then said aloud:</p>
+<p class="i6">&quot;The Grace of God I cannot gainsay,<br>
+Fain would I go, fain would I stay,<br>
+Once more I'd waken sinners to prayer.&quot;<br>
+Frowning the Priest said &quot;Fool! beware<br>
+Our God is Fire! He burns and He rends,<br>
+Message of Peace, once only sends.&quot;<br>
+The singer shivered. &quot;So be it, yet<br>
+Prayers must be called from the minaret.<br>
+Yet once again singing must rise<br>
+Out of the night to dawning skies.&quot;<br>
+The Preacher spat. &quot;It lies on thy head.&quot;<br>
+Gripped at his purse; smiled as he fled.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t1" style="letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">The minaret was slender and high,<br>
+Blue was its dome; blue like the sky,<br>
+Its gilded finial shone like a star<br>
+Over the sinful town of Kâr.<br>
+The singer climbed its narrowing stair,<br>
+Stood in his place, then breathed a prayer:<br>
+&quot;O God, most great, no atom of sand<br>
+Slips through Thy Fingers' grip; Thy Hand<br>
+Heeds not man's worth. Thou fillest his need.<br>
+Wake those who sleep, Dear God I plead!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t1" style="letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">No star, no moon, the gloom of the night<br>
+Making the snow peaks rim with light<br>
+The purpling sky, the darkening world.<br>
+Was it a sand grain sharp that whirled<br>
+To touch the watcher keen on his cheek?<br>
+Waiting so patient until a streak<br>
+Of cold grey dawn should come to the sky<br>
+Bringing the time for clamant cry</p>
+<p class="i6">&quot;<i>Ul-sul-lah-to-khair-un-mun-nun-nu!</i><br>
+<i>Sleepers! awake! Prayer time has come to you!</i><br>
+<i>Awake! Far better Prayer than Sleep to you!</i><br>
+<i>Ul-sul-lah-to-khair-un-mun-nun-nu!</i>&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t1" style="letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">The night was silent: that was a gust<br>
+Wind hot as fire, laden with dust.<br>
+The singer wiped salt tears from his eyes--<br>
+God! if the sand-storm should arise,<br>
+The storm of sand that comes like a pall<br>
+Gliding soft as snow flakes to fall<br>
+On good, on bad. &quot;Oh! sleepers awake!<br>
+Waken and fly!&quot; His voice could make<br>
+Small sound against the sound of the storm<br>
+Whistling the sand grains, &quot;Rise and form<br>
+In serried order! carry the town!<br>
+Bury each fool, knave, sinner, clown,<br>
+Who sleeps unheeding God's gracious grace,<br>
+Mercy is tired. Go! leave no trace<br>
+Of saint or sinner within this place.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t1" style="letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">The singer fought for breath as he prayed.<br>
+&quot;Lord! give me one more chance,&quot; he said.<br>
+And lo! the sand-storm faltered away;<br>
+Still as the grave the city lay.<br>
+The singer he sang as never before,<br>
+Piercing through gateway, wall and door<br>
+The clamant cry. &quot;Oh! sleepers rise!<br>
+Better is prayer than sleep! Be wise!&quot;<br>
+Awakened all; they saw and they fled<br>
+Forth from the town, bewildered<br>
+Forth from the town, bewildered<br>
+To seek for refuge far from the sands<br>
+Out of the wind. But still he stands<br>
+And still he sings. Perchance there be one<br>
+Soul in the town who might be won!<br>
+The storm fresh-gathered swept on its task,<br>
+Covered all things with deadly mask<br>
+Of sand high-piled like waves of the sea<br>
+Till there was naught save sand to see.<br>
+No soul was left; no need for him more!<br>
+Downwards he crept. He found the door<br>
+Was blocked by sand waves! Merciful Heav'n!<br>
+Not for his soul was ransom given!<br>
+So back he went to the minaret<br>
+--Stood in the wind, the sandy fret--<br>
+Giving the call. It echoes yet<br>
+O'er wastes of sand when the sun has set.<br>
+When shifting winds in gusts and in whirls<br>
+Part of the dead town's shroud unfurls,<br>
+When dimly blue the minaret shows<br>
+Dim as a lamp its finial glows,<br>
+And soft and low and faint as a sigh<br>
+Comes to the ear that clamant cry,</p>
+<p class="i6">&quot;<i>Ul-sul-lah-to-khair-un-mun-nun-nu!</i><br>
+<i>Awake! Awake! Prayer time has come to you!</i><br>
+<i>Awake! Better Prayer than Sleep to you!</i><br>
+<i>Ul-sul-lah-to-khair-un-mun-nun-nu!</i>&quot;</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_02" href="#div1Ref_02">BOOK II</a></h2>
+<h3>BLOSSOM TIME</h3>
+<h3>1504 TO 1511</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Youth asked the lark,</p>
+<p class="i6">'Why dost thou sing</p>
+<p class="t0">When clouds are darkling?'<br>
+Replied the lark,</p>
+<p class="i6">'Behind the dark<br>
+The light is sparkling.'</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Youth begged the Hours<br>
+Death not to bring<br>
+Though clouds were lowering.<br>
+Replied the Hours,</p>
+<p class="i6">'In Heaven's bowers<br>
+Roses are flowering.'&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To-day I will shave,&quot; said Babar with conviction; and his long, fine
+fingers felt his rather ragged young beard reflectively.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was altogether a bit ragged after his long wanderings. But he had
+come back from them wiser, steadier in mind, still stronger in body.
+The record of years of clean, hard living showed in his bright hazel
+eyes, and the general alertness of his lithe young body.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he <i>was</i> ragged! The brilliant June sunshine poured down on the
+sorry encampment set out on the summer pasturage of the high alps of
+Ilâk, and revealed the rents and patches of the two tents which were
+all that Babar possessed; his own, terribly tattered in its royalty,
+reserved for his mother's use; a common felt tilt, flexible in its
+cross-poles, for his own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then his followers! Some two hundred in all; mostly on foot with
+brogues to them: blanket frocks over their shoulders; clubs in their
+hands. A miserable court, indeed, for a Prince of the Blood Royal!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet the sense of Kingship rose stronger than ever in the young mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea! I will be shaven!&quot; he said, magisterially, and summoned the
+court barber. He came running barefoot with a tin basin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There should be ceremonials and entertainments,&quot; said the Khânum, his
+mother, plaintively. &quot;Even at my brothers' first shavings there were
+ever illuminations and feastings, and thou art King; but what will
+you, here in the wilderness?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar laughed. &quot;One King is as like another King as split peas, when
+there is lather to his face, motherling; so quick, barber, image me to
+Sulaiman-the-Wise, or Haroun-ul-Raschid. Lo! I could be Emperor as
+well as they, were fate but kind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, out in the June sunshine, the young man sat while the white lather
+foamed up into his eyes and made them smart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have a care! slave,&quot; he said sharply. &quot;Lo! I shall see things
+cloudy--and I would fain see clear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">See clear! Aye! that was what he wanted. The past was leaving
+him--with his beard! He had made up his mind to that. Never again
+would he quarrel possession of that sweet valley on the extreme limits
+of the habitable world. He would go farther afield; how far
+depended--On what? On himself chiefly. So for the present he was on
+his way to Khorasân, the centre of civilisation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ay! Bare feet and blanket frocks were well enough in boyhood; but when
+a man came to his own there were other Kingships to be fought for
+besides those which involved a temporal throne. There was Kingship in
+thought, Kingship in Art; a dozen or more Kingships ready to be
+gripped.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The razor sweeping backwards and forwards, seemed to be shaving away
+all the disappointments of his past life; he leapt to his feet when
+the business was over and stretched his strong young arms out as if to
+embrace the whole world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! I feel a new man. I am ready for anything--for everything!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, as he stood there, the memory--never very far distant from his
+mind in his moments of exaltation--of the Crystal Bowl of Life came
+back to him and he sang the last verse, his full voice rolling away
+among the hills:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">
+&quot;Clear Crystal Bowl, I laugh as I quaff.<br>
+Bring me Life's whole! I won't take the half!<br>
+Crystal Bowl, I bid thee bring to me</p>
+<p class="t3">Joy, Grief, Life, Death.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where didst learn that song, sonling?&quot; said his mother, fondly. &quot;And
+how well thou singest now! Thou hast learnt much of late, Babar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I learnt it,&quot; replied her son, his face sobering, &quot;from my cousin
+Gharîb. Dost know, motherling,&quot; he added swiftly, the light coming
+back to his eyes, &quot;I learnt more of him than I wist at the time.
+Sometimes I think I owe all to him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All?&quot; echoed the Khânum, hurt. &quot;Dost owe nothing to me--or at least
+to thy grandmother?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar's face showed whimsically reverent. &quot;Oh, yea! Oh, yea!&quot; he
+assented readily; &quot;I owe much to my revered grandparent; yet at this
+present it shows but little.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he pointed to the two ragged tents, the two hundred
+tatterdemalions. &quot;I would I were a tulip at times,&quot; he added
+irrelevantly, as he flung himself down on the grass that was all
+starred with the blood-red blossoms. &quot;Think of it, motherling! To lie
+cosy all winter at your own heart, and when the sun has warmed the
+world to unfurl your banner and flaunt it independent--disobedient, if
+you choose!&quot;--he rolled over on his stomach to look clear into one
+ruby cup--&quot;Yea! little one!&quot; he said patronisingly. &quot;Rightly art thou
+called '<i>na farmân</i>.'<a name="div4Ref_02" href="#div4_02"><sup>[2]</sup></a> Thou holdest thine own treasure secure,
+caring for none--yet will I touch it with my hand,&quot; and the tip of his
+long finger dived into the chalice to touch the stiff stamens, and
+come out all covered with pale, yellow pollen. &quot;An augury!&quot; he said
+gravely, as he smeared his forehead with the powder of life. &quot;Lo! I am
+marked like a Hindu--I shall conquer Hind yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God forgive thee, child,&quot; exclaimed his mother hastily. &quot;Say not such
+things--they tempt Providence. Even not thyself to an idolater.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar looked contrite. &quot;Yet if I conquer Hind, I cannot kill all my
+subjects,&quot; he replied thoughtfully. &quot;There is a puzzle for thee,
+motherling--how to be true Mussulman and yet not a fool?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His mother looked at him and shook her head. Dear son as he was,
+always loving, always affectionate, he had a bad habit of getting away
+from her ken mentally and bodily. It all came of leading such a
+wandering life. If only he would marry and settle down. But there
+seemed no chance of either.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet Fate held the latter to close quarters. It almost seemed as if
+that shaving of his beard, that setting aside once and for all of his
+boyish aspirations had had a magical effect on Babar's environments;
+for within two months, seated at his ease in a splendid tent, he was
+writing in his diary:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Lord is wonderful in His might! That a man, master of twenty or
+thirty thousand retainers, should, in the space of half-a-day, without
+battle, without contest, be reduced to give up all to a needy fugitive
+like myself, who had only two hundred tatterdemalions at his back (and
+they, all in the greatest want); that he should no longer have any
+power over his own servants, nor over his own wealth, nor even his own
+life, was a wonderful disposition of the Omnipotent!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Undoubtedly! And as the enemy who was thus discomfited was no less a
+person that Khosrau-Shâh, the man who had so treacherously caused
+Prince Baisanghâr to be strangled, it is certain that his lack of
+power over his own life was a sore temptation to Babar. The man
+undoubtedly deserved death: it was indeed conformable to every law,
+human and divine, that such should meet with condign punishment. But
+an agreement had been entered into, so he must be left free and
+unmolested, and allowed to carry off as much of his personal property
+as he could.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For Babar was no promise-breaker. Perhaps also the memory of poor,
+miserable Khosrau's appearance when this pompous man (who for years
+had wanted nothing of royalty save that he had not actually proclaimed
+himself King) presented himself for audience and bent himself
+twenty-five or twenty-six times successively, and went and came back,
+and went and came back, till he was so tired that he nearly fell
+forward in his last genuflection, may have weighed with the keen young
+observer. The man was getting old; let him go with his sins upon his
+head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he went. And Babar with the thirty thousand retainers at <i>his</i> back
+set out promptly for Kâbul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His paternal uncle, its King, had died leaving a young son. A
+perfidious minister had ousted this boy from the throne, but had
+himself been assassinated at a grand festival. Thereinafter all was
+disorder and tumult. Fitting opportunity then for a <i>coup d'état</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, over the peaks and passes, Babar at the head of a movable column
+passed swiftly. Still more swiftly--since surprise is the essence of
+success--when news came that the usurper for the time being had left
+Kâbul at the head of his army to intercept another adversary. The
+instant this information was received, the young leader gave his
+orders; within an hour the force was on the march. A hill pass lay
+before them; it must be mastered ere dawn; they must go up and up all
+the night through, the laden mules stumbling over the stones,
+dismounted troopers hauling their horses up rock ladders. A troublous
+time, indeed; but at last the crest of the hill was reached, and
+there, bright to the South, showed a star.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young leader's heart leapt to his mouth--Could it--could it be
+Canopus?--the lucky star of the conqueror? The star of which he had
+read--the star he had never seen before ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That--that cannot be <i>Soheil</i>,&quot; he said almost timorously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is <i>Soheil</i>, Most High,&quot; replied Bâki Cheghaniâni in a courtier's
+voice; then repeated pompously the well known verse:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">
+&quot;How far dost thou shine, <i>Soheil?</i><br>
+And where dost thou rise?<br>
+Who knows? But this cannot fail:<br>
+Thy light brings luck to the eyes<br>
+Who see it and cry, 'All hail!</p>
+<p style="text-indent:25%"><i>Soheil!</i>'&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gentlemen!&quot; rang out Babar's jubilant young voice, cutting the
+clear night air like a knife. &quot;Let us give it all we can...! All
+hail!--<i>Soheil!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All hail! <i>Soheil!</i>&quot; The cry clamoured round the rocks and surged up
+from the ravines where men were still striving upwards; while on that
+downward path to the pleasant valleys below where spear points were
+already beginning to cluster, the troopers paused to echo and re-echo:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All hail! <i>Soheil!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Babar's star was veritably in the ascendant. Within a month--yet
+once more without battle, without contest--he had gained complete
+possession of Kâbul and Ghazni with the countries and provinces
+dependent thereon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had been almost unbelievable success ever since that day when on
+the uplands of Ilâk, he had shaved off his beard and set aside, once
+and for all, his childish hopes and aims!</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><i>Really</i>, it was rather quaint! The thought of it, with its hint of
+imagination, its something beyond the dull routine of the inevitable,
+added zest to the young King's almost rapturous appreciation of his
+new dominions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To begin with Kâbul was in the very midst of the habitable world. That
+was a great point in its favour. Then it was in the fourth climate;
+and so of course its gardens were perfection. Its warm and its cold
+districts were close together; in a single day you could go to a place
+where snow never falls, and in the space of two astronomical hours you
+might reach a spot where snow lay always (except now and then when the
+summer happened to be peculiarly hot).</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the fruits! Grapes, pomegranates, apricots, peaches, pears,
+apples, quinces, jujubes, damsons, walnuts, almonds, to say nothing of
+oranges and citrons! The wines, also, were strong and intoxicating;
+indeed, that produced on the skirts of one mountain was celebrated for
+its potency. This, however, was only a matter of hearsay since Babar
+was still a tee-totaler; and as the verse says:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;The drinker knows the virtue of wine<br>
+Which those who are sober can't divine.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the honey was delicious, the number of beehives extraordinary,
+and the climate itself was so extremely delightful that in this
+respect there was no other such place in the known world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it was the gardens, after all, which made Kâbul what it was, a
+place that filled the imagination with joy. Years and years afterwards
+the mere thought of them was to make Babar homesick almost to tears;
+now every moment of time he could spare was spent on the skirts of the
+Shâh-Kâbul hill where terraces rise one above the other to touch the
+Summer Palace of the New Year. It was early October; the plane trees
+were dropping their golden leaves, the peaches were crimson and pale
+red, the vines vied with each other in vivid colouring. It was all so
+much pure joy to the young King, and he passed on his content to all.
+His dearest mother was housed as she never had been before. And when
+old Isân-daulet came, just to have a peep at her grandson's success,
+he lodged her in the New Year's palace where the old lady could have
+her fill of the garden. Since, quaintly enough, it was from the
+ancient desert-born dame that Babar inherited his keen delight in
+flowers. Kâsim-Beg was back too, and so was Dost-Ali, his oldest
+friend amongst the nobles of Andijân; but Kambar-Ali had left; he was
+a thoughtless and rude talker and the more polished courtiers of Kâbul
+could not put up with his manners. Not that he was a great loss, for
+besides talking idly--and those who talk persistently cannot avoid at
+times saying foolish things--his wits were but skin deep, and he had a
+muddy brain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was but one fly in the honey, and that was the desire of all
+Babar's female relations that he should marry. There was justice, he
+felt, in his mother's claim for grandchildren. Undoubtedly it was his
+duty; but ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was too good-natured, however, to resist making everyone as happy
+as he was himself, especially after old Isân-daulet arrived with a
+bride in her pocket; so, before he quite realised the magnitude of the
+affair, he was duly wedded to yet another cousin, a half-sister of
+dead Prince Baisanghâr. She was some years older than her groom and
+very, very beautiful.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar came out from the bridal-chamber with a stern, set mouth and
+went straight to his mother.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tell her to say no more of Dearest-One,&quot; he said briefly; &quot;or there
+will be trouble. And 'twere as well if she left Baisanghâr in peace
+also. She loved him, doubtless--but--but so did I.&quot; His voice softened
+over the last words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Trouble, however, was not to be avoided. Babar made no more
+complaints; possibly because he gave few opportunities for fresh
+injury.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His mother wept and scolded in vain. That hurt him; but for his
+cousin-wife he cared not at all. He was proud; he could not understand
+a woman's petty spite, especially when shown to <i>him</i>, a good-looking
+young King in the zenith of success.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We do not agree,&quot; he said gloomily. &quot;Lo! it is true what Saádi saith:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">'In a good man's house a cross-grained wife<br>
+Makes hell upon earth with ill-tempered strife.'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">Mayhap if we part we may come together again in better fashion; and
+sure I pray God that such a thing as a shrew be not left in the
+world.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He would not acknowledge any fault on his side. Perhaps there was
+none. Anyhow he was determined this year of good fortune should not be
+marred by silly domestic squabbles. So, with affectionate farewells to
+his mother, whom he left determined to bring her choice to reason, he
+set off in light-hearted fashion to make that irruption into Hindustan
+which he had threatened when he had marked his forehead with pollen
+dust. He was not strong enough as yet, his army was not yet
+sufficiently disciplined for any attempt at real conquest; but he
+meant at least to cross the river Sind and set foot on Indian soil.
+The expedition, however, fizzled out into a mere plundering raid along
+the western bank of the Indus. But Babar at least saw India, getting
+his first glimpse of it across the wide waters and sandbanks of that
+great stream. He was deeply impressed by the sight. At some places the
+water seemed to join the sky; at others the farther bank lay reflected
+in inverted fashion like a <i>mirage</i>. And he saw other strange and
+beautiful things also. Once between this water and the heavens
+something of a red appearance like a crepuscule cloud was seen, which
+by and by vanished, and so continued shifting till he came near.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then with a whirr of thousands--nay! not ten thousand nor twenty
+thousand wings, but of wings absolutely beyond computation and
+innumerable--an immense flock of flamingoes rose into the air, and as
+they flew, sometimes their red plumes showed and sometimes they were
+hidden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, with his mind stocked with endless new ideas, for he had been
+struck by astonishment--and indeed there was room for wonder in this
+new world where the grass was different, the trees different, the wild
+animals of a different sort, the birds of a different plumage, the
+very manners of the men different--he returned in early summer to
+Kâbul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But here he once more found trouble. There was an epidemic of measles
+in the town and one of the first victims was his cousin-wife. He was
+vaguely distressed; mostly it is to be feared because of his mother
+who had nursed her daughter-in-law devotedly. Partly also from a
+remembrance of his own parting wish. Yes! it was distinctly wrong to
+say such ill-advised things, for if anything did happen one always
+regretted one's own words. And yet one had meant nothing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will marry again, motherling! I will indeed; but this time let me
+choose for myself,&quot; he said consolingly as the fond woman clung to him
+in mingled joy at seeing him again, and grief at the failure of her
+schemes. Not that they would have come to much, likely, even had the
+cousin-wife not died; for she had been a handful doubtless, all those
+months.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! motherling,&quot; said her son once more, &quot;let us forget the mistake
+for a time. Thy hands are hot, thou art outwearied. Lie so among the
+cushions, and I will sing to thee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She loved to hear him sing, and even in the old Turkhomân ballads, she
+did not--like old Isân-daulet--claim to have them fairly bawled. This
+new soft fashion was utterly sweet. So was her son's close-shaven
+chin. He had gone far from the wild Turkhomân tents; far ahead of her;
+God only knew how much farther he was to go.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Motherling! Thou art not so well to-night,&quot; he said with solicitude
+as he noticed how fever-bright were her kind, worn eyes. &quot;I will bid
+the Court physician send for him of Khorasân. He will likely know all
+methods; for I cannot have thee ill, my motherling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Khânum held him fast with her hot hands. &quot;I care not, sonling,&quot;
+she sobbed suddenly; &quot;so long as thou art here to the last--the
+best--the bravest son--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I?&quot; he said in tender raillery, though a sudden fear gripped at
+his heart. &quot;Whom have I in the wide world but thee, mother? Lo! thou
+art the one thing feminine left to me after all these years.&quot; And his
+eyes grew stern as he thought of that dearest Dearest-One away in far
+Samarkand. Thank God she had a child.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have I not always said so?&quot; wailed his mother. &quot;Have I not bid thee
+have children? Ah, Babar! if I live, promise thou wilt marry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will marry either way, motherling,&quot; he said. &quot;Lo! I promise that;
+so cease thy tears and try to sleep. Thou wilt be better by morn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But morning found the palace hushed with the hush of mortal sickness.
+There was no longer any doubt that the Khânum had contracted measles
+in its worst repressed form, and regret, vague almost unreasonable
+regret, seized on Babar. He was responsible. It was his fault. His
+mother had nursed his wife. The Khorasân physician came and ordered
+water-melons; he of Kâbul let blood. And Babar sat dry-eyed beside his
+mother, holding her hot hand. She did not know him. Those words of
+hers, begging him to marry had been her last to him. His to her his
+promise that he would marry. Even amid his dazed grief he remembered
+this; remembered it keenly as, when the end came in quiet
+unconsciousness, he bent over her to give the last caress before Death
+claimed the body and it lay soulless, impure. But she? She was
+received into the Mercy of God.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He said that over and over again to himself as, on the Sunday morning,
+he put his strong shoulder under the light bier and carried it to the
+Garden of the New Year. It was summer-time now, the roses were
+beginning to blow, the tulips were nigh over, but the wild pansies
+were in full blossom. They had dug a grave under the plane trees and
+here, after the committal prayers had been said and flowers strewn,
+Babar, holding the head and Kâsim, his foster brother, the feet, laid
+the light, muslin-swathed, tinsel-bound corpse in the long, low niche,
+cut coffin-wise in the side. His voice scarcely trembled at all as he
+laid a handful of earth upon the breast with the solemn words of
+admonition and hope.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Out of the dust I made you, and to dust I return you, to raise you
+yet once more out of the dust upon the Day of Resurrection.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But his eyes brimmed with tears as, with lavish hand, he scattered
+pansy blossoms till the white shroud was hidden by them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then without one word he drew himself up from the grave, and taking a
+shovel worked his hardest to fill in the earth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Afterwards he sat down and looked out over the valley.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When his time came, he, also, would lie here. One could not desire a
+more peaceful, a more beautiful spot. But he would have no tomb built
+over him to blot out the blue sky. No! He and his mother should rest
+together till the Resurrection morn out in the open, among the birds
+and flowers.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">
+I set Death's Door wide open for thee, Friend,<br>
+That thou might'st go.<br>
+I did not weep; I did not even send<br>
+One sign of woe<br>
+To follow, lest the way thou had'st to wend<br>
+The harder show.<br>
+But thou? Thou shut'st the Door upon my face,<br>
+Thou hid'st from me<br>
+One tiny gleam of glory from the place<br>
+Where thou would'st be;<br>
+In this world or the next there is no trace<br>
+No trace of thee!</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">With the swift family affection of their clan, relatives gathered
+round Babar in his bereavement. His paternal aunts came from Khorasân,
+and ere the forty days of mourning were over, a small cavalcade
+arrived from Tashkend. But it brought an aggravation of grief; for old
+Isân-daulet had predeceased her daughter by a few days. Babar's uncle,
+the little Khân, had also died; but beyond the fact that this deepened
+the Shadow-of-Death which seemed to have fallen over his young life,
+it brought no sorrow to the King. It was different with his
+grandmother. With her passing he had veritably no feminine thing left
+to whom he owed affection and duty, to whom he could go for comfort
+and counsel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were his paternal aunts, of course; good creatures every one of
+them, especially Ak Begum, though the others always flouted her
+because she had not married. Which was very unkind, since anyone
+with half-an-eye could see it was because she had devoted her life to
+her fat, half-witted lame sister. Poor Badul-jamâl-Begum! What an
+irony of fate it was that she had been called that! The &quot;Lady of
+Astonishing-Beauty.&quot; But feminine names were beyond reason. Even Ak
+Begum--the &quot;Fair Princess.&quot; What a name for that little bird-like,
+dark creature who twittered and preened herself at every word.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet she was the only one of them who understood, who gave the young
+man's sore heart any comfort at all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She came to him, looking as if no pin were out of place, so natty,
+with her scanty hair still braided in virginal fashion on her wrinkled
+forehead, and said in her high piping voice:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo, nephew! here are violets. A man brought them from the snows. Are
+they not sweet? Sniff them! Thy mother was ever so fond of them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Babar sniffed at them and afterwards took them to his mother's
+grave. Yes! The Fair Princess was certainly his grandfather's
+daughter; of the same blood as he was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still, grief must have its way, and here it was unbounded. Regret and
+remorse were mixed with it; and, yet once again, Babar gave way before
+the mental strain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He tried to resume his ordinary life and actually started to lead his
+army afield, but was struck down with a sort of sleeping sickness. For
+days no matter what efforts they made to rouse him, his eyes
+constantly fell back to sleep. Yet after a time he pulled himself
+together again and started once more, but this time with no definite
+plan. Nor did he quite recover his normal health all that winter,
+which was spent in half-hearted attacks, and whole-hearted forgiveness
+of all and sundry of his enemies; for it was not his wish to treat
+anyone harshly. The snow lay very deep that winter in the high glens
+and passes. At one place off the road it reached up to the horses'
+cruppers and the pickets appointed for the night-watch round the camp
+had to remain on their horses, from sheer inability to dismount.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Half the army suffered, and Babar himself had to be carried back to
+Kâbul, helpless with lumbago. Mental unhappiness always seemed to
+affect his bodily health. But spring comes early in Kâbul and the
+pulse of renewed life began to beat once more in Babar's veins. By
+March, when the red tulips he had planted there were in full bloom
+about his mother's grave in the garden of the New Year, he was once
+more looking out from that high ground at the world beneath his feet,
+and straining his bright eyes over new horizons.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One thing he must do. He must marry. But this time he would choose for
+himself. This time he would give himself a chance of finding that new
+world he had seen when he was a boy in Dearest-One's eyes. Poor
+Dearest-One! He had had letters from her concerning their mother's
+death, and their pitifulness had almost broken his heart. Yet he could
+do nothing, nothing! She was as one dead; only not at peace like his
+mother.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she also had urged marriage. Yes! he must marry, and no one should
+have a finger in the matrimonial pie but himself; least of all his
+paternal aunts. If needs be he would marry privately. The idea
+attracted him; he pondered over it. The question arose, in that case,
+whom he was to choose. Amongst the well born, those who lived in the
+circle of distinction as the phrase ran, it would be impossible.
+Without a <i>confidante</i> the mere broaching of marriage was out of the
+question.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And yet the very idea of one low born was distasteful to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, as he pondered vaguely over possibilities, an idea came to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What of the frightened girl? Why not?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could not be more than a year or two his senior; if that, for
+she had been much younger than his Cousin Gharîb. And her father was
+dead. And she lived in a House-of-Rest. That is to say if she still
+lived--or if she was not married.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Bah!--he was a fool to let his fancy run so far. Still he could
+enquire when he went to Khorasân as he meant to do some time that
+summer. Meanwhile a feeling of content came to him; partly because his
+imagination endorsed the idea as delightfully sentimental; mostly
+because it postponed necessity for immediate action.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And yet, when a day or two after a missive arrived from his uncle,
+Sultan Hussain, begging for his assistance at Khorasân against the
+arch enemy and raider Shaibâni-Khân who threatened an inroad, Babar
+felt pleased at what seemed an order from Fate; especially as the
+missive came by the hands of rather a quaint ambassador; namely by the
+son of his uncle's professional Dreamer-of-Dreams. To be sure Cousin
+Gharîb had made fun of the man's pretensions; but there was more in
+that sort of thing than could be accounted for by reason. Anyhow, it
+was a clear duty to set off at once. If Shaibâni was the enemy, then,
+if other princes went to the attack on their feet it was incumbent on
+him to go if necessary on his head! and if they went against him with
+swords, it was his business to go, were it only with stones!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Most High must have a care of Kâbul nathless,&quot; said wary old
+Kâsim. &quot;Look you the saying runs:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">Ten dervishes in one rug<br>
+Lie comfy, and warm, and snug,<br>
+But two Kings upon one throne--<br>
+Such a thing never was known.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">The most High's brother--and his cousin--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar cut him short. He never would listen to suspicions of his
+own relations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have done nothing,&quot; he said, with just that little touch of
+conscious virtue that in him was so translucent, so simple, though in
+one less artless it might have been offensive, &quot;to provoke either of
+them to hostility; neither have they given me ground for
+dissatisfaction.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kâsim shrugged his shoulders and muttered under his breath that it
+would need the Day of Judgment to make some folk believe in sin, and
+applied himself to seeing that the garrison left was sufficient to
+keep order.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar himself was full of spirits. Apart from other considerations the
+prospect of, at last, seeing Herât, the most civilised city in Central
+Asia, filled him with keen interest. It was full, he knew, of poets,
+painters, philosophers, and its luxuries were things to speak of with
+bated breath. In addition, he had a pleasant remembrance of his Uncle
+Hussain. It was more than ten years since he had seen him over in the
+camp which had struck him, the hardy barbarian, with awe. Did the old
+man--old now with a vengeance since he had reigned a good fifty
+years--still keep butting rams and amuse himself with cock fighting?
+Above all, did he still on festival days put on that small turban tied
+in three folds, broad and showy, and having placed a plume nodding
+over it in that style go to prayers? Babar wrote in his own hand--in
+the Babari writing which he had just invented and of which he was
+vastly proud--a letter to the kindly old man, telling him that he had
+set out from Kâbul and hoped to be with him shortly. This he entrusted
+to an ambassador who with the Dreamer-of-Dreams started express for
+Herât; he himself having a small job on hand by the way, in the
+punishment of some wandering tribes to the west.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not much of a task; but summer quarters in the hills had a
+fascination for Babar, and he remained on the top of one of the many
+ranges he had to cross; despatching Kâsim-Beg meanwhile with a body of
+troops to scour the countryside for rebels.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a sense of freedom about the wide upland stretches of sweet
+grass, where flocks and herds grazed placidly, where flowers blossomed
+by the million, and the tall fir forests edged the downward slopes.
+The whole world of blue waving hills touched the blue sky. One might
+be adrift on a huge raft in the River of Life. Babar would doff shoes
+and wander barefoot for hours, content with a chance shot after an
+escaping deer, or a chance following of his own vagrant thoughts. And
+these often fled in the direction of a House-of-Rest wherein dwelt a
+frightened girl. He could not help it. He was made sentimental to his
+heart's core. Remove the pressure of fine fighting, of ardent
+ambition, and there he was, ready to be touched by pity, love,
+admiration. And the thought of the woman to come was a perpetual
+stimulus to his imagination. The mere fact that he did not know her
+name was delightful; it took from the idea all trace of earth. And
+Babar, though the very reverse of ascetic in his tastes and pleasures,
+had ever been repulsed by sensuality. His was the Epicurean enjoyment
+of the spirit, as distinct from that of the mind, or that of the body.
+So in his thoughts he called the woman he intended should be his wife
+&quot;My moon,&quot; which is the eastern equivalent of &quot;My queen&quot;; and, in easy
+dilettante fashion wrote more than one ode to that luminary. Most of
+them were in Persian and contained exactly the proper number of feet,
+and rang the appointed interchanges of meaning and words with
+faultless accuracy. He was quite proud of them, and thought better of
+them than of the one in Turkhi; which, however, he set to music and
+sang, for his innate good taste was for ever breaking loose from
+scholastic tradition. He twanged the tune on a <i>cithâra</i> as he sat on
+a rock in the moonlight and felt quite light-hearted over his own
+unworthiness; it fitted so neatly into the rhyming fall ...</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">Moon of still night!</p>
+<p class="t1">Whence the bright light</p>
+<p class="t2">that enfolds</p>
+<p class="t0">In its pure smile</p>
+<p class="t1">Earth's untold guile;</p>
+<p class="t2">that upholds</p>
+<p class="t0">Silver in glow,</p>
+<p class="t1">whiter than snow,</p>
+<p class="t2">this my hand</p>
+<p class="t0">Tuning thy praise?</p>
+<p class="t1">Whence come thy rays?</p>
+<p class="t2">From what land</p>
+<p class="t0">Bringest thou peace,</p>
+<p class="t1">thus to release,</p>
+<p class="t2">from its sin</p>
+<p class="t0">Stricken sad heart,</p>
+<p class="t1">wailing its part</p>
+<p class="t2">in Life's din?</p>
+<p class="t0">Lo! from God's sun</p>
+<p class="t1">must thou have won</p>
+<p class="t2">thy kind light.</p>
+<p class="t0">Though I am clay,</p>
+<p class="t1">watch me alway</p>
+<p class="t2">through the night.</p>
+<p class="t0">I am of earth;</p>
+<p class="t1">thine is the birth-</p>
+<p class="t2">right divine.</p>
+<p class="t0">Moon of my soul,</p>
+<p class="t1">thine is this whole</p>
+<p class="t2">heart of mine.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">The distance from Kâbul to Khorasân was over eight hundred miles; so
+with even every-day marching the journey would have taken some time,
+and Babar was in no particular hurry. Less so than ever when news came
+to him with the return of his ambassador, that Sultan Hussain had
+suddenly died from an apoplectic seizure. At first Babar felt inclined
+to turn back. His uncle, he knew, had left his kingdom, in unheard of
+fashion, to his three legitimate sons, in defiance of the old saw
+about the ten dervishes, and Babar had too much experience to believe
+that such an arrangement could work satisfactorily. However he had
+other motives for advancing, and therefore he continued his route,
+and, passing over the last range of high hills, found himself in the
+country where the advanced detachments of the Usbek force were already
+raiding. This in itself was an attraction, bringing as it did a chance
+of fine fighting. He found his cousins, the new Kings, encamped, ready
+to meet the advancing foe on the Murghâb river; or rather he found two
+of them. The third, from private motives of pique had refused to join
+the confederacy. This appeared to Babar to be inexpressibly mean, when
+everyone else had united and were sparing no efforts to oppose an
+enemy so formidable as Shaibâni. He could not understand how any
+reasonable man could pursue a line of conduct which must after his
+death, stain his fair fame. Surely everyone with the commonest grace
+would push forwards his career, so that, even if closed, it would
+conduct him to renown and glory, since fame is truly a second
+existence?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">These sentiments, however, fine as they were, did not make much mark
+on the luxurious camp on the banks of the Murghâb. His cousins
+received Babar fairly well, though their manners required some
+polishing up by old Kâsim-Beg's inflexible rules of etiquette. Of
+course, the fact that two of the younger and illegitimate princes did
+not come out as far as they ought to have done to welcome their Kingly
+cousin was objectionable; but that might be put down to delay in
+starting due to an over-night debauch, rather than to intentional
+slight. But when it came to the State reception in the Audience Tent,
+Kâsim had to pluck at his young master's girdle and remind him with
+this jog, that he was to go no further, but to await his eldest
+cousin's advance. Which he did obediently, knowing that old Kâsim held
+his King's honour as his own, and was keenly alive to his consequence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he, himself, was always forgetting these <i>convenances</i>, where he
+was concerned. If you really felt affectionate it was a nuisance
+having to wait, and bow, and scrape.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The State reception, however, went off very well and it was followed
+by a sort of entertainment at which wine was served in goblets of
+silver and gold, that were put down by the meat!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fateful innovation which sent old Kâsim back to his own camp hungry,
+in the highest of dudgeons.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Had it been a drinking party, sire,&quot; he protested, &quot;'twould have been
+my own fault for being there. But at an official dinner, 'twas
+scandalous. No faithful Mussulmân could touch a morsel of food so
+defiled.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar, somewhat regretful at a rather abrupt departure, murmured an
+excuse to the effect briefly, of &quot;<i>autres tempes, autres moeurs</i>&quot;;
+whereat Kâsim-Beg, a purist for the old ways, broke out hotly:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! sire! the Institutions of Ghengis Khân have brought your
+Highness' family well through much trouble. Sacredly have they
+observed them in their parties, their courts, their festivals, their
+entertainments, their down sittings, their risings up, and it would
+ill become their descendant to flout them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar flushed up; in his heart of hearts, he was not quite such an
+admirer of the old Turk. &quot;Lo! the Institutes are good enough,&quot; he
+said; &quot;a man may well follow them; yet are they not of Divine
+authority, so that one be damned for disobeying them. Besides, see
+you, what hope would there be for the world if folk made no change? If
+a father has done wrong why should not a son change it to what is
+right?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Old Kâsim, munching away at the dry bread and pickles which was all
+his servants could produce, snorted. &quot;'Tis the other way round most
+times; and see you, sire, I give those Kings your cousins one year,
+one little year, to hold Herât! Then the Kingdom of their father--God
+rest his soul since he had gleams of grace and once let one of his
+God-forgetting sons go before the magistrate--held--despite wine
+bibbing--for nigh fifty years, will have gone for ever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aye,&quot; replied Barbar, thoughtfully. &quot;I have noticed that myself. Some
+men drink with impunity. I wonder if 'twould hurt me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God forbid! your Majesty!&quot; said old Kâsim with a tremble in his
+voice. &quot;Shall all our care, mine and the saintly Kwâja who held you as
+a boy in his guardian care, be wasted? God forbid, say I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar said nothing; he knew that in his inmost heart he had had
+for years a great longing just to see what it was like to be drunk! It
+could scarcely hurt for once, and the land of inebriety could hardly
+be the arid desert it had been painted for him, or so many folk would
+not wander in it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was always open to reason on all points. Nevertheless he gave out
+solemnly that he drank no wine, and his cousins, being good hosts,
+refrained from pressing him to do so.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Badia-zamân, the elder of the three, doubtless thought little of him
+for the abstinence. To be young, good-looking, able to enjoy yourself
+in every way and yet not to take the best of Life, seemed to him sheer
+foolishness; and he showed his estimate in his manner, so that Babar
+came home from his second interview in a fume of anger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This shall not be!&quot; he said hotly. &quot;Kâsim! send proper
+representations that young as I am, I am of high extraction. Twice
+have I by force regained my paternal Kingdom, Samarkand. To show want
+of respect to one who has done so much for his family by repelling the
+foreign invader is not commendable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a marvel the young King was on his dignity, much to old Kâsim's
+joy. And with good result; for nothing more could have been desired at
+the next audience which Babar attended with his full retinue. And a
+fine figure he looked, dressed in the very latest fashion with a gold
+brocade coat, a flowered undershirt and white silk baggy trousers all
+lined with gold thread. His hair, too, was scented and curled and his
+turban tied with a difference. A very different person this from the
+ragged, out-at-elbow fugitive, or even the stern young soldier in his
+tarnished coat of mail, fighting for life against overwhelming odds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rather liked the change. It was a new experience to ruffle with
+gilded youth, and he ruffled fairly until his boon companions began to
+play indecent and scurvy tricks, when he left, disgusted for the time
+being. But the entertainments were wonderfully elegant. There was
+every sort of delicacy on the comestible trays, and <i>kababs</i> of fowl
+and goose; indeed dishes of every sort and kind. The Prince-Kings vied
+with each other in the refinement of their luxuries, and certainly
+Badia-zamân's parties deserved to be celebrated; they were so fine, so
+easy, so unconstrained. On the other hand Mozuffar's entertainments
+were more amusing, especially when the wine began to take effect.
+There was a man who danced excessively well; a dance of his own
+invention.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dance or no dance,&quot; grumbled old Kâsim, &quot;the Princes thy cousins have
+taken four months to reach this place. And now news comes that a
+plundering party of Usbeks is well within touch not more than forty
+miles off--and they dance! 'Twill be to another tune ere long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mayhap they would let me go,&quot; said Babar eagerly, &quot;'twould be a
+diversion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he was off to lay his proposition before his Cousins; but they,
+afraid of their own reputations, would not suffer him to move. The
+fact was, as he admitted to old Kâsim privately, the Princes, though
+very accomplished at the social board or in the arrangements for a
+party of pleasure, and though they had a pleasing talent for
+conversation and society, yet possessed no knowledge whatever of the
+conduct of a campaign, and were perfect strangers to the arrangements
+for a battle, or the danger and spirit of a soldier's life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This left nothing more to be said; especially as his hearer agreed
+with every word.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Early autumn, however, had passed, and Shaibâni, being a careful
+general, prepared to withdraw his forces against the winter's
+cold. This being so, there was no longer any reason--there had been
+but little before--for remaining in camp at the Murghâb, and the
+Prince-Kings proposed a return to Herât and invited Babar to accompany
+them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Were I your Highness,&quot; said old Kâsim sturdily, &quot;I would not go. So
+far God in His mercy has kept virtue on the lips of the King, and kept
+wine away from them. But in that God-forsaken city of Herât who knows
+what might happen? They tell me even the women there are castaway, and
+that your uncle the late King's widow drinks like a fish--may God
+reward her!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have never seen a woman drink wine,&quot; said Babar quite thoughtfully.
+&quot;Have you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kâsim looked at his young master critically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;New things are not always good things, sire,&quot; he replied drily, &quot;and,
+as was mentioned ere we set out from Kâbul, God only knows what may
+happen there if we delay our return too long. Already have five months
+passed and 'tis a fifty days' march homewards.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not if we take the high road,&quot; said Babar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The high road,&quot; echoed the old general; &quot;that may be covered with
+snow any moment now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet will I chance my luck,&quot; returned Babar gaily. &quot;See you, old
+friend, I have my reasons! I must see Herât--in the whole habitable
+world they say there is not such a city; besides ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paused, for his was a truthful soul even to itself; and he knew
+that the past six weeks of jollity and convivial male merry-making had
+considerably dimmed his desire to do his duty and marry. Still he had
+promised himself he would try and seek out his Cousin Gharîb's
+betrothed--for she had never been his wife--and he meant to do it.
+Between whiles of course. For he must make the most of his time in
+Herât. Yes! it would be a pity to miss the chance of his life. To be
+in the most refined of cities which possessed every means of
+heightening pleasure and gaiety; in which all the incentives to, and
+apparatus for, enjoyment were combined into one vast invitation to
+indulgence, and <i>not</i> to indulge, would be foolish. If he did not
+seize the present moment, even to the point of tasting wine, he was
+not likely to have such another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And, certainly, wine seemed to raise the level of a man's mind. His
+cousins were but dullards out of their cups. And there was no need to
+exceed. To be dead-drunk was no pleasure to anyone.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">
+The Load of Love, nor Earth nor Heav'n can bear,<br>
+Yet thou, Improvident! wouldst lightly wear<br>
+The lovers' yoke, give up the flaming sword,<br>
+Fool! Love only can bear love! Beware! Beware!</p>
+<p style="text-indent:25%"><i>Ebd-ul-Homîd</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Herât was entered. It was his!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar, his eyes wide with curiosity and appreciation had ridden
+through what were to him interminable streets. He had seen towers and
+pleasure houses and palaces rising on all sides, had noted the crowds
+which surged out from every side alley to see one who was already
+renowned in the songs of half Central Asia, as the embodiment of
+youthful valour. And all had been simply inconceivable in its beauty,
+its size.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yusuf-Ali who had been appointed his guide, rode at his right hand,
+and supplied him with endless information. Close on a million of
+people in the town and suburbs. Over a hundred and seventy thousand
+occupied houses. Nigh on four hundred public schools.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Shops! Why there must be at least fifteen thousand of them!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The statistics went in at one ear and out at another. It was the sheer
+beauty of the place which held Babar's mind. The wide valley, the
+surrounding hills just touched with snow. The white buildings
+following the blue curves of the river. The marble colonnades
+terracing the slopes, the marble palaces crowning the heights; and,
+dense-packed between high carven houses, the multi-coloured crowd all
+intent on pleasure. Roars of laughter rising from it at every passing
+jest, a chorus of &quot;Victory, young champion!&quot; following him as he rode
+along.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By God and his prophet! Life was a splendid thing to live!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had he had Prince Fortunatus' purse in his pocket he would have flung
+gold pieces along every inch of the way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even in the mausoleum of his lately deceased uncle, where, in
+accordance with etiquette he had, before even taking up his quarters
+in the palace assigned to him, to pay his respects to the female
+members of his uncle's family, his ceremonial condolences were
+somewhat marred by the <i>joie de vivre</i> which simply exhaled from
+him. Yet he was none the less sympathetically impressed by the dim
+Dome-of-Kings all lit up darkly by swinging lamps, by tall funereal
+tapers throwing flickering shadows on the purple-crimson pall fringed
+with gold that covered the catafalque.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dim blue clouds of incense filled the air; their scent mixed with the
+perfume-sodden rustle of the silks and satins beneath the circle of
+ivory-tinted mourning veils that enshrouded the crouching figures of
+the female mourners. The low guttural chant of canons appointed to
+sing prayers for the repose of the dead, rose monotonously, a fitting
+background to the little conventional sobs and cries, as each lady in
+turn stood up to embrace the newly arrived member of the family.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were so many aunts to embrace; but Babar went through them
+decorously; with a little real emotion when he hugged Aunt Fair, and
+some rather obvious impatience when fat, silly, Astonishing
+Beauty--who loved young men--hugged him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They did not, however, keep up the &quot;<i>marsiah</i>&quot; for long; the
+ladies--who after the expiry of five months had got over the first
+flush of grief--being anxious to have their handsome relative's budget
+of news.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So they all repaired to Khadîjah-Begum's house and had a repast. It
+was very refined and--rather to Babar's disappointment, for he was
+curious to see a woman drink wine--strictly teetotal; doubtless
+because Payandâ-Begum, the late King's chief wife and--as his father's
+sister--Babar's real aunt, was present. And she was naturally of the
+highest circle of distinction and of the most correct behaviour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Khadîjah-Begum on the other hand, whom Babar now saw for the first
+time, showed her low birth despite the fact that as favourite wife she
+had managed the court for years. Even the knowledge that she was
+Cousin Gharîb's mother could not prevent Babar's putting her down at
+once as a vulgar talkative woman who posed for being a person of
+profound sense.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was another Begum of the late King's present, however, on whom
+the young observer, seeing her for the first time, passed a very
+different opinion. This was one Lady Apak, a delicate fair woman who
+spent her childless life in nursing other people's children, and who
+Babar felt deserved all the respect and kindness it was in his power
+to give.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was not sorry however, when, various other visits paid, he
+found himself in the house assigned to him. And sure, no better
+place could have been discovered in the whole habitable world! For it
+was the garden palace which the great Master-of-all-Arts, Messer
+Ali-Shîr--dead this while back, God rest his soul!--had designed and
+built for himself. Babar spent hours wandering through its cool
+corridors, sitting awhile in cunning alcoves whence the enchanting
+view, framed in gilt filigree arch, showed like a picture indeed. He
+sampled the rose-water baths, all mosaicked like a garden with buds,
+and leaves, and blossoms; he sat stroking the soft silk pile of
+carpets, green and set with flowers as thick as Andijân meadows in
+spring. And there was one, deeply darkly verdant and almost covered
+with the softest, fleeciest white furry blobs, on which he could have
+lain down and cried, so keenly did it bring back the mantle of clover
+lambskin into which he had poured the first grief that had come to his
+young life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He read round the walls of the central marble hall, veined and
+mosaicked with precious stones, the boast that in after years one of
+his descendants was to use in the Court-of-Private-Audience at Delhi.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If Earth holds a Paradise--it is this, it is this, it is this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes! it was true! Not only in the hall, but in every niche and
+corner--in the ivory carven bedstead, in the crystal goblets inlaid
+with coral, in the curiously beaten metal-work, in the very shading of
+the coloured tiles, here was perfection of Beauty. Even with their
+shoes doffed in respectful Oriental fashion, Babar could hardly endure
+to see servants, whose minds he knew were not attuned to that high
+level, passing backwards and forwards in what he felt to be a Shrine.
+He dismissed them all and sat, pillowed by the softest down, looking
+out from the colonnade which gave on the garden. It, also, must be
+beautiful beyond compare. He would see that to-morrow. To-night it was
+sufficient to revel in the burnished dusk of the orange trees, seen in
+the soft moonlight, to watch the glittering radiance of the fountain
+drops against that background of distant hills--purple--aye!
+positively purple even in this light. Lo! it was beauty concentrated
+almost to pain. Beauty, unearthly, beyond the senses. Something not to
+be seen, or heard, or tasted, or touched, or even felt. Beauty that
+brought an utter abnegation of Self.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This slave has a letter for the Most High,&quot; came a clear sweet
+voice. &quot;It is from his Cousin Gharîb. It was to be given--if occasion
+came--in private, and in person if possible. So I have brought it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar turned quickly. At first to see nothing. Then several paces away
+faintly outlined against one of the square white pilasters he caught
+the silhouette of a white, curiously shadowless figure. A woman's
+figure surely; slim, elegant, despite the enshrouding veil.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rose swiftly; his heart beating. His dead cousin! Could it be--No!
+Impossible--And yet--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;With deepest reverence--mother,&quot; he said almost mechanically, as the
+figure remaining quiescent he stepped forward to take what it held
+out. He could see the hand--a marble hand in the moonlight--beyond the
+line of the pilaster.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A pretty hand too, with fingers pointed and delicate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May God reward you,&quot; came his mechanical thanks, as instinctively he
+stepped back again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The figure remained quiescent, silent. In the moonlight he could see
+clearly the sweeping black curves of the writing. The letter was very
+brief.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Shouldst thou, cousin, ever come to Khorasân, I have counselled her,
+who was my wife in name, to give you this. I make no claim, I express
+no wish save this--I should like her to be happy, for I have loved
+her--and thou also, O Babar. Farewell! May the Crystal Bowl give Love,
+not Tears</i>.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">For an instant Babar stood confounded, irresolute: it was so
+unconventional: so almost impossible. Yet it fitted strangely with the
+place; with his vague feeling that had been beyond even Time and
+Space.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/king175.png" alt="p175"><br>&quot;'THIS SLAVE HAS A LETTER FOR THE MOST HIGH'&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a ruby jewelled lamp swinging from the arch between them. It
+scarce gave light, but it sent a patterned shimmering rose upon the
+white marble floor. A gentle breeze swayed the lamp; the rose
+flickered between them backwards and forwards. His eyes were on it as
+he stood holding the letter, the moonlight catching at the signet ring
+he wore, dallying with the gold embroidery of his light silken coat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it possible,&quot; he said at last, fluttering a bit like a girl, &quot;that
+she who stands before me--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea, I am she,&quot; came the composed reply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It settled the young man by bringing conviction of his own confusion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But how--&quot; he began, a certain blame in his surprise; and once again
+the answer was ready, grave, sufficient.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My lord's slave comes every Friday after the custom of her
+family--she is of the blood of the divine Jâmi as doubtless my lord
+knows--to place flowers on the tomb of the now sainted Messer
+Ali-Shîr--may his ashes rest in peace--who is interred by his own wish
+in this garden, and who was her distant relative. But in life he was
+ever kind to this dust-like one, teaching her, and allowing her to be
+his disciple. So her litter comes hither often. It awaits her return
+yonder at the grave. Thus the letter was easy to deliver in person,
+and it is delivered. May God keep the King.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Faintly the figure moved as if to go; but Babar stepped a step
+forward. His head was in a whirl, his heart curiously steady.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And has the cupola of chastity no word to say of herself?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What word is there to say, my lord?&quot; came the quick reply. &quot;I have
+performed my duty. The rest lies with my lord.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was just a suspicion of raillery in the voice which spurred
+Babar to hardihood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I would fain know if--if she who thus deigns to honour me is
+satisfied with--with what she sees?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But yea! my lord, quite satisfied! And this is not the first time she
+has seen my lord. She was at the window when he made his entry to the
+town.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then the lady has doubly the advantage,&quot; said Babar with an
+irrepressible laugh. &quot;Yet will I not ask her to make us equal and
+unveil. That were not meet at such a time and place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was just that faint suspicion of conscious virtue about the
+remark, but it was met promptly, coolly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor is there need. My lord would not be frightened at what he saw, as
+I, poor foolish child, was frightened. But I lived to be wiser. I
+lived to know that deformity of body is as naught before deformity of
+mind. But my lord has neither. Nor has this dust-like one. She is
+counted beautiful, and though she catalogues not her own charms, she
+hath two eyes, somewhat large, that look straight, a passable nose,
+thirty-two sound teeth, even and white, and a mouth that can say kind
+things harshly, and--an' it please my lord--harsh things kindly. Shall
+the recital proceed further, my lord?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By God and the prophets no!&quot; cried Babar catching fire at last.
+&quot;There is but one more thing between us. Lady, wilt thou take me for
+husband?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of a surety; therefore came I here.&quot; So far the reply was as ever,
+cool, collected, without shadow of emotion; now the sweet, polished
+voice broke faintly. &quot;There is but one matter of which I would remind
+my lord. I am older than he by three years. And I am not quite like
+other women. Messer Ali-Shîr taught me much. If my lord would rather
+someone else--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The rose light on the pavement flickered between them backwards and
+forwards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lady,&quot; said Babar, and involuntarily he drew himself up to his full
+height, &quot;in my childhood they married me to one for whom I cared
+little. She left me, saying truly, I did not love her. Awhile back my
+mother--God rest her soul for she was very dear to me--married me to
+yet another wife whom, mercifully, God took; since we were as cat and
+dog. But I have never loved a woman. I do not now; perhaps I never
+shall. 'Tis well to be prepared.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Was it a faint sigh, or only another breath of wind that set the
+swinging lamp swaying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am prepared. And God may send the father's love to the mother of
+his son.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was silence. The splash of the glistening fountain made itself
+heard faintly; the soft coo of a dove in the orange trees seemed a
+lullaby to the whole wide world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lady,&quot; said Babar when he spoke at last, &quot;I have sworn to myself that
+none should know of my marriage till it was accomplished. Till I could
+place my wife before them and say 'See her whom I have chosen.' I stay
+but a week or two in Herât. My kingdom calls me back. Is it possible
+that ere I go the formulas may be said privately, so that when good
+fortune enables me to send to Herât it may be for my wedded wife that
+I send?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a pause Then the cool, quiet voice replied, &quot;Wherefore not,
+my lord? I have said I am ready.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But when?&quot; Babar spoke anxiously, almost appealingly. He felt himself
+as wax in a woman's hand--a woman he had never seen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Next Friday, my lord, when I come again to lay the flowers at the
+shrine. If my lord makes preparation, and if he changeth not his mind,
+his servant will be there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Unless she also changeth her mind,&quot; interrupted Babar with forced
+lightness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That might be,&quot; came the answer. &quot;Yet is it not so likely as the
+other. The caged bird does not choose its song. And now farewell. God
+have you in his keeping.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The figure stooped to gather its flowing robes together, and something
+in the supple elegance of the movement sent Babar's blood to his heart
+and head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not so, my moon,&quot; he cried, every atom of him vibrant with emotion.
+&quot;Not so do we part.&quot; And with two swinging strides he was across the
+flickering rose light on the marble floor, took the hand held out to
+him unflinchingly, and stooped to kiss it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wife and mother, guardian and friend, so shalt thou be to me, so help
+me God.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next instant he was alone staring into the night, wondering if he
+had fallen asleep and dreamt it all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No! It was a reality. His signet ring was gone. He must have put it on
+that firm delicate hand, the memory of whose touch thrilled him
+through and through.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he had called her his moon. Yet his heart was beating tranquilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he lay down on the carven bed he did not toss and turn. He did
+not even feel inclined to indite a sonnet to his mistress's eyebrow or
+compare her to anything in heaven above or the earth beneath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was simply content, and fell into a dreamless sleep. It was not
+till the next morning that he recollected that he did not know the
+lady's name, nor where she lived.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not that either ignorance mattered. He would find out next Friday.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">
+Noisy the Tavern where Life's wine has sped<br>
+From variant cup to fuddle variant Head;<br>
+Love peeps through crannied Door; each Drinker straight<br>
+Flings cup aside to follow Her instead.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:25%"><i>Ebd-ul-Hamîd</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">There was not much time for thought in Herât. Early in the morning
+Babar was astir to ride out with Yusuf to some of the sights, and find
+the first collation of the day spread in some suitable place.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then on his return there was the State visit to the Court, where with
+pomp and circumstance he took his place as King of Kâbul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After that, each day had its entertainment at some new palace of
+delight, and sometimes after dinner had been served, the party would
+be carried off by one of the guests to a further and more intimate
+circle of amusement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once this was done by no less a person than Khadîjah-Begum herself.
+She took a few of the young princes to the King's Pleasure House, a
+delightful little edifice of two storeys high which stood in the midst
+of a still more delightful garden. The upper storey was simply
+perfect! Four little apartments at the four corners, each with a wide
+balcony, and between them and enclosed by them, one large central
+arched Hall. Every portion of this upper storey was covered with
+frescoes representing the battles of Babar's grandfather Sultan
+Abusa'id.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And it was all so charmingly arranged. Carpets and hangings
+everywhere; especially in the balcony where the party assembled and
+where Babar as the guest of the evening was placed above his hosts.
+These little attentions always flattered Babar and he never failed to
+notice them. So the entertainment began with a cup of welcome which
+was charged and drunk by the host in chief. Then the cupbearers began
+to fill up the cup of the others with pure wine which everyone,
+including Khadîjah-Begum, quaffed as if it had been the water of life!
+Only the tall good-looking young King refused, even when, the party
+waxing warm, and the spirit mounting to their heads, they took a fancy
+to make the young abstainer drink also.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The night was fine, the moonlight streamed in upon fruit and flowers.
+Jelâl the flute player fluted to perfection, and Bechâb on the harp
+might have wiled doves from their nests. Then Hâfiz sang well in the
+Herâti style, low, delicate, equable. Everything tempted to pleasure
+and Babar sat with a half-frown on his kindly face watching the others
+get lordily drunk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then mercifully a false note was struck by one of his own following.
+Jahângir Mirza, who was far gone, insisted that his favourite singer
+of Samarkand should delight the company. And the man sang (as he
+always did) in a loud harsh voice and out of tune; altogether a
+dreadful, disagreeable performance. So disagreeable that the Khorasân
+Princes, though far too polite to stop it out of respect to Babar, had
+to yawn and furtively protect their ears. This, and the reflection
+that if he was to yield and taste wine it would be more courteous to
+do so when he was the guest of the eldest of the Princes, and not of
+the younger, decided him not to give way; at that party at any rate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he was no wet blanket; for after a time, having had enough of the
+Pleasure-House, they repaired to the new Winter-Palace, where Yusuf,
+being by this time extremely drunk, rose and, for a marvel, danced
+remarkably well; possibly because he was a musical man. Here they all
+got very merry and friendly. Babar was presented more or less
+ceremoniously with a corselet, a sword, a belt, and a whitish Tipchak
+horse, and someone sang a Turkhi song well. On the other hand while
+the party was hot with wine two slaves again performed indecent scurvy
+tricks. But this time Babar did not leave. He remained to the bitter
+end when the party broke up at such an untimely hour that Babar
+thought it best to stay where he was; the others doubtless, being too
+drunk to move.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Perhaps it was this experience, coming in such close contrast to the
+marvellous peace of that moonlight night when, as if in a dream, he
+had handfasted a nameless woman, that made Babar listen to old Kâsim's
+horror-struck remonstrances concerning his young master's failing
+adherence to orthodoxy in the matter of wine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The rigid old Mahomedan was fairly scandalised, and made such a fuss
+that the Khorasân Prime-Minister intervened, and took <i>his</i> young
+masters to task so severely that they wholly laid aside any idea of
+urging their cousin further to drink.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Rather perhaps to that cousin's private regret. It seemed a thousand
+pities to leave Herât without having tasted all Life's pleasures; all,
+that is, that were not indecent or scurvy. And a man could be drunk
+and yet remain a gentleman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still, when the elder prince did give the promised party, at which
+Babar had promised himself he would for once drink wine, he still
+refrained, though he fretted because his nobles thought it necessary
+only to drink by stealth, hiding their goblets and taking draughts in
+great dread. It was so foolish; when they knew he was never one to
+object to the following of common usage, if so be the follower could
+reconcile it to his own conscience.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was altogether a trifle hoity-toity at this supper party; for a
+whole goose, after Herâti fashion, being set down before him, he did
+not touch it; and, on his host's asking if he did not like it, said
+frankly, that being accustomed to the unrefined habit of having his
+food served in gobbets, he did not know how to carve it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereupon his host obligingly sent for the goose, cut it up, and
+placed it himself before his guest. Badia-zamân was, of course,
+unequalled in such attentions, and life was very delightful; yet still
+Babar's thoughts began to turn to the next Friday, and after that to
+Kâbul. His future life seemed more settled than it had ever been
+before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Fate had a surprise in store for him, as he found out one
+afternoon, when, after his usual kindly custom, he had gone to pay a
+duty visit to his paternal aunts. Running down the narrow stairs which
+led to Payandâ-Begum's upper storey, he came full tilt on two veiled
+women coming up. The stair was but shoulder wide; no room to pass,
+even had the first figure not been so appallingly stout. Impossible to
+pass, rude to turn one's back on those who were evidently of the
+circle of distinction--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nor could he, King of Kâbul, retreat step by step like a lackey. He
+stood for a second gracious, debonnair; then with a merry &quot;Your
+pardon, mother,&quot; wedged his arms tight between those narrow walls, so
+swung himself back. And there, in two such bounds, he was up the six
+steps and at the top of the stair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have a care, nephew,&quot; shrieked a fat, familiar voice from the first
+bundle. &quot;Thou wilt fall and crush thy Yenkâm!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My bridesmaid!&quot; cried Babar joyously, repeating the pet nickname.
+&quot;Say not so! When didst thou come?&quot; And he was down the stairs again
+to embrace a favourite aunt he had not seen for years, and help her
+mount the remaining steps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, still panting, the elderly matron unwound her veil and stood
+revealed; fat indeed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! Yenkâm,&quot; said Babar, his eyes twinkling. &quot;Had I fallen, I should
+have fallen--soft.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fie on thee, scapegrace! God send thee not a skinny old age,&quot;
+retorted Habee-ba-Begum good humouredly. &quot;But what of thy cousin
+Ma'asuma here? Ma'asuma that is like the fairy princess, weighing but
+five flowers--have a care of thy veil, child!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The tiny little figure, slim and graceful, which now stood beside the
+fat one, apparently made a court salutation beneath her thick veil,
+and a bird-like voice said, with a laugh in every tone, &quot;My cousin
+Babar, never having seen my smallness, Mother, cannot gauge it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young King returned the salute in his best manner. &quot;If the
+gracious lady would allow me to judge,&quot; he began, when his Yenkâm cut
+short his hardihood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fie! no nonsense, children! Ma'asuma! Follow me. Thou must be
+presented at once to thy eldest aunt. I shall see thee, scapegrace!
+doubtless, later on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, with a nod to Babar, bundled propriety moved off down the
+corridor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Was it chance?--Was it really a trip over a tiresome veil...?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anyhow Habee-ba-Begum had rounded a corner, and those two young things
+stood staring at each other as if they had never seen anything in the
+wide world before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a real case of love at first sight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As for him, he did not even realise what she was like. He only knew
+that she was beautiful exceedingly. And she knew he was a Prince
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The mirth in their eyes died down. Then hers grew startled, his caught
+fire. So they stood; till suddenly hers flamed back into his, and with
+a low cry she huddled her draperies round her, turned, and fled after
+her mother.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar stood still as a stone. What had happened to him? He felt
+confused, lost, yet utterly, entirely, absurdly happy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After a time he walked soberly downstairs feeling vaguely that the
+world was a new world, and that he must go and find himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once in the street he went on walking blindly, on and on, till he
+found himself in desert places outside the town. Then, aimlessly, he
+turned back and walked as he had come, wandering through the city as
+though in search of mansions and gardens.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet all the while he felt as if he could neither sit nor go, neither
+stand nor walk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was literally obsessed by a passion, pure in its very intensity; a
+passion which at one and the same time made him long to be with its
+object, yet covered him with shame and confusion at the mere thought
+of her beauty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He returned after long hours to Ali-Shîr's palace, worn out in body,
+but yet more restless in mind. He had decided that this must be
+love--love at long last. In that case he must write verses, and began
+to catalogue the beauty of the face he had seen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He remembered, now, that they were unusual; for little Cousin Ma'asuma
+had the rare distinction of fairish hair and blue eyes. A little
+flowerful face, merry, sparkling; rebellious curling hair flecked with
+red gold--a tint of rose and creamy <i>champak</i>--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All this he remembered dreamily as he laboured to fit together the
+fine mosaic of a Persian love ode.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Impassioned loved one! fairest of the fair,<br>
+The waving tendrils of thy bronze gold hair<br>
+Spread round thy face each one a separate snare;<br>
+Thine eyes are vi'lets, centred by black bees<br>
+Who seek to drain their sweetness to the lees;<br>
+Thine eyebrows arch--&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">He got so far as this, then threw away his pen in disgust.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anyone could write that sort of stuff. He had read pages of it in
+books: had sung such rhymes by the score. But that sort of thing had
+nothing to do with his great love for Ma'asuma and hers for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For she had loved him, of course. The reverse was incredible, absurd.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned round and buried his face in the downy cushions that had, as
+usual, been spread for him in his favourite corner of the colonnade.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had had no dinner. He did not want any. He had refused his cousin's
+invitations with some excuse. He forgot what--it did not matter.
+Nothing in the wide world mattered but his love for Ma'asuma and hers
+for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The moon was still bright. Not quite so bright as it had been that
+night, five days ago, when he had promised to marry someone else.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar sat up, leant his head on his hand and began to consider how
+matters stood. Oriental in mind, marriage was to him by no means
+synonymous with love. He could legitimately have four wives at a time.
+If he liked. But honestly he felt he would rather not. Still--as
+nothing possibly could prevent his making Ma'asuma his wife--if the
+other nameless lady wanted to be his wife also, he would acquiesce. He
+would not go back from his promise. Only--what a pity he had called
+her his &quot;Moon&quot;! That name belonged to his love by right.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, as he sat dreaming, a voice said with the nasal twang of the
+common folk--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A letter for the Presence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The coincidence of time and place startled him. He looked up
+half-expectant of that tall, slim, female figure. But this was a lad
+in the uniform of the Palace servants. A message mayhap from one of
+the Begums. He took it carelessly from an awkward brown hand and
+opened its seal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A scent of fresh violets came to him as he did so.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the letter?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was written in the finest Babari hand--the hand he had
+invented!--with a delicacy, an accuracy at which even the inventor of
+it marvelled, and it contained but a quatrain; but such a quatrain!
+Babar's scholastic appreciation of the form forced its way through his
+emotional delight at the words. Ali-Shîr himself could not have
+written anything neater, more absolutely correct in prosody. And in
+such difficult metre too, with its enlay of rhymes.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">
+&quot;My heart has part in this thy smart.<br>
+Dear heart! have part in this my smart!<br>
+Our sighs do rise twin to the skies;<br>
+Thy heart, my heart, are not apart.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">And it was signed:</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size:90%">&quot;Thy true friend Ma'asuma.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal">Yea! That was worth writing! That told the tale. Babar sprang to his
+feet. The whole world seemed filled with radiance. He and Ma'asuma
+were the only people in it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But what should he answer? What should he write? Nothing but the
+truth--God's truth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I love thee. I love thee, Ma'asuma. I love thee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In his haste, his brimming emotion, the words fell from his lips, as
+seizing pen and paper he set them down and signed them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is that the answer?&quot; asked the waiting lad as Babar held out the
+missive impatiently. &quot;Am I to take that to my mistress?&quot; A faint
+hesitancy over the latter words made the young man look at the boy--a
+dull, rather sullen face, but not ill-looking.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes!&quot; he replied joyously. &quot;Take it to thy mistress. It is my answer,
+now and always!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lad <i>salaamed</i> and went, leaving Babar in a heaven of perfect
+content.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Two days later, on Friday evening, however, he was waiting to fulfil
+his promise in Ali-Shîr's tomb. Absolutely Oriental as his outlook
+was, so far as marriage was concerned, he yet wondered, vaguely, if he
+were fool or knave in acting as he did. For the path of true love,
+never very rough when Kings are concerned, had been made very smooth,
+indeed, for the two young people. Babar had sent his Akâm to see his
+Yenkâm and the whole affair had been settled in five minutes with
+enthusiasm. Even the preliminaries had been arranged. It being nigh
+December, Babar should return to Kâbul and make preparations there,
+while Yenkâm would complete hers at Herât, and with the first blink of
+returning spring, the marriage should take place at some intermediate
+place. Meanwhile the young people, after Chagatâi fashion, had been
+allowed to see each other and were in the seventh heaven of delight.
+The betrothals were to be made public in a few days; though already
+Babar's conduct was suspicious. For he refrained from his cousin's
+convivial parties and mooned about in the gardens composing &quot;Sonnets
+of the Heart,&quot; as he was pleased to call them, in his native Turkhi
+which gave him much more freedom than the severely technical Persian
+odes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">These he sent as written to his dearest dear, and they invariably
+brought back the most beautiful replies, more correct, if not
+quite as genuine in feeling, as his own effusions. He felt he was,
+indeed, in luck to find so peerless a maid, perfect in beauty and in
+intelligence. One of these compositions--the last--lay in his
+waist-wallet, as he waited in Ali-Shîr's tomb. The moon had not yet
+risen, and all was dark. Yet he got up once or twice from the parapet
+rail on which he sat, and paced aimlessly up and down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In truth he was restless; vaguely dissatisfied with himself. He was
+going to explain, of course--oh, yes! he would explain; but it might
+have been better to write. Yet how could he, knowing neither her name
+nor where she lived? He could have found out of course; but that might
+have been to put his paternal aunts on the scent. They were dear
+creatures, but dreadful scandalmongers. Besides he had so much to say.
+A personal explanation would be easier; less abrupt, kinder. Not that
+he meant to back out--far from it. He was ready to be a good, just,
+generous husband; unless of course, the nameless one preferred not to
+take second place, as she must do. There was no helping that. It was
+not his fault. Love had come ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paced quicker as he remembered the words which had so touched
+him-- &quot;And God the Father may send a father's love to the mother of
+his son.&quot; Well! God send He might; though that would be a different
+sort of love altogether from this absorbing passion. Anyhow he could
+do no more. A Kâzi, able if necessary to perform the marriage
+ceremony, was within call. He, himself, was ready. All that was
+wanting was the lady. Surely she was late in coming.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A rustle made him start and listen; but it was only the doves in the
+orange trees.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No one! No one!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The moon rose after a time over the garden and flooded the terraces
+with such silvern brilliance that the very pebbles on the path showed
+distinct.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But no one came--no one!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Could she have heard?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Impossible; it was still a Court secret, and she was a religious
+recluse--so far as he knew.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Besides; even if she had changed her mind, she might have come--or
+sent a message.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, at last, in rather an ill humour he went back to the Palace and
+dismissed the waiting Kâzi with a handsome fee.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was one more Friday ere he left Herât; and, feeling ill-used,
+sore, yet in a way mightily relieved, he waited in Ali-Shîr's tomb for
+another hour or so. No one should say <i>he</i> had failed in his part of
+the bargain! He was quite ready. Besides he had told the woman plainly
+that he was not in love with her; so she had no right to feel
+aggrieved. If she did.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But that could scarcely be. Every good Mussulmân knew she had no claim
+to a whole man--though little Ma'asuma had every bit of him. Yea!
+every bit. So it was as well, doubtless, that no one came.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And as he went back to the palace his only regret was that he should
+have called the nameless one &quot;My moon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The title belonged to his love, of right; but she would, she could
+never bear it because of the nameless one who had changed her
+mind--apparently; but she had not sent back his ring!</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">
+Forward and onward! do not ask the task,<br>
+Fortune importune! Is not strife true life?</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Kâsim-beg was in a fever to leave Herât. Marriage, he said, was good,
+and it was proper to choose a cousin, who was doubtless charming;
+though for his part he believed the rather in choice by outsiders; for
+if the result was not happy there was no self blame, and self blame
+was the devil for destroying decent calm. But Kingship was more
+important still, and as the Most High had not been so very secure on
+his new throne before he had started, he simply could not afford to be
+away more than six months.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Babar could not but admit his faithful old minister was right. So
+he said farewell reluctantly to little Ma'asuma and started at the
+head of his small army for Kâbul. And as he rode up the last slope
+whence he could see the gilded city of Herât, he told himself he could
+not have done it better. He had seen everything--he ran over the list
+of the sights in his mind, and found eighty-two of them! In fact the
+only one worthy of notice which he had omitted was a certain convent.
+He flushed a little at the remembrance, and set the thought aside with
+self-complacence that he had come through the temptations of the most
+luxurious town in the world quite unscathed. He had not played any
+indecent or scurvy tricks, he had not touched wine. He had altogether
+been quite a virtuous prince. So, with characteristic buoyancy,
+despite the fact that he had said good-bye to his first and only love,
+he settled himself in the saddle, and his face for home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here difficulties arose at once. It began to snow the very day they
+left Herât, and Babar was for taking the low road for safety's sake.
+It was the longer of course, but the hill road was at all times
+difficult and dangerous; in snow practically impassable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Kâsim-Beg, who had been in a fuss for days, behaved very
+perversely, so that in the end Babar gave way and they started for the
+passes, taking one Binâi, an old mountaineer, as their guide. Now
+whether it was from old age, or from his heart failing him at the
+unusual depth of the drifts, is uncertain; but this is sure--having
+once lost the path he never could find it again so as to point out the
+way!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">However, as Kâsim-Beg and his sons were anxious to preserve their
+reputation as route-choosers, they dismounted, beat down the snow and
+discovered something like a road along which the party--much reduced
+by defections due to the delights of Herât--managed to advance for a
+day, when it was brought to a complete stand by the depth of the snow,
+which was such that the horses' feet did not touch the ground. Seeing
+no other remedy, Babar ordered a retreat to a ravine where there was
+abundance of firewood, and thence despatched sixty or seventy chosen
+men, to return by the road they had come, and, retracing their
+footsteps, to find on the lower ground any Huzâras or other people who
+might be wintering there, and to bring a guide who was able to point
+out the way. This done they halted in the ravine for three or four
+days awaiting the return of the men who had been sent out. These did,
+indeed, come back, but without having been able to find a guide.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What was to be done? Nothing but place reliance on God and push
+forward. So said Babar, a light in his clear eyes as he recognised
+that he was in a tight place, that before him and his lay such
+hardships and sufferings as even he had scarcely undergone at any
+other period of his life. But then at no other period of his life had
+Love been waiting, her rosy wings fluttering, for him to win through.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Warm yourselves to the marrow this night,&quot; he said to all. &quot;Eat your
+fill and carry firewood in place of the victuals. We shall need every
+atom of strength we can save and spend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he himself spent a wakeful night and wrote a Turkhi verse to
+console himself. It ran thus and was rather poor; though nothing else
+was to be expected under such circumstances:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Fate from my very birth has marked me down,<br>
+There is no injury I have not known,<br>
+Not one! So what care I what fortune bring?<br>
+No harm unknown can come to me, the King.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">They were up betimes, a long straggling party doing their best to
+struggle on by beating down the snow and so forming a road along which
+the laden mules could go. It was luckily a fine day and by evening
+they could count on an advance of three miles. What was more, as no
+snow had fallen, they were able to send back along the beaten track
+for more firewood. So it went on for two or three days. Then the men
+began to be discouraged, and Babar set his teeth. With Love awaiting
+him at the other side, he meant to get over the Pass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He only had about fifteen volunteers from his immediate staff, but
+those fifteen, headed by vitality incarnate, worked wonders. Every
+step taken was up to the middle or the breast in soft, fresh-fallen
+snow; but still it was a step, and he who followed did not sink so
+far. Thus they laboured. As the vigour of the person who went first
+was generally expended after he had gone a few paces, another advanced
+and took his place.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! gentlemen, 'tis as good as leap-frog,&quot; cried the young leader
+joyously, and thereinafter they strove for steps. And as ever Babar
+came out first. &quot;See you,&quot; he said gravely, in explanation of his own
+prowess, &quot;'tis I brought you hither; and if we do not beat hard we
+shall be beaten.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At which mild joke Kâsim laughed profusely, though he felt as if he
+could have killed himself for having thus jeopardised his young hero's
+life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The fifteen or so who worked in trampling down the snow, next
+succeeded in dragging on a riderless horse. This generally sank to the
+stirrups and after ten or fifteen paces was worn out. The next fared
+better and the next, and the next. And after all the led horses had
+thus been brought forward, came a sorry sight. The rest of the troops,
+even the best men and many who bore the title of &quot;Noble&quot; advancing
+(not even dismounted!) along the road that had been beaten down for
+them by their King! Some of them, certainly, had the grace to hang
+their heads. But this was no time, Babar felt, for reproach or even
+for authority. Every man who possessed spirit or emulation must have
+hastened to the front without orders; and those without spirits were
+worse than useless at such a time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We must do without them, Kâsim,&quot; said the young King, when his
+minister would have spoken his mind. &quot;'Twill not mend matters with
+cowards to tell them they be such. Could any tongue circle the lie I
+would praise them for their bravery, but with Death staring us in the
+face I stick to Truth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And to work also. The life and soul of the fifteen, he kept them going
+by jokes and quips and the singing of songs. Aye! even when storm and
+snow came with blinding force and they all expected to meet death
+together. Then it was that, ahead of all, Babar's full mellow voice
+rang out in such ballads as:</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem2" style="margin-right:40%">
+<h4>THE HAND OF THE THIEF</h4>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">The bog was black outside Kazân,<br>
+now it is red!<br>
+Last night there came a rich car-wân,<br>
+Blood has been shed!</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Now Adham-Khân was over-lord,<br>
+Judging the right<br>
+Of quarr'l betwixt the Black-Sheep-Horde<br>
+And they of the White.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i6">&quot;Oh! Adham-Khân avenge the wrong,<br>
+Thou art the head.&quot;</p>
+<p class="i6">&quot;My hand holds fast the skirt that's long,&quot;<br>
+Smiling he said.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Then rose in wrath young Zulfikâr,<br>
+Girt on his sword.</p>
+<p class="i6">&quot;Now show I him in full durbâr<br>
+Right is the Lord.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">He saddled steed and rode away<br>
+Over the sand,<br>
+His hauberk rattling roundelay,<br>
+God at his hand.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">And Adham-Khân, he sat in state<br>
+Holding his court.</p>
+<p class="i6">&quot;Now who is he who comes so late<br>
+What has he brought?&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i6">&quot;I bring a gift from the Black-Horde-chief,<br>
+Thy honour's friend,<br>
+And lay the hand of a common thief<br>
+On thy skirt's end.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">The stiff dead hand skimmed through the air,<br>
+Lay like a stone.<br>
+Of all the court not one did dare<br>
+Right to disown.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i6">&quot;Oh! warrior hear! Against the right<br>
+Keep thou from strife;<br>
+But if the wrong is <i>done</i> then fight<br>
+Fight for thy life.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="normal">They were, in truth, fighting for dear life. And there was a chance of
+it ahead of them; for, nigh the top of the great Zerrin pass, lay a
+cave wherein shelter might be found. At least so said Binâi the guide.
+But the snow fell in such quantities, the wind was so dreadful, so
+terribly violent, it needed all Babar's courage not to give in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the rosy fluttering wings of Love would not let him yield. He
+could not lose little cousin Ma'asuma. The very thought of her warmed
+him; the scent of her hair came to him with the snow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The drifts deepened, the possibility of path narrowed in the steep
+defile, the days were at the shortest, with difficulty could the
+horses be kept on the trampled road, yet all around was certain death
+in unfathomed snow-depths.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar's face was stern. He was nigh his end, and he knew it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then, suddenly, a shout from keen-eyed Tengâri, old Kâsim's son.
+&quot;The cave! The cave! Yonder is the cave.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And it was; but to all appearance disappointingly small. Not large
+enough to hold one-half of those seeking shelter, though the
+surrounding cliffs in some measure tempered the bitter fierceness of
+the wind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Most High had better go in,&quot; said Kâsim, as Babar set to work
+arranging what best he could for his troopers. &quot;I will see to the
+men.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar shook his head and went on. He felt that for him to be in
+warmth and comfort while his men were in snow and drift, for him to be
+enjoying sleep and ease while his followers were in trouble and
+distress would be inconsistent from what he owed them and a deviation
+from that society in suffering that was their due.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Death in the company of friends is a feast.' At any rate, so runs
+the proverb,&quot; he remarked lightly. &quot;And indeed, Kâsim, having brought
+these poor souls to this pass, it is but right that whatever their
+sufferings and difficulties, whatever they may have to undergo, I
+should be equal sharer in all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So when he had done what he could and shown others what to do, he took
+a hoe and dug down in the snow as deep as his breast without reaching
+the ground, then crouched down in it. The day was darkening, evening
+prayer time had passed, and still belated troopers came dropping in.
+The snow was now falling so fast that the men in the dug-out shelter
+ran some chance of being smothered as they slept from sheer fatigue.
+Babar himself found four inches of snow above him as he scrambled out
+of his hole when a last party straggled in, bringing Binâi the guide,
+with the welcome news that the cave was far larger than hasty
+observation would expect, and that a narrow passage led to quite a
+spacious cavern within where there was ample room for all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Joyful news indeed! Sending out to call in all his men, Babar soon
+found himself, by one of his own extraordinary changes of luck, in a
+wonderfully warm, safe, and comfortable place. For there proved to be
+firewood within the cave, and such as had any eatables, stewed meat,
+preserved flesh, or anything else they might have, produced them for a
+common meal. Thus all escaped, as by a miracle, from the terrible
+cold, the snow, the bitter, bitter wind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the rosy wings of Love fluttered gaily, as Babar laid himself down
+to sleep--the first sleep he had had for days.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the turning point; though there was still distress and misery
+to come.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The snow, however, had ceased to fall by the morning, the wind had
+died down. Moving with the first blink of dawn they still had to tread
+down the snow in the old way: but it was with more hope. The cave in
+which they had rested was, as they were aware, close to the beginning
+of the last steep ascent to the Great Pass. This, the shortest way,
+they knew to be impassable, and even Kâsim and his sons, warned by
+experience, did not advise its attempt. Bad enough was a lower valley
+road of which old Binâi the guide had vaguely heard. Yet it was their
+only chance, so they took it. But evening found them still in the
+defile; and such was its precipitate nature, that there was nothing
+for it but for every man to halt where he found himself, dismount,
+scrape a hole in the snow for himself and his horse if possible, and
+so await the tardy dawn to bring sufficient light for safe advance. It
+was an awful night. The retreat of the storm had brought frost; icy,
+keen, piercing; and though none of the hardy troopers actually lost
+their lives, many lost hands and feet from frostbite. Babar himself
+kept his blood warm by pacing up and down, singing at the top of his
+voice with that curious instinct of shouting which comes always to
+humanity with the grip of cold. Mayhap it cheered the others to hear
+the mellow melodious chants echoing so blithely over the snow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sang many things, but his favourite was the</p>
+<div class="poem2" style="margin-right:40%">
+<h4>SONG OF THE SMILING SHEPHERD</h4>
+
+<br>
+<p class="t0">From Sunset until Dawn-of-Day,<br>
+My forehead frozen with the Frost,<br>
+I shut mine eyes like Wolf-at-Bay<br>
+And sing to find the Sheep I've lost.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">When Angels walk at Break-of-Day<br>
+Among pale wormwood on the lea,<br>
+Upon the Night-of-Power, they say,<br>
+My smiling soul came unto me.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">It had a palace of pure gold<br>
+In Paradise and yet it chose<br>
+To leave the Heat-of-Heaven for Cold<br>
+And help me find the Sheep I love.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">So in the Dark and in the Snow<br>
+We twain make up one Perfect-Whole<br>
+And sing glad songs the while we go<br>
+A Smiling-Shepherd, Smiling-Soul.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Dawn came at last and they moved down the glen. It was not the usual
+road,--that was more circuitous--but with the snow filling up the
+valley and obliterating precipices, ravines, crevasses, there seemed a
+chance of being able to manage a shorter route, and time meant so much
+to those exhausted men.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet Babar himself halted for awhile, and so did a few of his immediate
+followers when his horse stumbled, fell, could not rise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Take mine, my liege,&quot; said half-a-dozen voices. But the young man's
+face set.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will not leave the beast,&quot; he said resolutely. &quot;It hath done me
+good service and may do it again. See you! bring some of the men's
+lances and their halter ropes. Samûr and I live together, or die
+together,&quot; and he laid his young cheek to the horse's soft muzzle
+affectionately.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then starting up, he set the men to work to form a criss-cross raft or
+sledge of lances on to which Samûr was pulled by main force.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis all down hill now,&quot; said he when it was finished, and seizing a
+rope strained at it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nay! Sire!&quot; remarked old Kâsim drily--&quot;If the Most Excellent choose
+to risk lives for the sake of a dumb brute, let them be the lives of
+dumb brutes, not Kings. Troopers! Six horses to save one!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar hung his head, but held to the rope.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Doubtless I am a brute also,&quot; he murmured half to himself, &quot;so let me
+be dumb; save for this--God made me so!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The staunch old warrior heard the words and shook his head. Yet in his
+heart of hearts he would not have altered one jot or one tittle in his
+idol. Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar was for him the first gentleman in
+the world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Truly,&quot; said the latter with pious cheerfulness after a time, during
+which the sledge slipped easily down the steep slopes of snow, &quot;it is
+well said</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">
+'Looked at wisely with clear eyes<br>
+Ills are blessings in disguise.'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">But for this extreme depth of snow which till now hath seemed our
+worst enemy, we should all be tumbling down precipices and being lost
+in crevasses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was obvious; but it cheered the party, until in the far distance
+something more tangible showed to bring sudden alacrity to outwearied
+steps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A hut surely!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And that figure on the lessening snow slopes--was it a man?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still it was nigh bed-time prayers before they extricated themselves
+from the mouth of the valley and the villagers of Yâka-Aulang came out
+to meet the forlorn party, to help, and even to carry, some of them
+into warm houses, and thereinafter to slaughter fat sheep for them,
+bring a superfluity of hay and grass for their horses, and abundance
+of wood to kindle their fires.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once again Babar felt that to pass from the cold and snow into such a
+village with its warm houses, and to escape from want and suffering to
+find such plenty of good bread and fat sheep as they did, was an
+enjoyment that can only be conceived by such as have suffered similar
+hardships, or endured such heavy distress.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But better by far to him than this material satisfaction, was the glow
+at his heart when an old white-headed patriarch nodding by the
+fireside, mumbled--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never has it been done before, never since the memory of man hath
+Zerrin been passed in such snow. Never hath any man ever conceived
+even the idea of passing it at such season--Never! Never!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was something to have done! After this, marching was easy. But the
+strain had told upon the courage of the rank and file, and once when
+the little party came upon a clan of Hazâras who disputed passage in a
+narrow defile, there was near disaster. The young King, who was in the
+rear, galloped up to find his force retreating before a deadly flight
+of arrows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stand!&quot; he shouted. &quot;Stand!&quot; But the men would not be rallied.
+&quot;Fools!&quot; he cried, rising in his stirrups, a fine young figure,
+unarmoured, without sword or lance, without helmet or aught but his
+bow and quiver--for the attack was entirely unforeseen and he had
+been, for the time, off-duty--&quot;Call ye yourselves servants to stand
+still while the master works? Lo! He who hires a servant hires him for
+his need; not to stand still like a slipped camel!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So with a wild <i>huroosh!</i> he set his horse spurring forward. The
+reckless bravery did its work. The men roused by it turned to follow.
+The ambuscade was reached, the hill beyond climbed after the enemy,
+who, seeing the troopers were in real earnest, fled like deer. So the
+danger passed; but Babar wondered vaguely that night if it was to be
+ever so; if the great mass of humanity ever needed a flaming match ere
+they would catch fire.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But there was more trouble to come, as, with such haste as was
+possible--for the snow which was very heavy that winter, hindered them
+even in the valleys--they pushed on towards Kâbul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was one day at noon when, being almost perished with the frost,
+they had alighted to kindle fires and warm themselves ere going on,
+that a messenger on horseback arrived with ill news. The Moghuls left
+behind in Kâbul had risen, and, aided by outsiders and some of the
+immediate relations of the King, had declared for Babar's young cousin
+Weis-Khân, on whose behalf they were now besieging the Fort, which in
+capable and loyal hands was still holding out for the rightful King.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Said I not so, sire?&quot; remarked old Kâsim drily. &quot;The devil is in it
+when women are left alone too long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar flushed. &quot;The devil is in a Moghul thou meanest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kâsim sniffed. &quot;The Most High's step-grandmother Shâh-Begum is of pure
+Moghul descent, I grant, if that is what my liege means. I stake my
+word she is in it. Did I not beg the Most High to send her packing
+back to Tashkend? Aye! and the boy and his mother too. Also the other
+aunt of my liege's who married the commoner Doghlat; wherefore, God
+knows, since some of us had better right to royal wives than he. But
+if 'tis a question of aunts! the Most High is soft as buffalo butter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar bit his lip. He felt that old Kâsim had right on his side; but
+what could one do? They were women, and he was undoubtedly the head of
+the family. But this was serious; the more so because the messenger
+said that reports had been diligently circulated to the effect that
+he, Babar, had been imprisoned in Herât by his cousins; and would
+never return.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They must know that I shall return,&quot; said the young leader grimly,
+and forthwith wrote despatches to be conveyed to known loyalists in
+the town, advising them of his immediate appearance, of which,
+however, they were to say nothing. A blazing fire on the last hill-top
+would herald his approach; this was to be answered by a flare on the
+top of the citadel, showing that it was ready for a combined
+surprise-attack on the besieging force.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With these orders given stringently, Babar set out at nightfall. By
+dawn Kâbul lay before them and a glow of light from the citadel
+answered their signal fire. All therefore was in readiness, so they
+crept on to Syed Kâsim's bridge. Here Babar detailed his force,
+sending Shirim-Taghâi with the right wing to another bridge; he
+himself with the centre and left, making for the town. Here, instantly
+all was uproar and alarm. The alleys were narrow; the assailants and
+defenders crowded into them could scarce move their horses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dismount! cut your way through!&quot; rang out the order and it was
+obeyed. A few minutes later Babar was in the Four-corner Garden where
+he knew the young aspirant was quartered, but he had fled. Babar
+followed in his track. At the gate he met an old friend, the
+Chief-Constable of the town, who made at him with a drawn sword.
+Babar, after his usual fashion, had despised either plate-mail or
+helmet, and when, whether from confusion of ideas arising from the
+battle of fight, or from the snow and cold affecting his eyesight, the
+swordsman failing to recognise his King or heed his cry of &quot;Friend,
+Friend,&quot; hit a shrewd blow, Babar was like to have his arm shorn off.
+But the grace of God was conspicuous. Not even a hair was hurt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, as quick as he could to the palace of Doghlat-commoner, where he
+found Kâsim already on the track of the traitor; but the latter had
+escaped! Here a Moghul who had been in Babar's service deliberately
+fitted an arrow to his bow, aimed at the King and let go. But the
+uproar raised around him, the cries and shouts &quot;That is the King! That
+is the King!&quot; must have disconcerted his aim, for he failed of his
+mark. And here also one of the chief rebels was brought in
+ignominiously, a rope round his neck. He fell at the young King's
+feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sire,&quot; he whined, &quot;what fault is mine?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young face was stern indeed. &quot;Is there greater crime,&quot; came the
+clear, cold answer, &quot;than for a man of worth and family as thou art,
+to conspire and associate with revolutionaries?&quot; Then the contemptuous
+order came sharp, &quot;But remove that rope and let him go hang himself.
+He is of my family, no harm shall happen to him through me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So on again through the town (where the rabble had taken to clubs and
+were making a riot) in order to station parties here and there to
+disperse the crowds and prevent plunder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus, growing cooler, more dignified as stress ceased, to the
+Paradise-Gardens where the Begums lived. No time like the present to
+show his mettle, to let these foolish women know that he did not
+consider their intrigues worth a man's consideration. He found
+the chief-conspirator Shâh-Begum huddled up, out of all measure
+alarmed, confounded, dismayed, ashamed. All the more so when that
+brilliant young figure paused at the door to make its accustomed and
+reverential salutation. He looked well, did Babar, with the fire of
+fight still in his eyes, a certain quizzical affection about his
+mouth. &quot;I salute thee, O revered step-grandmother,&quot; he said
+cheerfully, good-humouredly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So crossing, he went down on his knees in filial fashion and embraced
+the old lady cordially.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereupon, of course, she began to whimper. Babar sat back and looked
+at her kindly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wherefore, revered one? Lo! I am not vexed. What right has a child to
+be so because his mother's bounty descends upon another? The mother's
+authority over her children is in all respects absolute, save that
+this grandson, and not the other is King of Kâbul!&quot; Then he laughed:
+&quot;Lo!&quot; he added, &quot;I am so sleepy. I have not slept all night. Let me
+rest my hand on thy bosom, grandmother, as I used to rest it on my
+mother's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The whimper changed into a storm of sobs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And afterwards when the young aspirant and the Doghlat-commoner had
+been caught and brought up for condign punishment by Kâsim, he forgave
+them both.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the traitor deserves death, sire,&quot; stuttered the stern old
+martinet. &quot;He hath been guilty of mutiny, rebellion. He is criminal,
+guilty; and the younger one is devil's spawn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You mistake, old friend,&quot; said the young King quietly; &quot;they are of
+my family.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Poor old Kâsim had to content himself by assenting loudly in whatever
+company he found himself that however much the King might try to wear
+away the rust of shame with the polish of mildness and humanity he was
+unable to wipe out the dimness of ignominy which had covered the
+mirror of those miscreants' lives.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">
+Yes! Love triumphant came, engrossing all<br>
+The fond luxuriant thoughts of youth and mind;<br>
+Then in soft converse did they pass the hours,<br>
+Their passion like the season fresh and fair.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:25%"><i>Nizâmi</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">The Judas trees were in full blossom. But a day or two before they had
+been dry branches, brown, wrinkled, to all appearances dead. Now, with
+a swiftness nigh miraculous they had flushed, every inch of finest
+twig, to rosy red under their mantle of sweet-scented bloom. The
+ground underneath them was already carpeted with fallen flowers, their
+five-petalled cups, like those of a regal geranium, still perfect
+utterly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis like the blossoming of love in the heart, is it not, little
+one?&quot; said Babar idly, as, lying amid the spent blossoms he raised one
+to perch it coquettishly on the goldy-brown curls that rested on his
+breast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had been married five months to little Cousin Ma'asuma but it
+seemed to him like five days. Aye! though happenings stern and sad had
+filled the interval, Kâsim had been right. Herât had been plundered by
+the arch-enemy Shaibâni. His cousins had fled, leaving wives and
+children to fall into the hands of the conquerors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At another time Babar's hot anger might have led him to attempt
+reprisals, though he knew it would be but an attempt. But in these
+first months of marriage he could not find it in his heart to leave
+little Ma'asuma for any time--if, indeed she would have allowed him to
+do so. For small, young, delicate as she was, those violet eyes of
+hers could set hard as sapphires. Aye! and have a gleam in them too,
+like any gem.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first time Babar saw it, he caught her in his arms and half
+smothered her with kisses until she bade him peremptorily put her
+down. And then they had both laughed, and Babar had vowed in his
+heart, that never had lover been so fortunate as he. His mistress
+was--what was she not? Briefly, she was all things to him. He had
+never been in love with a woman before, and his self-surrender was
+complete.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Small wonder, indeed, if it were; for there was something almost
+uncanny in the beauty of the face which looked up at him, love in its
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Put it on thine own rough head, man,&quot; she said superbly, &quot;thou
+needest ornament more than I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And it was true. From the tiny silvern and golden slipper she had
+kicked off, to the light, gold-spangled veil which just touched her
+curly head, she was ornament personified. The dainty heart-shaped
+opening of the violet-tinted gauze bodice she wore over a pale green
+corselet was all set with seed-pearls and turquoises, hung on cunning
+little silvern tendrils. And the corselet itself! all veined with
+golden threads and pale moonstones. So with the flimsy, full, almost
+transparent muslin petticoat, pale pale green, that lay in shrouding
+folds over the violet-tinted under garment. All edged and embroidered,
+all scent-sodden with the perfume of violets--his favourite flower
+then; to be his favourite flower till his death. Truly a marvellous
+small person from head to foot!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have a care, man,&quot; she said sternly, as he crushed her closer to him,
+&quot;or we shall quarrel; and 'tis not good for me to quarrel--now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He released her quickly, yet cautiously; gentle as he was, he was
+always forgetting, he told himself, that she was doubly precious to
+him--now.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! dear heart!&quot; he said penitently, &quot;we have not quarrelled these
+five days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not since I was angry because the tire-woman overdyed my hands with
+henna,&quot; she replied mischievously. &quot;And thou didst tell me there were
+worse evils for tears. As if I cared; so long as my hands were not
+pretty ... for thee.&quot; She held them up for him to admire. And they
+were pretty. Delicate, and curved, and pink, like rose-petals. He
+kissed them dutifully; so much he knew was expected of him, and he
+loved the task.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And as penance for rudeness, man,&quot; she went on, her face all dimples,
+&quot;thou wert to write me a love ode on the subject. Hast done it,
+sirrah?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That have I,&quot; assented her lover husband gladly. &quot;Dost know, little
+one, I string more pearls now than ever; but thou--thou hast not
+written one line since we were married; yet thou hadst the prettiest
+art.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ma'asuma lay back on her resting-place and laughed softly. &quot;Someday,
+stupid, I will tell thee why. But now for thy verses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar caught up his lute and sat tuning it, his eyes wandering away to
+the girdle of snows that clipped the blue hill-horizon. They were in
+the garden of the New Year; alone, save for that dear grave yonder
+where the jasmine flowers were drooping their scented waxen stars.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dear mother! How glad she would have been to see Ma'asuma, to think of
+the grandson who was so soon to make life absolutely perfect. Yes! the
+cup of life, the Crystal Bowl could hold no more. He lost himself in
+dreams, to be roused by an impatient, &quot;Well! I listen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he turned and smiled at her as he began with exaggerated
+expression.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Oh, fair impassioned, whom God hath fashioned<br>
+My love to be,<br>
+Thy hands so tender, thy fingers slender<br>
+Rosy I see.<br>
+Be they flower-tinted or blood-imprinted<br>
+From my poor heart?<br>
+Torn by thy smiling, tears and beguiling<br>
+Feminine art.<br>
+Yet, sweet calamity! dwell we in amity<br>
+Each perfect day.<br>
+Yea! in the bright time. Yea! in the night time,<br>
+Lovers alway.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sweet calamity!&quot; she echoed, pouting her lips and trying hard to
+frown, as the song finished. &quot;Couldst find no other title for thy
+lawful wife? And yet--&quot; here smiles overcame her--&quot;Lo! Babar! 'tis a
+beautiful name and I am thy sweet calamity alway, alway!&quot; Then
+suddenly, to his dismay, she began to cry softly, the big tears
+running down her pretty cheeks in easy childish fashion. &quot;Nay!&quot; she
+went on, half-smiles again at his solicitude, &quot;I am not ill,--there is
+naught wrong. 'Tis only that I am lonely when thou art doing King's
+work, which must be done. If only foster-sister would come, I should
+not be so frightened.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But my Yenkâm, thy mother, will be here--&quot; protested Babar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ma'asuma shook her head. &quot;It is <i>now</i>, dear heart! And foster-sister
+will not come unless thou askest her. She said so. Couldst not write
+to her, Babar?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I know not foster-sister, nor aught of her, save that she was
+good to my Ma'asuma, for which, may Heaven reward her!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ma'asuma sat up, her charming face happy in thought. &quot;Oh! so good, my
+lord! Not a real foster-sister, either; but we sat under one veil and
+drank milk out of one cup. That was when we first came to Khorasân,
+thy Yenkâm and I. And since then she--Babar!--Be not angry but I will
+tell thee--I meant to have told thee--I should have told thee
+before--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The violet eyes showed trouble once more and Babar kissed them
+deliberately. &quot;What, sweetheart?&quot; he asked carelessly. He knew the
+gentle kindly heart too well to fear any revelation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only it was she, not I, who wrote the verses--the verses I sent--I
+was too stupid. And she is clever--oh! so clever!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Despite his certitude the young man looked startled. &quot;So,&quot; he said at
+last, &quot;Fortune hath not given me the grace of a poetess to wife. So be
+it. But who is this paragon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ma'asuma, however, was too delighted at having got over her confession
+so happily to refrain from autocratic dignity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That I have said. She is foster-sister and of the circle of
+distinction. Thy Yenkâm can tell thee of genealogies; they tire my
+head. So write! Dost hear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar laughed. He loved to take orders from those sweet lips; besides
+a certain zest came with the idea of writing to an unknown poetess.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea! I will write,&quot; he said meekly, &quot;but I will have to regard <i>zals</i>
+and <i>zes</i>; for more elegant <i>nastâlik</i> saw I never than hers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the letter was written and despatched express to the care of his
+Yenkâm at Khorasân, and six weeks later little Ma'asuma sat beside her
+foster-sister in the summer house of the new Garden of Fidelity which
+Babar was laying out at Adinahpore, and whither he had taken his young
+wife whose daily increasing delicacy filled him with concern. Of all
+the gardens that Babar planted and watered, this was the one nearest
+his heart. In a most romantic situation, on the south side of, and
+overlooking the river, its groves of oranges and citrons grew
+untouched by hard winter frosts, while every flower, every tree of his
+beloved hill country flourished side by side with those of warm
+climates. Above it towered the White-Mountain and the Almond-Spring
+Pass, below it the valley debouched into wide fertility.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Babar was hard at work, delving away himself like any Adam; making
+a four-square cross of marble reservoirs, through which the clear,
+hill stream might run, planting new flowers from here, there,
+everywhere. The tan of his sunburnt face and hands contrasted sadly
+with the sallowing skin of the girl-wife, who, despite his care, was
+sinking under her task of son-bearing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then he knows not who I am,&quot; said the tall, slender woman on whose
+knee Ma'asuma was resting her pretty, weary head. &quot;I deemed thou hadst
+told him, as we agreed.&quot; She spoke gravely and her level black brows
+were faintly knit. The rest of the face was richly beautiful in strong
+sweeping curves, but those level brows and the dark, thoughtful eyes
+beneath them held the attention. &quot;Not that it matters,&quot; she added
+quickly, seeing tears ready to brim over the violets upturned to her.
+&quot;After all, 'tis nothing to thy lord--or to any other man--whether I
+be widow to Mirza Gharîb Beg or no, so long as I be honourable woman.
+Therefore tell him not, now that I am here.&quot; And Babar coming in to
+see his wife found the veiled new-comer courteous in speech, charming
+in manner. Found also such favourable change in his darling's spirits,
+that a glow of comradeship for his <i>aide</i> rose up in his soft heart at
+once.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So they were very happy together, those three, and by degrees
+foster-sister's thick enshrouding veil was changed for a more filmy
+one and Babar could get a glimpse of those glorious eyes and see the
+little satirical smile about the strong curves of the mouth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They reminded him vaguely, why he knew not, of his dead Cousin Gharîb;
+but he never spoke of this to Ma'asuma. With her burden of coming life
+it would be unlucky to speak of the dead. Thus a week or two went by,
+and all insensibly the man learnt to rely on the woman who shared with
+him the charge of the girl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Most-Benevolent one is very good to my wife,&quot; he said suddenly
+one day, &quot;and my gratitude can only lie in words.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Most-Benevolent bowed gravely. &quot;Thanks are not needed.
+Ma'asuma-Begum came into this dust-like one's life, when it was
+unhappy. She hath been God's best boon to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And to me also,&quot; answered the young husband sadly. Do what he would
+he could not escape from fear, the shadow of impending evil seemed to
+darken his life. He had to brisk and hearken himself up to face the
+future; for perilous times were at hand. The fateful seventh month, so
+much dreaded by Indian midwives was beginning; but his Yenkâm would be
+with her daughter in a day or two, they would together take Ma'asuma
+back in her litter to Kâbul by easy stages, and all would, all <i>must</i>,
+go well.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was one glorious morning in early August when this feeling of ill
+to come, made him catch up his lute to chase away thought by song. He
+had carried little Ma'asuma himself down to the tank half surrounded
+by burnished orange trees which was the very eye of the beauty of the
+garden. They had dismissed all attendants, bidding them leave behind
+them their trays of sherbet and sweetmeats. But not even the perfect
+loveliness of hill, and sky, and garden, not even the faint flush, as
+of returning health, on the invalid's face could charm the splendour
+of Life into Babar's soul. The Crystal Bowl seemed dull, opaque.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This must not be.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He set the strings of his lute a-twanging and began--</P>
+
+<P class="center" style="font-size:90%">
+&quot;Clear crystal bowl. Thy wine bubbles laugh--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The figure seated by the tank side, its reflection in the water, rose
+suddenly as if startled, gathered its draperies round it, so, with
+face averted, strolled off into the garden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There!&quot; came Ma'asuma's reproachful voice, &quot;thou hast driven her
+away, stupid!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young man arrested in his song looked hurt. &quot;But wherefore? 'Tis a
+good song.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good mayhap,&quot; came the thoughtless answer, &quot;but, see you! It reminds
+her of Gharîb-Beg who wrote it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And wherefore not?&quot; asked Babar swiftly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Little Ma'asuma looked scared. &quot;Lo! There I have told thee! and I said
+I would hold my tongue! Because, see you, Gharîb-Beg married and left
+her in the old days; whether rightly as some say, or foolishly, as
+others, I know not; but 'twas so. She was religious for long years and
+when I went to the school to learn the Holy Book, we became friends.
+And oh! Babar, thou wilt never know how good she was to me when I fell
+in love with my lord--and he with me.&quot; The roguish face, looking more
+like itself than he had seen it for months, nestled on to his
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He put his arm round the slender figure and drew it to him
+mechanically, grateful that her words had given him time to pull
+himself together.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gharîb-Beg's wife! The woman he had called &quot;Mahâm--his moon!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So.&quot; he said with an effort, &quot;she was my cousin's wife; but wherefore
+... was I not told?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ma'asuma pouted. &quot;Because I did not at first. And then when she came,
+she would not have it--why I know not--save that mayhap, before the
+son was coming, I wanted thy praise for--for such things as verses.
+And now, my lord must say naught. Promise me he will not, or she will
+be vexed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will not vex her,&quot; he said diplomatically, and changed the subject
+adroitly by picking up a tiny red-silk cap half embroidered with seed
+pearls on which his wife had been working, and which had fallen on the
+path.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo!&quot; he laughed, &quot;is that the way to treat my son's head-dress!&quot; And
+he held the ridiculous little object out on his forefinger and twirled
+it round. So the question passed. But he was of too frank a nature to
+palliate concealment and that night when the moon had risen, he found
+himself once more confronting a tall, slender figure that stood,
+aggressively this time, against a marble pillar. But there was no
+swinging lamp to cast a rose reflection between them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea! Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar,&quot; said the proud voice. &quot;It is even
+as my lord hath divined. I knew. I was the lad who brought my lord his
+mistress's message--which <i>I</i> had written. It was to me that my lord
+gave his 'I love thee, ever, ever!' This being so, what else was there
+left to do, save what was done?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The finality of her words struck Babar like a blow. He never minced
+matters even with himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Naught,&quot; he said gloomily. &quot;Naught.&quot; Then he added, &quot;But now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The veiled figure caught him up quickly. &quot;Now? She must not know; she
+must never know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar stood still and leaning his head on his arm against the
+pilaster, looked out into the garden. It lay silvern, peaceful, a
+thing of perfect beauty, a place wherein no sinful man should walk or
+set foot. &quot;Lo!&quot; came the sweet voice. &quot;I have kept--I will keep my
+lord's ring. It was not he who broke faith, but I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Most-Noble is very good,&quot; he said simply and left her. There was
+no more to say.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had there been more, there would have been little time for it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A hasty twinkling light showed ere long adown the palace colonnade.
+Voices came in excited whispers. Her Highness, the Begum, was not
+well. God send it might be nothing; but 'twas the fateful month.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fateful, indeed! All that night long Babar waited in a fever of
+anxiety, listening to the fitful wails, the thousand and one slight
+sounds of sudden, direful sickness. What were they doing to his
+Ma'asuma? his little Ma'asuma, his love, his heart's darling, his
+little one? Would he ever see her again?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dawn came, and still he watched, still he waited. The birds in the
+bushes began to sing--to sing forsooth! while she lay in the shadow of
+death! Heartless! cruel! For she must die! so small, so slender, how
+could she stand out against those long hours of agony. Noon passed and
+still he waited, every nerve in his strong young body wearied by
+imagined pain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not till sun-setting that a voice roused him as he sat crouched
+in on himself:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My lord has a daughter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was on his feet in a second, setting the idea aside as trivial.
+What was son or daughter to him beside his dearest dear?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She?&quot; he asked breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My lord had best come and see,&quot; replied the kind, sympathetic voice;
+he recognised it faintly, but it made no impression on him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The small room was hot and close; full of smoke also from a useless
+fire hastily lit up. And Ma'asuma lay covered by endless quilts. But
+it was Ma'asuma herself who lay there peaceful as if already dead; but
+her face was alight with feeble smiles. Only for a moment, however;
+then the curly, goldy-brown head turned restlessly on the pillow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am sorry--&quot; she murmured, &quot;I--I wanted it to be a son, but--but--&quot;
+the voice trailed away into weaker sobbing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hush! silly one!&quot; said Babar gently, his heart in his mouth as he
+noted her looks. &quot;What God gives is best. If she is like thee she will
+be all I need.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A small trembling hand fluttered out to a corner of the coverlet.
+&quot;Like me. I know not. Babar! What wilt thou call her, when I am gone?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words cut him like a knife, because he knew they were true; there
+was something which told him that the dearest thing on earth to him
+was fast slipping from his grasp. Yet the simplicity of his nature
+kept him calm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will give her her mother's name,&quot; he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ma'asuma sighed with content and was silent for a space. Then after a
+while her voice, weaker than ever, rose again, a low, monotonous voice
+that told of ebbing strength.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Babar! who will nurse my child? Give her not to strange women. Lo! I
+never loved strangers; nor dost thou, thou, dear heart. Foster-sister
+where art thou? Send the strangers away and the slaves, and come
+close. I want thee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One wave of Babar's hand cleared the little room, and once more came
+that faint sigh of content.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is nice. Only thou, and I, and she, and little Ma'asuma--all the
+folk I love in the world. That is right.&quot; For a moment she seemed to
+sleep, and when she opened her eyes there were dreams in them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Set the window wide. I would see the sunset,&quot; she said in quite a
+strong voice and when the red light flooded into the little dark room
+she lay in it peacefully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will it not mayhap hurt?&quot; whispered the tall figure in white.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is past hurt,&quot; whispered Babar back. His heart was as a stone. He
+could not have wept, he could not even feel grief.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thy hand, my heart,&quot; came the voice feeble again, &quot;and thine,
+sister--how warm they are and mine grow so cold--so cold. Yet that
+matters not. I am only--only the Kâzi.&quot; The ghost of a flickering
+smile hovered over the lips that, in the monotonous Arabic drawl of
+the professional priest, began on the opening sentences of the
+Mahomedan wedding service.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man and the woman standing instinct with Life, looked helplessly
+at each other and instinctively drew apart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ma'asuma's violet eyes seemed to strive with coming darkness. &quot;Don't,&quot;
+she murmured. &quot;It is not kind! Look you, I cannot see; and my hands
+are so weak. Be quick or I shall not hear. Say it quickly and then
+there will be peace, then I shall have given my lord a son--then we
+shall all be at rest. It is the last thing--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a second of silence and then Babar's clasp on the hand he
+held beneath that small chill one tightened, and his voice rang clear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Before God I take this woman to be my wedded wife.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And swift on the words came a woman's voice, &quot;Before God I take this
+man to be my husband, the father of our son.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sigh of content seemed almost to end life, and there was silence for
+a space. But it was broken by a pitiful, helpless murmur, &quot;The ring! I
+have forgotten the ring.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have it already, sweetheart,&quot; came the woman's voice, soft, calm,
+soothing. So they stood, till the chill little hands grew more chill
+in the warm clasps that held them; finally one withdrew itself slowly,
+slowly, and Babar was left alone with Death and Love.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The tall white figure fell on its knees and wept softly; but Babar
+stood still, stern, calm. What use to kiss unconscious lips? What use
+to strain at broken cords?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She hath found freedom,&quot; he said after a time. Then he turned to the
+kneeling figure. &quot;Mahâm,&quot; he said quietly. &quot;Thou wilt see to little
+Ma'asuma for me, wilt thou not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was sunrise when they laid to rest Babar's first and in a way, his
+only love. The birds were singing in the garden he had made so
+beautiful. The roses that decked the grave were full of scent.
+But Babar noticed none of these things, he moved about calm,
+self-controlled, conscious of but one thing, that he was glad he was
+not at Kâbul where he would have had wailing women and ceremonial
+condolences. Here, in the open, among the flowers, all was peace. He
+need not even realise that his dearest-dear was dead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he had overrated his emotional strength, or rather he had
+underrated it as he always did. All the day long, as he went about as
+usual, his face haggard, his manner courteous and gentle, a storm was
+brewing within, and when sunset came again, bringing the sadness of a
+dead day with it, the tempest burst.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mahâm, her eyes red with weeping, was seated in the dusk of the little
+room where Ma'asuma had died, with the dead woman's babe on her lap
+when she looked up to see a tall, swaying figure standing at the door.
+A helpless, bewildered figure that stretched out bewildered hands to
+her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mahâm! Mahâm!&quot; it cried, &quot;save me! Save me from myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She rose instantly, laid the sleeping infant on the bed, and went to
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou art tired,&quot; she said, as a mother might have said it. &quot;Come
+hither and rest awhile, my lord. Sleep will bring peace.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">I am the dust beneath thy feet, my sweet;<br>
+Thou art the cloud that sprinkleth rain amain.<br>
+Lo! as green tongues of grasses spring to bring<br>
+Their thanks for moisture given to root and fruit,<br>
+So, all my being blossometh and saith</p>
+<p class="i6">&quot;Dear God be praised for Love of Thee and Me.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Mahâm had her work cut out for her. But she was a wise woman and from
+the first gauged Babar's volatile, kindly, affectionate nature to a
+nicety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had had a shock, and one with such fine-strung nerves as his
+required time for recovery. Therefore, with easy ability, she took the
+tiller ropes and steered his craft and hers through the troubled
+waters which instantly raged about him. She even, rather to their
+resentment, succeeded in pacifying Babar's step-grandmother and his
+paternal aunts as to her position (which she claimed at once) as
+Babar's wife. They had been betrothed for months, she told them;
+indeed for long years the intent to marry had been existent. So
+much so that they had her late husband Gharîb-Beg's hearty assent to
+their union. She had come from Khorasân at Ma'asuma Begum's earnest
+wish, and the marriage had taken place when it did--this she left
+hazy--entirely to please her when she was ill and ailing. Doubtless
+the dear little thing had had a prescience of her own death. Such
+angels of Paradise often had. She, Mahâm, could never hope to hold the
+same place in the King's affection; still it was lucky things had
+happened so, or the Most-Clement might have gone out of his mind with
+grief, deprived as he was in the wilds of Adinapur of the consolations
+of all his womenkind. And the gracious ladies knew how dependent he
+had always been on them, as well as on his deceased mother--on whom be
+God's peace--and his unfortunate sister. Besides, she could be useful
+in bringing up the King's little daughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If thou wilt give him a son 'twould be to more purpose,&quot; quoth
+outspoken Shâh-Begum.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God helping me, I will, madam,&quot; came the cool reply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is well spoken,&quot; admitted the old lady grudgingly, after the
+interview was over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And of the inner circle. 'Deed! now that one comes to consider it,&quot;
+wept Babar's Yenkâm, &quot;more suited for the work than my fairy, who was
+ever too lightsome for such task. And, look you! there be no question
+of evil eye or such things. She loved my Ma'asuma as herself, and was
+ever good to the child. It is doubtless God's will.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea! Yea! God's will,&quot; snivelled fat, silly Princess Astonishing
+Beauty; but little Ak-Begum's keen eyes were soft.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is more in it than mayhap we know,&quot; she said softly. &quot;And she
+hath a good, clever face. So God send our kind Babar peace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Good wishes were well enough doubtless, but Mahâm felt that action
+must be taken; and at once. My lord the King must not be allowed to
+lounge at home, eating his heart out; and to this purpose she sent for
+old Kâsim and explained her views.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lady,&quot; he replied, &quot;I would rather, in faith, have had my master free
+of all feminine wiles. The last seven months have passed without much
+glory, and my sword rusts in its scabbard. But this I will say, for a
+woman, the cupola of chastity shows much sense. The King would be best
+away from Kâbul.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And from me,&quot; added Mahâm, coolly. &quot;So look to it, Sir General, and
+take him--where thou canst.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As it so happened, the times fell in with her desire. The Timurid
+family was at its lowest ebb; Babar himself, being, for the moment the
+only member of it which had kept his kingdom independent; the rest
+having either succumbed utterly to the great Usbek-raider or become
+mere vassals to his power. Thus the King's position was weak, even if
+he had been himself. But Mahâm's clear eyes appraised her haggard
+young King as he went about grave, silent, doing everything by an
+effort. That was not the stuff for single handed combat against Fate.
+Then sorrow set his feet firmer than ever on the path of what he
+considered right; and this mood was not one in which to rely on those
+Moghul troops of his who were ever ready to take offence at strict
+discipline. No! he must be induced to divert attention from Kâbul by
+carrying war to some further field. The further the better, so long as
+it gave those same Moghul troops opportunity for legitimate raiding.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar himself never knew how much one woman's influence had to do with
+his resolution to march on Hindustân; even old Kâsim, though he had
+the key, did not realise how Mahâm managed to set aside his proposal
+of an attempt on Badakhshân in favour of the larger, more imaginative
+project; but it was done.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So one day Babar, sad-faced still, but with a certain spring in his
+walk came to say good-bye to his little daughter and to the woman who
+quietly, unobtrusively, had done so much for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea!&quot; she said smiling, &quot;I will be Queen whilst thou art gone, Babar,
+never fear. Nor Shâh-Begum, nor Mihr-Nigar nor any other woman in the
+Palace shall give trouble, this time, I warrant me. And the child will
+thrive! Aye! it will thrive. So there is no gnawing thought at thy
+heart, remember--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She paused for a second and something in her face made Babar say
+hastily:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor in thine, I pray, kind wife.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor in mine,&quot; she echoed with a brilliant smile. &quot;And now, ere he go,
+I have something for my lord--a remembrance of someone he loved well
+and whom I--respected.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She put her hand in her bosom and drew out thence all warm and faintly
+scented a small crystal bowl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar gave a cry of delight. &quot;The Bowl! The Bowl! How didst find it?
+Did he give it thee? Did he really give it me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her kind eyes smiled on him. &quot;That I cannot say; and this is not the
+Bowl, but perchance a likeness of it. 'Twas the dear dead one, my
+lord, who told me the tale when thou didst tell it to her. So, knowing
+what sort the cup must be, since there is an old man in my native
+village who still can make them after a fashion, I sent to him
+pressingly for one. My lord will remember that 'twas in this village
+graveyard that the Crystal Bowl was found. Doubtless one of olden
+time. This is but a copy--and poor doubtless, since the old craftsman
+can scarce see--but it may serve to remind my lord--of many things.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And much kindness--&quot; said Babar gravely, and as he took the bowl he
+kissed the hand that held it out to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No! it was not the Bowl. It was but a dim likeness of it; but as he
+placed it in his bosom he felt vaguely that he had more than he
+deserved.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next few months passed swiftly. Once in the saddle and out of
+Kâbul, Babar's spirits began to rise. But he soon found it inadvisable
+to pursue his intentions on India. The very idea of his absenting
+himself so far, roused the insolence of the wild border clans. Here
+was their opportunity, whilst the cat would be away, to resort to
+their favourite plunder. So it was mid-winter before it was possible
+for him to advance, and by that time the complexion of affairs had
+changed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To begin with the Usbek-raider had retreated, patching up a sort of
+peace hurriedly, and returning westward over more important business.
+Then, whether by reason of Mahâm's firm hand or from mere ambition,
+old grandmother Shâh-Begum announced her intention of leaving Babar's
+protection, and going with her grandson to snatch at the sovereignty
+of Badakhshân. The crown had been hereditary in her family, she
+declared, for over 3,000 years and though as woman she could not claim
+it, she knew her grandson would not be rejected.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This intention, involving as it did a breaking up of conventional
+family life, brought back Babar in protest. The old lady had never
+been on the best of terms with him, she had once almost succeeded in
+her intrigues against him, but he had always treated her generously;
+and then, worse than her defection, was that of his own mother's
+sister who insisted on accompanying her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was intolerable! Babar went straight to his grandmother and argued
+with her; coming back irritated and annoyed by failure to make any
+impression on the old lady's obstinacy, to his own palace, where,
+without giving notice, he made his way alone to Mahâm's apartments.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he entered her room he could see her reclining amongst cushions in
+the cupola'd balcony, his little sleeping daughter in her lap. She was
+crooning to it the lullaby which Turkhomân women sing sleepily during
+a night march. Her pose was exquisite; there was a look of almost
+motherhood in her face; he paused to listen as she sang:--</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Sleep, croodie! Talk with God!<br>
+Know not the path I've trod.<br>
+Dad knows not! Why shouldst thou!<br>
+Sleep, childie! Sleep just now.<br>
+Don't fear! I keep awake.<br>
+Heigh ho! My bones do ache.<br>
+Heigh ho! My horse does pull.<br>
+Can't it see river's full!<br>
+No pebbles in <i>that</i> bed,<br>
+Mine holds an hundred.<br>
+Dreams! Dreams! Who lies dead?<br>
+Someone in the river's bed.<br>
+Praise God! <i>He</i> rests his head.<br>
+Hush! Hush! I hear thee, sweet.<br>
+Mums arms around thee meet.<br>
+Praise God! The night's nigh past;<br>
+Darling sleeps at last! at last!&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">The curious drowsiness of the rhythm held him almost silent for a
+while, so did a great surge of admiration for this self-restrained,
+kindly, capable woman who had taken her full position as his wife so
+firmly, without any feminine flutterings or sentimentalities. Truly
+that sort of thing was what he, with his volatile emotionality, needed
+to make him not only successful, but persistent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mahâm,&quot; he said almost timorously, &quot;I have come back to thee--and the
+child.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gave a little cry, started to rise, then pointed to little
+Ma'asuma. &quot;I should waken her!&quot; she said in a low voice, &quot;but welcome,
+thrice welcome is my lord--to me and to the child.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her voice lingered over the words; her smile had a certain gravity in
+it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But thou,&quot; he said anxiously. &quot;Hast not been well, wife? Thy face
+shows ill--why didst not write to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because 'twas not worth while,&quot; she replied. &quot;And I am most better.
+The spring comes and with it health. And I have had anxiety over thy
+grandmother. What said she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The deft turn succeeded. Babar gave vent to his dissatisfaction in no
+measured terms. &quot;See you,&quot; he said, &quot;Have I ever failed in my duty or
+service? When my mother and I had not even a single village nor a few
+jewels, I treated all my relations, male or female, as members of my
+family. I have made no difference between my maternal and my paternal
+connections. I say not this to appraise myself. I simply follow the
+scrupulous truth as everyone knows. And now, even my mother's sister
+desires to leave me! I am her nearest relation. It would be better,
+and more becoming for her to remain with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mahâm's face showed whimsical smiles. &quot;Not, my lord, unwillingly.
+God's earth holds not a more deadly poison to happiness than a
+discontented woman. So let them go; my lord has plenty of paternal
+aunts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a certain patience in her tone! But Babar, still protesting,
+yielded; and set himself solemnly to settle the judicial as well as
+the executive system of his kingdom. It was about this time that he
+wrote his famous Essay-on-Jurisprudence which for many long years was
+to be a work of reference.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His enquiries took him out often into the out districts which, now
+that spring was advancing were excessively pleasant, abounding in
+tulips and indeed in all plants of every description. He began again
+to write poetry; pretty things still touched by profound, if somewhat
+scholastic, melancholy such as this--</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;My heart's a rose full flaming,<br>
+Its petals opened wide,<br>
+To give her without shaming<br>
+Myself and all beside.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Ah me! in vain I lavished<br>
+My love on her dear heart,<br>
+An envious thorn has ravished<br>
+Her hand with deadly smart.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Her life-blood is a-falling<br>
+To dim my petals o'er.<br>
+Oh, Springtime! cease thy calling,<br>
+This rose will bloom no more.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">He used to send them to Mahâm, who used to reply in her beautiful
+<i>nastâlik</i> hand that was always a joy to Babar's simple delight in
+anything and everything artistic. And he wrote, also, and told her of
+the thirty-five different kinds of tulips he had gathered, and of the
+inscriptions he caused to be cut on springs and rocks. And of a
+certainty when he visited, as he did, the Garden-of-Fidelity at
+Adinapur, he must have had much to tell her of a small flowerful grave
+there, where his sad heart was laid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was all very pathetic; sweetly pathetic. A noble young King, doing
+his duty bravely, though glad life was over for him forever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even the crystal cup which he carried in his bosom, and from which he
+drank ever the water of the cool mountain springs, brought him only
+modified comfort. Perhaps, because, from a sense of duty to himself,
+he would not allow it to bring more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then suddenly the whole wide world changed for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mahâm! My son!--my son!&quot; was all that he could say when urgent
+summons brought him to a smiling mother and a new-born infant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is like thee,&quot; she said, a tremor in her calm voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God forbid!&quot; interrupted the father hastily. &quot;God send he be like
+thee--the best woman in the world--the best--the very best!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Never were such rejoicings. The paternal aunts, who of late months had
+been let into the secret, were almost crazy with delight. And
+wherefore not? When a King has lived to be six-and-twenty without a
+son; when despite three marriages only two children have been borne to
+him, miserable little daughters, one dead, one but a few months old,
+it is time to be festive over a proper birth. And was there ever such
+a baby? So tall, so strong, so handsome and so altogether
+satisfactory. No wonder his father, who ever had a pretty wit, called
+him Humâyon. That might portend the ph&#339;nix, the bird of good omen,
+besides half-a-dozen other side meanings, each charming in its way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar, leaning over the happy mother said softly, &quot;He shall be my
+protection in the future. Lo! Mahâm! I have put myself outside myself
+as they say in the child-stories of our youth. Who was't who put his
+life safe in a gold box? Well! my life is hid in my son's. So there,
+my wife, have a care of us both--for, verily in some ways, Mahâm, I
+need looking after like an infant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The feast of nativity was a very splendid feast. Everyone who was Big,
+and everyone who was Not, brought their offerings. Bags on bags of
+silver money were piled up, until everyone was forced to confess that
+never before had they seen so much white money in one place.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the entertainments! There were fireworks and marionettes and
+conjuring tricks. In fact a perfect fair for a whole week in the Great
+Four-square-Garden on the hill.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the greatest amusement of all was one to which the Palace Ladies
+invited a select audience.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was organised by the Fair Princess who had a genius that way, and
+its <i>piece de resistance</i> was a huge roc-egg brought in by fairies,
+which, cracking in most realistic fashion, disclosed the most
+magnificent ph&#339;nix that ever was seen, with feathers of every hue
+and plumes galore (it had, of course, a gold crown on its head) which
+monstrous bird being removed, like a tea cosy, appeared no less a
+personage than</p>
+<br>
+<p style="margin-left:30%">&quot;The Heir Apparent&quot;<br>
+
+&quot;Humâyon.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Endless was the laughter, the tears, the embracings, the gratulations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But that evening as Mahâm and Babar sat hand in hand, looking at the
+sleeping infant, its mother cried suddenly--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis Ma'asuma's child also, thou must remember, husband. 'Twas for
+her sake I married thee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not for mine own, one little bit, Mahâm?&quot; he queried a trifle sadly.
+&quot;Well! if that be so, I must be lover instead of husband for a time.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Like a wide-spreading tree whose roots en-thread<br>
+Earth's bosom, gaining Life from out a grave,<br>
+So stood he stalwart while each weary head<br>
+Sought for the shelter that his courage gave.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look you! what a young man sees in a mirror, an old one can see in a
+burnt brick,&quot; quoth old Kâsim crossly to Shirâm-Taghâi. &quot;Did I not
+tell the Most-Clement that benevolence such as his, is doubtless fit
+for Paradise where man shall have shed his sins; but 'tis in this
+world, pure incentive to wickedness. To leave Prince Abdul-Risâk in
+Kâbul where, seeing he is the late King's only son, he hath some right
+to claim power, was foolish; not to believe when old servants as you
+and I, Shirâm, tell him intrigue is going on, is well nigh criminal.
+Yet God knows it all comes from kindness of heart! In truth, old
+friend, to be king one should be as Timur, the Earth Trembler, who
+never spared man, woman or child who stood in his way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aye,&quot; assented Shirim-Beg whose beard by this time, after long years
+of faithful service, required a purple dye to pass muster. &quot;And yet,
+to my mind, the King is most hard on the Moghul soldiery. What means
+life to a Moghul without rapine and plunder? Bread without salt,
+friend! Bread without salt! Yet the Most-Clement is so inclement that
+thou hadst trouble to save the lives of those three last week.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kâsim gloomed. &quot;Aye! and I know not now if I were not wrong, since
+those same are the head and front of this present offending of
+which--God save his innocence--the King takes no heed, having it
+forsooth, that my surmisings art not entitled to credit! Look you! he
+is so set on making his men wheel in step and to time, that he hath
+forgotten how quick honest rebellion can step when it chooses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was true. Babar, profoundly happy in the birth of his son,
+profoundly absorbed in the new title of Emperor which he had, in
+consequence, bestowed upon himself, was impervious to suspicion, and
+busy expending his exuberant vitality in marshalling and
+man&#339;uvering his troops. He was out all day in camp; thus, at once,
+being more ignorant than usual of what was happening in the city, and
+having less time to listen to cautions; the latter being, in truth,
+the last words suitable to his feelings. He could not, for the life of
+him, see a single cloud ahead, and being absolutely full of good
+intentions towards his world, refused to believe that the world could
+have any ill intentions towards him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But his eyes were opened one night, and that rudely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took his evening meal as a rule in the Four-corner Garden on his
+way back to sleep in the Secluded-Palace. It was a charming place; the
+summer house all lit with coloured lamps, hung with beautiful
+draperies; and there were ever musicians, singers and dancers ready to
+amuse the King, who lingered late at times, especially on moonlit
+nights when the garden showed entrancingly beautiful.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it was moonless and fairly early, when two friends arrived from
+the city in hot haste, full of the discovery of a plot to seize and
+assassinate His Imperial Majesty that very night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar downright refused to believe it. Even treacherous Moghuls, he
+said, must have some reason for rebellion; and what had he done to
+them?--Nothing! Nor to anyone else. There might be disaffection.
+In what kingdom was it not to be found? But for wide-spread
+disloyalty?--No! it was frankly impossible. So he set warning aside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nevertheless the party broke up early and started through the darkness
+for the city. The running lanterns ahead threw light only on the
+forward path, and Babar was engrossed in solving a question of drill;
+so it was not till he reached the Iron Gate that he realised he was
+alone, save for the three or four household slaves who ran beside his
+horse. In the darkness every one of his escort had disappeared!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In a second he saw that something was, indeed, amiss. But in the same
+second he saw what had to be done. Mahâm and her son must be reached
+and placed in safety. That accomplished he would have time to
+consider.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But as, with a rapid order to the slaves, he turned sharp down a more
+secluded alley, a man running full tilt, brought up suddenly at the
+sight of him. It was an old friend, one Mahomed-Ali.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank God! I have you, Sire,&quot; cried the runner breathlessly. &quot;Go
+back! Go back! The Moghuls are in arms, the traitor Abdul-Risâk at
+their head--I was in the market place a minute syne and they await the
+Most-Clement there. Go back! Go back!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar dug his spurs to his horse's flank. &quot;Nay! I go on,&quot; he said
+recklessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Mahomed-Ali hung to the bridle. &quot;Most-Clement! listen. They will
+await thee there till midnight. If the King does not come till then
+what signifies it? Naught; since the Most-High is given to gardens
+and is often late. So they are there--safe! Now 'tis not yet ten of
+the chime. If, therefore, the King will be wise, turn his horse,
+and ride out to the Camp-of-the-Veterans beyond the Hill Garden,
+I and my following--if the Most-Noble will send a token to the
+Gracious-Lady--will bring her safe thither before the carrion have
+wind of anything. Sire! 'tis the better way! To go on is certain
+death--for all--The Moghuls....&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God curse them!&quot; muttered Babar. But he was no fool to let his own
+wild anger needlessly endanger those two precious lives. Therefore his
+resolution was taken at once, and he fumbled for his signet ring--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No! not that--it might be used to ill purpose. The Crystal Bowl was
+better--none would send that but he, and so she would be the readier
+to act upon it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aye&quot; he said slowly. &quot;But mark you! I turn but to the Ditch by the
+Khorasân gate. There will I wait. Take this to the Queen and say I
+pray her come--in half-an-hour mind, in half-an-hour! If thou comest
+not by then--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His face said the rest and augured ill for failure, as, gathering the
+few slaves together lest any might escape and blab, he drove them and
+the torch bearers before him towards the further gate. With time for
+thought he reviewed the position and was satisfied at his action. At
+the worst, it meant but a delay of half-an-hour when time was
+literally no object; since it was his appearance which would start the
+traitorous scheme. He set his lip and his hand clenched on his sword
+at the very thought. Again, his retreat amongst tried loyalists might
+save the situation altogether; for he would be ready for instant
+retaliation if needs be. If not, no harm was done. He had simply spent
+the night amongst his oldest friends, the Andijân troopers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, as he stood waiting in the darkness of the ditch at the Khorasân
+gate, his heart beat in his ears. He could hear nothing. And time
+passed--It must be nigh on the half hour! Time to tighten sword-belts
+... Hark! that was a jingle--the jingle of a swift borne doolie!...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mahâm?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My lord, I am here,&quot; came the answer and Babar shook his fist at the
+darkling city. All was quiet nigh at hand, but from the distant market
+place came sounds of rough merriment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Till to-morrow, friends!&quot; he muttered, then paced his horse beside
+the doolie with a whispered word or two of encouragement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now that imminent danger was over anger, sheer, almost reckless anger
+took the place of anxiety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To-morrow!&quot; he whispered to himself again; &quot;To-morrow!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But that to-morrow to which he had appealed so confidently brought
+bitter disappointment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dawn showed him an almost empty camp. Out of all his soldiers a bare
+five hundred remained with him. The rest, with most of the Kâbul
+courtiers had slipped off to the city during the night on pretence of
+looking after their families, or saving their property from the Moghul
+plunderers. Disloyalty was widespread indeed!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kâsim-Beg, of course, was at his beloved young master's side, and so
+was Shirâm-Taghâi and half-a-score other trusty friends, all of the
+old school. They waited the livelong day for the old order to up
+saddle and away; since what could five hundred swords, be they ever so
+nimble, do against a city full of soldiers? But the order never came.
+It was close on sunset when Kâsim, impatient at the delay, suggested
+that it was time to move.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I go not,&quot; replied Babar coolly; &quot;See you, old friend, never again do
+I seek shelter like a rat in its hole till I have no other chance. I
+fight in the open.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Old Kâsim's jaw dropped. &quot;My liege!&quot; he exclaimed. &quot;When fortune was
+against the Chagatâi in one place, he ever sought her favour in
+another.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And found it not, most times,&quot; put in Babar with a grim smile. &quot;I
+have had too much of fighting and running away. I have been at it my
+life long. Now let us see how it does to fight and stick to it--to the
+death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To the death by all means, sire,&quot; said old Kâsim with affectionate
+admiration, &quot;but 'tis madness all the same.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If it were so, there was distinct method in it. Babar threw up strange
+earthworks round his camp and disposed pickets in quaintly modern
+fashion on the points of vantage in the hills. This done he sat down
+calmly and awaited events, much to the discomfiture of those within
+the city. They were not besieged, of course, but there was an enemy to
+be reckoned with beyond the gates where an enemy should not be. Being
+hopelessly in a minority, he ought to have run away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo!&quot; said one soldier to another doubtfully, as, hand over his eyes,
+eaves-wise, he looked out keenly from the watch towers, &quot;I dare swear
+that is the King going his rounds. How I mind me of his smile as he
+passed the meanest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aye!&quot; would come the assent, &quot;but none were mean in his army. We all
+felt brave men. At least so 'twas with me. I could have swaggered it
+with Rustam.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And both pair of eyes would hold a vague regret. A regret that
+deepened as day after day skirmishes that were almost battles,
+resulted invariably in a retreat back to the walls of Kâbul for the
+night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For Babar's five hundred were ready to fight all the twenty-four
+hours, while the insurgent twelve thousand preferred their beds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the next dawn rose calm over that orderly encampment, which it was
+no use trying to rush because of its cunning defences. Then Babar's
+cavalry had learnt to charge without an inch of spare room between
+stirrup and stirrup, so that there was no hope of passage or escape
+between that close-linked, supple, chain of lance and sword.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Altogether it was disconcerting. Then no one had a moment's peace. To
+show your head beyond the gates was to bring down on you the King in
+person, heading a reckless band of picked swordsmen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Kâsim-Beg is the best fencer in Asia,&quot; murmured a trooper with a
+slash on head and arm; &quot;'tis small wonder I got this from him. And his
+teaching hath made even the rank and file better at swordsplay than
+our leaders--curse them--who sit at cards and drink, while we--&quot; The
+rest was sullen silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea!&quot; said another, with a leg bandaged. &quot;And I got this from a mere
+back blow of the Most-Clement's. See you, he hath youth on his side,
+as well as all old Kâsim's art. I saw him, as I fell, cleave a Moghul
+to the very chin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So round the watch fires at night it became the fashion to applaud the
+prowess of the foe. With this result that in the morning, more than
+one place was vacant on the ramparts; the holder of it had slipped
+away in the night to join Babar's forces.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As time went on, the latter grew more and more adventurous. His
+military skill, his personal strength, his courage, his invincible
+spirit, brought mingled admiration and dread to his enemies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! he is a true <i>Shaitan</i>,&quot; admitted one of the chief rebels. &quot;Didst
+hear that when he was at the Khârwa Fort he amused himself by leaping
+from battlement to battlement--and there is sheer fall of a thousand
+feet to the river below.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aye!&quot; assented another gloomily. &quot;And Shirbâsh saith he hath seen him
+do it with a trooper under each arm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So ran the stories, the one outdoing the other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last, one day, just before the opposing forces began the clash of
+arms, the armies stood thrilling, aghast, expectant, as a tall young
+figure rode out alone, and in a voice that echoed and re-echoed,
+challenged Abdul-Risâk, the usurper, to single combat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The challenge was refused.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then send your best man,&quot; cried Babar, &quot;and may God show the right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a pause; and then from out the rank and file of the
+insurgents rode one Ali-Beg, and a chorus of approval went up on both
+sides.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The opponents were well matched. Both young, both in the very pink of
+training.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Art ready, friend?&quot; came Babar's clear joyous voice, and with a dash
+they were at each other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now God send he remembers the trick of wrist,&quot; said Kâsim-Beg under
+his breath, &quot;for Ali-Beg hath it to perfection. He was my best pupil
+at Samarkand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar remembered it. How, he felt, could he forget anything with
+so much for which to fight? His eyes blazed, not with anger--what
+cared he for the actual enemy?--he was but the dummy of possible
+defeat--but with calm will. He meant to disarm this fellow--not to
+hurt him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The horses reeled against each other, the sword arms were interlocked,
+for Babar, at close quarters, would not let his antagonist break
+loose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">God and his prophets! they would be down! Nor horse nor man could
+stand that boring pressure, that invincible strength. Wrist against
+wrist; and beneath them struggling legs and tails and fear-snorting
+crests!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There! over!--A confused heap upon the ground, but Babar uppermost
+with two swords in his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A shout of triumph rose from the five hundred. But as the discomfited
+champion rode back without his sword, another rode forward to take his
+place.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was not in the bond; still Babar, checking his laboured breaths
+to more even rhythm, threw away the second sword and sprang to his
+horse, which had risen unhurt but dazed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come on, friend!&quot; he shouted; &quot;I am ready!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was a very different sort of adversary. A lean, ewe-necked horse,
+a nimble, dapper, little swordsman with a blade like a razor, who
+buzzed and wheeled, and settled and fled again like a hungry mosquito.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar with his half-dazed horse was at a disadvantage for a time and
+the razor-like edge caught him on the little finger once. But only
+once. The next instant in one furious charge, a back-hander with the
+flat of the sword had sent the King's antagonist spinning from his
+saddle like a tee-totum.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it was with five champions, one after the other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar more and more weary, yet more and more triumphant in fierce
+vitality with every victory, unhorsed, disarmed, or routed every one
+of them. Raising a laugh, indeed, in his own favour when Yakûb-Beg,
+last but one, escaped by hard riding from the rain of pitiless blows
+which fell instead on his horse's rump, urging it to greater speed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Only once did sheer merciless anger leap to Babar's eyes, and that was
+when Nâzir, the Usbek, letting go his horse's bridle during a
+close-locked tussle of sword arms, drew a dagger with his left hand
+and would have plunged it in his adversary's heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, with one wild cry of rage, Babar's hand left his sword, clipped
+his adversary round the middle, literally tore him from his horse and
+flung him head downwards on the ground, where he lay unconscious, the
+dagger still in his hand, the blood oozing from his nose and ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Take the carrion away,&quot; shouted the young champion, breathless, &quot;and
+come on, if there be any more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But there were none ready for personal combat; so the battle began.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was one of Babar's best battles--at least in his own opinion. And
+it was the prelude to many another, in every one of which Babar drove
+home his lesson of sheer courage. Finally Abdul-Risâk fell into his
+hands, and from that moment there was peace; since folk could
+withstand the King's prowess, but they were helpless beneath his
+magnanimity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To be forgiven, not grudgingly or of necessity, but with open-hearted
+friendliness, was disarmament pure and simple; for all but Moghuls.
+And the Horde in this instance, disgusted at defeat, took abrupt
+French leave. Abdul-Risâk also, ever a weakling, had the gratitude and
+good taste to die comfortably and conventionally ere long, so Kâbul
+was left at peace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such peace as Babar's life had never known before. He was in the
+plenitude of his manhood, his strength, and, even after all these
+years, the imagination warms to the picture of his glad content. A
+trifle flamboyant, perhaps, he may have been in his consciousness of
+virtue, in his very successes. But nothing came amiss to his happy
+nature. The plants he planted throve, the flowers he loved blossomed,
+he was as keen over repairing a ruined aqueduct as he had been over
+taking a fort. He knew the name of every bird and beast in his
+kingdom; he learnt their habits, when and where they are to be caught.
+He tells of the strange migration of fishes, and with keen
+appreciation of the pathos and poetry hidden in the tale, how the
+flights of summer birds are driven in stormy weather against the chill
+glaciers of the Hindu-Kush Mountains and perish in their thousands.
+Then he interests himself in his people. Knows the race of which they
+come, the language they speak, and the superstitions in which they
+believe. And he is stern over some of these. There is a celebrated
+rocking tomb much frequented by pilgrims of which he discovers the
+trick and visits his hot wrath on the manipulators, daring them to
+repeat the imposture; for deceit is the one thing he cannot forgive.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So during the next three years, not only peace, but happiness reigned
+at Kâbul. Humâyon grew and flourished. A daughter and then a son were
+born, and Mahâm remained the anchor to which Babar's versatile,
+volatile, affectionate nature was moored. A woman of education, of
+natural talent, she could enter into that side of his life from which
+the majority of his companions were shut out; and between the two
+there was always the inward and spiritual tie of which the Crystal
+Bowl was the outward and visible manifestation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was another soul, however, which touched Babar in a lower plane.
+Sultan Said Khân, his cousin, the son of the dead and dispossessed
+younger Khân of Outer Moghulistân, sought refuge at Kâbul, and there
+sprung up between the two young men perfect love, accord, and trust.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The two-and-a-half years I spent as exile in Kâbul,&quot; writes this same
+Said Khân, &quot;were the freest from care or sorrow of any I have
+experienced, or am likely to experience. I lived on friendly terms
+with all, welcomed by all. I never had a headache (except from the
+effects of wine) and never felt sad (except on the account of the
+ringlets of some beloved one).&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar himself still abstained from wine, or at any rate from
+intoxication. Love had stepped in at Herât to keep him from yielding
+to the first of Said Khân's temptations, and the other form of
+amusement was never to his liking.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then there was another refugee who forty years afterwards sets
+down his impressions of Kâbul and its King. This was Haidar, yet
+another cousin, ten-year-old-orphan, whose father had been that
+Doghlat-commoner rebel of two years back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What matter? His mother had been a maternal aunt. That was enough for
+Babar. Besides the poor child had no other protector.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His welcome must have made a vivid impression on Haidar, for, as one
+reads, the scene rises before one. The timid child wrapped in the one
+old shawl which the forlorn party of refugees possessed, attempting to
+kneel at the feet of that glorious figure with life or death in its
+hands. The merry laugh, the swift stoop to catch up the child and hold
+it close with comforting words. Then afterwards, the elegant mansion,
+its rooms all spread with many coloured carpets and soft cushions,
+with everything in the way of furniture, food, clothing, servants, and
+slaves, so fully prepared as to leave nothing to be desired in the
+whole building. And afterwards, again, the promises of kindness, the
+threats of severity by which the little lad's love of study was
+stimulated and encouraged. The lavish praise bestowed on any little
+virtue or new accomplishment, the quick blame for anything mean or
+lazy; these were such as most men would scarce do for their own sons.
+&quot;It was a hard day for me when I lost my father,&quot; writes Haidar; &quot;but
+I scarce felt the loss owing to the kindness of the Emperor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have a care, youngster,&quot; he would say when, study time over, young
+Haidar came as usual to play with Baby Humâyon. &quot;He is smaller than
+thou art. Never be rough with weaklings. 'Tis not their fault. God
+made them so. And he is thy cousin, likewise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But Humâyon holds his own already,&quot; said Mahâm, proudly. &quot;There is no
+boy of his age in the court can come nigh him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar laughed and put his arm round her. &quot;Yea! Yea! little mother! He
+is true ph&#339;nix, and we are the happiest folk in Kâbul, which means
+much.&quot; Then his face fell, he walked to the arched window-way and
+looked out over the garden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is't, my lord,&quot; said Mahâm, at his elbow in an instant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked at her affectionately.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing, my moon! 'Tis only this. The dear mother lies yonder in the
+Mercy-of-God. I would not bring her back, if I could. And little
+Ma'asuma--&quot; he paused--&quot;I would not bring her back either, wife, if I
+could. She was too tender for this world--aye! even for me. So she
+sleeps peacefully--God rest her!--but Dearest-One--&quot; his voice
+broke--he turned away and Mahâm had nothing to say.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That thought was the fly in the pot of ointment, it was the one bitter
+drop in the Crystal-Bowl-of-Life.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Bring! bring the musky scented wine!<br>
+A draught of wine the memory cheers,<br>
+And wakens thoughts of other years.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">So the months, even the years sped on bringing calm. Sometimes Babar
+felt a trifle regretful over the old storms. The glints of sunshine
+between had seemed, mayhap, the brighter for them. He was now only
+nearing his twenty-ninth year, and yet he felt almost as if life had
+ended for him. He looked round on his growing family, on his gardens,
+his aqueducts, his highly-disciplined small army; all were well in
+their way, but for all that his restless eyes followed the doings of
+Shâh-Ismael of Persia, who, young as he was, a mere boy in fact, had
+dared to send the arch-enemy, the Usbek-raider, Shaibâni Khân, a
+spinning-wheel and a spindle, and bid him if he would not fight, go
+sit in a corner and busy himself with the little present like the
+woman he was!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had been splendid, that interchange of discourtesies. First of all,
+the Shâh's demand for a treaty followed by Shaibâni's contemptuous
+advice to make no claim for kingship through his mother, who had
+withdrawn herself from the circle of distinction by her marriage;
+since he, Shaibâni, made one through his father, a Sultan and son of a
+Sultan. This was accompanied by a beggar's bowl and staff with the
+script: &quot;In case you wish, as is fitting, to follow the profession of
+your father, I remind you of it and the verse--</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;'Clasp the bride of sovereignty close to you if you will, But don't<br>
+you dare to kiss her until the swords are still.'&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Shâh-Ismael, however, had been no whit behind. Back had come the
+spindle and distaff with the rhyming insult--</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Who boasts of his dead fathers only owns<br>
+Himself a dog that loveth ancient bones.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">After that, naturally, there was but one end--extermination of one or
+the other. Which would it be?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Shâh-Ismael, with his thousands of disciplined and heretical
+<i>kizzilbâshes</i>, or Shaibâni Khân with his hordes of wild Mongols?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God's truth,&quot; said Babar to old Kâsim who had been ailing this while
+back, &quot;I scarce know which to choose. I hate the Red-caps almost as
+much as the Moghuls.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Old Kâsim's eyes were growing a little dim for the things of this
+world; perhaps he saw those of the next more clearly in consequence.
+&quot;There be good men on both sides, Most-Clement. A flat face and split
+eyes count no more than a red-cap when we have lost clothes and bodies
+at the Day-of-Judgment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The shrewd commonsense of the remark clung to Babar's receptive brain
+long after the speaker had gone to his account.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea, I am restless,&quot; admitted Babar to calm Mahâm. &quot;I cannot help it,
+my moon! I am not made as thou art. There was a book at Samarkand when
+I was a lad that treated of the Great Waters. And it said they rose
+and fell as the moon waxed and waned. So 'tis thou who art
+responsible, sweetheart; though God knows, thou art ever full moon to
+me.&quot; And he sat down instantly to write a <i>rubai</i> on that fancy. He
+had not half finished it, however, when news came that drove
+everything else out of his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Shâh-Ismael had defeated Shaibâni in full force at Meru; the
+Usbek-raider was dead, smothered in a band of escaping Mongols.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must go,&quot; muttered the young King hoarsely; &quot;I must go. Samarkand
+is mine by right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, with hardly more than an hour's preparation he was off, though it
+was the dead of winter, across the snows to join forces with his
+cousin of Badakhshân.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The fighting fever was on him once more. He could not, he did not even
+try, to resist it. And Mahâm let him go; she was too wise to attempt
+to chain her wild hawk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When spring comes we will meet in Samarkand,&quot; she said quietly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took Haidar, the boy, with him though, because the lad wept and
+refused to be left behind. And right proud was the lad, when at the
+very first fight, it was the opportune arrival of a party of his
+father's old retainers who had come out to join their young master,
+that turned the tide of victory towards Babar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let the name of Haidar Mirza be inscribed on the first trophy,&quot; said
+the Emperor smiling; and the boy's blood went in a surge of sheer
+delight to his face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But, despite the fact that he was able to reach the river, and settle
+himself in some measure of security at Kundez, Babar felt himself not
+sufficiently strong to attempt Samarkand without help. And there was
+none to whom he could apply save Shâh-Ismael, who had already sent him
+a letter containing guarded offers of friendship. It rather went
+against Babar's orthodox grain to ask a favour from a persecuting
+Shiah heretic; but old Kâsim's words came back to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes! there was good on all sides, and--<i>pace</i> the priests!--a man
+might be an honest fellow in spite of his saying &quot;Ameen&quot; in schismatic
+fashion. For Babar, like many of his like, had no taste for dogmatic
+differences and preferred to differentiate by visible and audible
+signs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So Mirza-Khân, his cousin, was despatched to Irâk in order to make the
+best terms possible, and Babar, meanwhile, sent for his family from
+Kâbul. The spring had passed to summer ere they arrived at Kundez, and
+Babar, now reinforced by some of the surrounding tribes, crossed the
+Amu and marched on to await events at the strong fortress of Hissâr.
+It was close on eighteen years since he had been encamped with his old
+uncle, Sultan Hussain, upon the opposite bank. Close on eighteen years
+since, one darkling dawn, he, a lad of thirteen, dear old Kâsim-Beg
+and half-a-hundred or so of rough, honest Andijân troopers had ridden
+through Khosrau Shâh's picket, and he, Babar, had lost the Crystal
+Bowl which Gharîb had given him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now? He looked across to the frightened girl, the mother of his
+children, in a way the mother of himself, and thought what a
+marvellous thing Life was. Even as he saw it, limited by Birth and
+Death, isolated by those five personal, bodily senses which none could
+say he shared exactly with his fellow, how strange it was to watch the
+compensating balance at work on all things, keeping all things as it
+were to true, perfect level. He looked back over his life and saw that
+balance everywhere, save in one thing. The tragedy of Dearest-One
+remained as ever poignant, unappeased.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou art sad, husband! what is't?&quot; asked Mahâm, fondly. She was ever
+quick to see his moods.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing, wife,&quot; he answered gaily. &quot;Save that today or to-morrow at
+least comes the answer from Shâh-Ismael. What will the red-cap heretic
+reply?--God knows!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So with a laugh he left her for the cares of State.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he had scarcely gone before he was back again, white, trembling, a
+gold-dust-sprinkled letter in his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It hath come,&quot; he said brokenly. &quot;It hath come--and oh!
+Mahâm--Dearest-One! Dearest-One!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He fell at her feet, buried his face in her lap and sobbed like a
+child. She must be dead, thought Mahâm, and to her lips came the usual
+blankly-tame commonplaces of consolation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nay, 'tis not that!&quot; he said, recovering his calm. &quot;She is alive and
+well--and Shâh-Ismael, who hath found her, is sending her back to me
+with all honour--&quot; he sprang to his feet suddenly and raised his right
+arm high.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, God! may my arm wither if ever it strike a blow against this just
+man, may my tongue dry up if ever it utter word of blame; I, Babar, am
+his servant for ever! There is nothing I will not do for him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Does he not desire aught of thee in return?&quot; asked Mahâm when Babar
+had fairly outwearied himself in joy, in confessions of past regret,
+in promises of future content.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aye! Yea! he asks much, but not more than he has a right to ask--not
+more than I will give cheerfully. And he is sending men also, Mahâm. I
+shall have an army of sixty thousand! With that Samarkand is assured,
+and, of a truth, no man can deem it a disgrace to own justice as his
+sovereign lord! I hold it an honour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he upheld this view of Shâh-Ismael's proposal that if the aid of
+the Persian <i>kizzilbâshes</i> were given to conquer Samarkand, Babar
+should acknowledge the Persian Satrapy as over-lord, against all the
+criticism of his nobles; not that there was much, for it was
+indubitable that without such help Samarkand would remain unwon. And
+Babar had many arguments in favour of this nominal vassalage. To be
+part of a great Empire, was always an advantage; besides the Kings of
+Samarkand had always in the past acknowledged a suzerain lordship. It
+had given stability to the dynasty; and it was of late years only,
+since this dependence had been removed, that Samarkand had been
+bandied from one ruler to another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When a man is set on a thing, arguments for it grow in the very
+hedgerows; and Babar with the tempting bait of his sister's safe
+return before his eyes, was too full of real gratitude to hesitate an
+instant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it was not for a month or more that he was to enter Samarkand
+victorious.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a perfect autumn day when, after dismissing the Persian
+contingent, Babar made his triumphant entry. All along the route, high
+and low, nobles and poor men, grandees and artisans, princes and
+peasants, alike testified their joy at the advent of one who had
+already twice before come to them as King, and who had endeared
+himself to them by his kindness and generosity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The streets were all draped with cloth and gold brocades; pictures,
+drawings, wreaths, were hung up on every side. Such pomp and splendour
+no one has ever seen or heard of before or since. He was received at
+the Gate by the great men of the city, who assured him that the
+inhabitants had for years been longing that the shadow of his
+protection might be cast upon them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar, who was dressed, rather to their regret, in the uniform of a
+<i>kissilbâsh</i> General (which smacked of heresy, almost of unbelief)
+responded heartily, and all eyes followed his splendid figure as he
+rode through the streets saluting the crowd right and left. He was in
+the highest spirits, for he knew that in the very Palace where she had
+been left ten long years before, his dearest sister was awaiting him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dearest-One! It seemed almost too good to be true.--God save the man
+who had brought this happiness into his life!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Impatient, headstrong in all his emotions, he would gladly have cut
+short his reception and gone straight to her; but the people would not
+be denied a sight of their hero. If the angels were crying aloud
+&quot;Enter in peace!&quot; and the populace was shouting &quot;God save the
+Emperor!&quot; the least he could do was to listen to them patiently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it was nigh dusk before he found himself, trembling with sheer joy,
+in the Garden-Palace and saw before him a tall, slender figure in
+white--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dearest-One! Dearest-One!&quot; he cried and was kissing her feet, her
+hands, her thin, worn face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Brotherling! Brotherling!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was all they said. And then they held back to see each other. She
+saw strength, and health, and manhood such as she had scarce dreamed
+of, even for him; a man of past thirty in the very prime of all
+things. And he saw a woman of nigh forty with streaks of silver in her
+dark hair, upright, tall, but with a weariness even in her joy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am sorry, Dearest-One,&quot; he said humbly as he had said to her many a
+time when as a child he had grieved her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I am glad,&quot; she replied softly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That night the city seemed on fire. Flares blazed from every house,
+the flickering lines of countless lights seemed to interlock one
+street with another. Vast crowds surged through them, and far and wide
+rose Babar's praise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But at the door of a mosque an old white-bearded <i>mullah</i> sat and spat
+calmly. &quot;He wore the accursed red-cap of the schismatic--Wherefore?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the folk who heard him looked at each other and echoed:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wherefore?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was the question. Asked by one to-day, it was asked by
+half-a-dozen the next, by a hundred the week after, when Babar,
+faithful as ever to his promises, had the Kutba, the Royal
+Proclamation, read in the name of Shâh-Ismael as over-lord. A thousand
+asked it when the first gold coin was struck bearing the hated Shiah
+legends. The Emperor, the man they had welcomed, was a heretic. He and
+his army wore the red-cap.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Samarkand, head centre of orthodoxy, became alarmed, began to whisper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am no heretic, but a keeper of promises,&quot; said Babar grimly, and
+went on his way. He had become a trifle arrogant, and inclined to
+resent any interference. The Samarkand folk were rude, ignorant,
+bigoted; he would not even try to pacify them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the winter passed and spring set in--(the plentiful drops of her
+rain having clothed the earth in green raiment)--and with the warmer
+weather the Usbeks once more appeared like locusts on the edge of the
+Turkhestân desert and the fight for Samarkand began all over again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And this time Babar with not a wish ungratified, Babar in the
+plenitude of his pride and strength, was forced to flight; for
+religious bigotry is the hardest of all foes to fight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A horde of <i>kizzilbâshes</i>, it is true, was sent by his over-lord to
+help him; but they only made matters worse. First by their
+confirmation of heresy; next by their brutality in murdering high and
+low, the sucklings and the decrepit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sick at heart, Babar found himself once more a wanderer; once more a
+prey to the treachery of Moghul troops, from which he escaped one
+night with bare life and in his night clothes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His one consolation was that Mahâm, Dearest-One and his children, were
+safe with relatives in Khost.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No! he had another consolation; for the man who had set aside wine as
+an enhancement of pleasure, now took to it as a lessener of care. The
+Cup-of-Life for him was filled again and again with the Wine-of-Death,
+and he laughed as he quaffed at its bubbles on the rim. Vaguely, too,
+came to him a sort of disgust at dogmatic creeds. He would sit and
+sing Sufic odes with fervour, and praise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Perhaps with a man of his temperament, it was only to be expected.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;The wine, the lamp which night and day<br>
+Lights us along our weary way.<br>
+Sâki! thou knowest I worship wine,<br>
+Let that delicious cup be mine,<br>
+Wine! pure and limpid as my tears.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_03" href="#div1Ref_03">BOOK III</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>FRUIT TIME</h3>
+<h3>1525 TO 1530</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+<br>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;The Long Years slide,<br>
+The Door of Life stands wide,<br>
+Ghosts creep inside,<br>
+With their dead fingers hide<br>
+Present from Past.<br>
+Dear God be kind!<br>
+Grant that I keep enshrined<br>
+Within my mind<br>
+The Love of Human-kind,<br>
+Until the Last&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar sat overlooking a Kâbul valley, a tall, straight, still athletic
+man of two-and-forty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Slave! Another goblet of wine!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But, even as he gave the order, a twinge of conscience made him
+remember the Arabic verse: &quot;The breach of a promise avenges itself on
+the promise breaker.&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The very remembrance brought laughter. Babar tossed off the second
+beaker of wine, and stood up quoting Nizâmi's verses:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Oh! bring the musky scented wine,<br>
+The key of mirth which must be mine,<br>
+The key which opens wide the door<br>
+Of rapture rich and varied store,<br>
+And o'er the temper casts a spell<br>
+Of kindness indescribable.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">In those last words lay the secret of Babar's superiority to the
+debasing influence of his life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Sweet are the smiling Springs,<br>
+Sweet what each New Year brings,<br>
+Sweet is a cup of wine,<br>
+Sweeter is Love divine.<br>
+Oh, Babar! Seize them all.<br>
+They pass beyond recall.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">He would seize all; but he would remain a kindly gentleman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Three thousand infidels put to the sword!...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have no daughter,&quot; came back the proud answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ask her concerning a wandering mendicant,&quot; Babar replied, &quot;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!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My lord! Remember that the whole tribe of Yusufzâis sits enshrined in
+my heart!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had been fine!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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
+<i>bonhommie</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To-night it was the latter, so the fun waxed fast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The screens of the tent had been thrown back; they could see the
+valley beneath them studded with fire stars.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look! Most-Clement!&quot; cried Târdi-Beg. &quot;Yonder, I swear, is the
+<i>Heft-Aurang</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar bent his keen eyes hastily on the flickering lights. Aye, the
+<i>Heft-Aurang</i>--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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea!&quot; remarked Ali-Jân, not to be outdone, &quot;and yonder to the right
+are the Brothers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And look you to the left, the Warrior,&quot; stuttered Abul-Majîd. &quot;His
+sword is somewhat crooked.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis thine eyes are askew,&quot; laughed Shaikh-Zîn. &quot;Thou never hadst a
+head worth a spoonful of decent Shirâz.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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!</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;When lovers think, their thoughts are not their own,<br>
+But each to each Love's communings have flown.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hold thy peace, pirate!&quot; came Babar's full joyous voice. &quot;That is
+Mahomed Shaikh. Thou couldst not write such an one for thy life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ali-Jân, who was already far gone, waggled his head. &quot;Lo!&quot; he said
+with a hiccup, &quot;I could do--doz-shens!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I.&quot; &quot;And I,&quot; chorused others militantly, for the spirits were
+rising fast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So be it!&quot; cried Babar, as ever the most sober of the party. &quot;Let us
+all try and parody it <i>extempore!</i> Now then, Ali-Jân--'tis thy turn
+first. Rise and out with it <i>instanter!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ali-Jân rose gravely and stood swaying. &quot;When--&quot; he began solemnly.
+&quot;When--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he subsided, gravely and solemnly. The roar of consequent
+laughter was dominated by Babar's joyous shout, &quot;I have it! I have
+it!&quot;</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;When Ali drinks, his legs are not his own,<br>
+Each seeks support and neither stands alone.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shâbâsh! Wâh! Wâh! Ha! Ha! Ha!&quot; The uproarious mirth echoed out into
+the still night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Emperor is merry,&quot; quoth the sentries in the valley, with a
+smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aye! but he looks ill for all that,&quot; said an orthodox old trooper. &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This excellent resolution--or something else--proved curative; and
+Babar was soon on the mend and was able to write the following:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Oh! what can I do with you, flagrant tongue?<br>
+On your account I deserve to be hung.<br>
+How long will you utter bad parodies,<br>
+One half indecent, the other half lies?<br>
+If you wish to escape being damned--Up rein!<br>
+Ride off--nor venture near verse again.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">To which he appended a quatrain in his best Arabic:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Oh, God! Creator of the World! My soul<br>
+I broke upon the Wheel of Evil sore.<br>
+Cleanse me from sin, my God, and make me whole,<br>
+Else cursed shall I be for evermore.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar's language on such occasions was always frank, truthful, utterly
+unanswerable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Most-Clement hath settled <i>his</i> hash,&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea!&quot; replied the Emperor quite gravely. &quot;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?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of a surety, none,&quot; assented his hearers, still with a smile. Folk
+had to smile often over Babar's frank, outspoken clarity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What would that fate be now?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The advance party of Sultân-Ibrahîm's army was within touch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar was ready on the instant. He was out of the boat before it was
+moored, giving orders, short, sharp, stern.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The time for play was over.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;It is the time of roses;<br>
+Green are the young wheat fields;<br>
+The onward march of the foes is<br>
+Hid by a dark night's shield.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Over the sand hills, sun-dried,<br>
+Thirsting for blood of men,<br>
+An hundred thousand on one side,<br>
+On the other only ten!</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">What will the Dawn be showing,<br>
+Fate of the Parched Mouth?<br>
+Will the Cup-of-Death be flowing<br>
+With blood of North or South?&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 <i>laagered</i> together with
+twisted hide ropes as with chains; not till the tale of hurdle
+breast-works and sandbags was complete.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 &quot;<i>vim</i>&quot; or full dress review,
+at which, as General, he had to estimate the total number of men at
+his command.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The most revered father was out by a good thousand or two, to-day,&quot;
+said Humâyon, who, arrayed in gorgeous trappings, looked a hero after
+a woman's heart. &quot;He was wont to be more accurate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar smiled gaily. &quot;A thousand or two to the good is better than to
+the bad, when men's hearts fail them,&quot; he replied. &quot;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!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 <i>laager</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar shook his head. &quot;Consider not,&quot; he said, &quot;of our present
+enemy as of our past ones. Judge not of Ibrahîm-Sultân, as of our
+Princes and Khâns in the north who <i>knew what they were about</i>, 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: <i>therefore</i> we must be
+prepared.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! it will steady their nerves,&quot; said Babar lightly, with another
+gay smile, &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was time he were going back to work; back to face what the day
+might bring forth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no confusion this time. &quot;Use doth breed a habit in a man,&quot;
+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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His keen eyes watched the oncoming line of the enemy. It was bent to
+the right and the order came immediately--&quot;Reinforcements from the
+reserve in support.&quot; Had he been a modern-day Staff-College man, the
+martial phrase could not have come more correctly!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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. &quot;Right and Left divisions charge! And bid the flanking
+parties use all possible speed,&quot; 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 &quot;Engage!&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Slave! Why didst do that? He was at least King to those poor souls.
+Take it back,&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They had best bring the dead fool's body here,&quot; said Babar briefly,
+&quot;and bid the men not touch the tent. Stay! set a watch on it till his
+friends come, as they will, likely, at nightfall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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, &quot;Kalendar<a name="div4Ref_03" href="#div4_03"><sup>[3]</sup></a>-King,&quot; because he gave away all his
+own chances of plunder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nathless,&quot; he wrote, &quot;I am keeping certain presents for my aunts and
+cousins, which shall be sent when opportunity offers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For danger was past at present; he could afford to get drunk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was disappointed also in the mango, and could only damn it with
+faint praise by saying that &quot;<i>such mangoes as are good are
+excellent</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar's eyes scarce brightened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tis more suitable to the young than to the old, sonling,&quot; he said
+affectionately. &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 <i>rubai</i> 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--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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 <i>noble</i>
+country of Hindustân&quot; (this adjective was the result of some thought,
+for Babar was nothing if not truthful)--&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After which he took an aromatic opiate confection and went to bed.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Give me back one hour of Kâbul!<br>
+Let me see it ere I die.<br>
+Ah! my heart is sick and heavy;<br>
+Southern gales are not for me,<br>
+Though the hills are white with winter;<br>
+Place me there and set me free.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">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!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why! Even if their Emperors or chief nobility had occasion for a
+light, they had to send for dirty, filthy men called &quot;Lighters,&quot; who
+held an iron tripod--smelling horribly and dripping rancid oil--close
+under their masters' noses!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Pah! It was disgusting!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Besides, that time, he had been half-drunk. But now?...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 <i>kikar</i> tree, and an aggressive crow bent on showing you
+that he is as black inside as he is outside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Most-Clement will forget the unloveliness when he stands once
+more in the Garden-of-Fidelity,&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still Babar set his teeth and stuck to the saddle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What! thou also?&quot; 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. &quot;And I counted thee my best
+friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Most-Clement knows I am that,&quot; protested the Kwâjah, stoutly.
+&quot;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--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar broke in impatiently. &quot;Then let them go! They are but
+mercenaries; not gentlemen of honour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kwâjah-Kilân flushed up. &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he went on again, and again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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!--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The fever, swift to flare up, had fair hold of him now and his words
+seemed to whip like scorpions--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was silence, but no one stirred. They had not the courage for
+<i>that</i> at any rate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! I felt like a God,&quot; he said. &quot;A God with a pain everywhere. Did I
+say enough?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Too much for me, Most-Clement,&quot; quoth Ali-Jân with a smile. &quot;I stop
+till death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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--</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;If safe and sound I cross the Sind,<br>
+Damned if I ever wish for Hind.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar's cheek flushed dark red when he heard this <i>jeu d'esprit</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As his Emperor still remains in Hindustân,&quot; he said with hurt pomp,
+&quot;there is evident impropriety, first in composing, and then in
+publishing such vituperative verse; and so I will tell him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Which he did, by sending after him post haste an urgent messenger with
+his reply--</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Babar thanks God who gave him Sind and Ind,<br>
+Heat of the plains, chill of the mountain cold.<br>
+Yea! let the scorch of India bring to his mind<br>
+Bitter bite of frost in Ghazni of old.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">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. &quot;And I pray it may be a boy,&quot;
+she wrote, &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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. &quot;And thou knowest, dear heart,&quot; he said, &quot;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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo, we will call him Farûk, wife, since distance separates us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The chief excellency of India is that it is large, and that it holds
+plenty of gold and silver.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were a fairly merry party, these northerners in the Fort at Agra;
+merry, good-natured, <i>insouciant</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That in itself was a relief.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then,&quot; wrote Mahâm, who was out and away the best scribe, &quot;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 <i>very</i> dancing-girl and the <i>very</i> 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.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thus all went well, save for the absence of my lord--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The thought was too much for him. His eyes filled with tears; then he
+brushed them aside with the order:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Slave! A cup of wine!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Oh! Watchman of night, awake!<br>
+For the dawning is nigh;<br>
+The black bees hum as their way they take<br>
+Through the lightening sky.<br>
+Oh! far away in the jasmine bowers,<br>
+The robbers will rifle the honey-flowers.<br>
+Watchman! Awake! Awake!</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Oh, watch of the night, arise!<br>
+For the windows unclose;<br>
+A blue gown hung with pearl-fringing lies<br>
+On a bosom of rose.<br>
+Oh! close at hand in the old man's tower<br>
+The lovers will wanton a happy hour.<br>
+Watchman! Arise! Arise!</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Oh, rouse thee, watchman, rouse!<br>
+Lo! the rain of night is past!<br>
+Her veil is dank, 'neath her level brows<br>
+The heavy tears fall fast.<br>
+Oh, far away lies her lovers part<br>
+And close at hand lies her broken heart.<br>
+Oh! Watchman, rouse thee, rouse!&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tis a rare song,&quot; hiccupped Jân-Ali, &quot;but devil take me if I can tell
+what it means.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tis the tale of a wanton,&quot; quoth Târdi-Beg gravely, &quot;and see you, she
+wore a blue gown fringed with pearl.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar looked at them both with irritation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Before the Lord!&quot; he said almost sharply, &quot;I know not which is best;
+understanding, or the lack of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he burst into a roar of laughter.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They be merry devils over in Kâbul,&quot; quoth a surly-faced cook in the
+royal kitchen. &quot;Mayhap they may laugh the wrong side of their mouths
+ere long.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">Fate knocked at the Door of Death,<br>
+My soul in her hollow hand.<br>
+Angels opened it. Lo! God saith,<br>
+To whom gave He this command?<br>
+Take him back to the Gates of Life<br>
+And set his feet in the way<br>
+So he and his children and his wife<br>
+Will praise my mercy alway.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:25%"><i>Babar</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Most-Clement prepares himself for Paradise,&quot; remarked the most
+caustic wit of the party; and Babar laughed gaily. &quot;I prefer Hell in
+time rather than in eternity, friend,&quot; he replied; and as usual began
+an extempore versicle on the idea.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will it be at dawn to-morrow, master?&quot; he asked of Ali-Kool late one
+evening.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At dawn to-morrow,&quot; replied the master-gunsmith boastfully, &quot;the
+largest cannon in Asia will be found in the armoury of Babar
+Padishâh!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was nearly beside himself with excitement; but at dawn next day he
+stood, pale to ashen-greyness, still as a stone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now! Most-Clement!&quot; palpitated Ali-Kool.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Deg Ghâzi!&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then? Then the metal ceased to run. There was no more in the
+furnaces...!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ali-Kool was like one demented.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hold the man,&quot; shouted Babar, whose eyes were ever alert for other
+people as well as himself, &quot;or he will do himself a mischief!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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--&quot;Nay, Master-<i>jee</i>, such things do happen at times to
+the best of us,&quot; only brought grief and shame to strengthen anger. He
+was disgraced--he had disgraced the Emperor ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not one whit!&quot; laughed Babar. &quot;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!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 <i>insouciant</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! His Majesty hath the touch of consolation to perfection,&quot; said
+Târdi-Beg.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea!&quot; assented Ali-Jân, &quot;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?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aye!&quot; said Mahomed Bakshi, who was Superintendent-of-the-Household,
+&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And strange dishes!&quot; put in Târdi-Beg. &quot;Lo! I eat none at the
+Emperor's supper parties.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor I,&quot; chorused several.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gentlemen!&quot; said Mahomed Bakshi. &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thy percentages also,&quot; laughed a recognised wit. &quot;Heed him not,
+gentlemen. 'Tis but his way of keeping our stomachs empty, so that
+more profit fills his pocket.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 &quot;mother.&quot; But the mere chance of having a
+Hindustâni cook in the royal kitchen was too much for gratitude.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The result Babar wrote to Mahâm when, considerably the worse for the
+incident, he was still living on water-lily flowers brayed in milk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And so did I.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 &quot;Kâbul,&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gentlemen!&quot; he said solemnly, and it was all he could do not
+to hiccup. &quot;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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Account as wind or dust<br>
+The world's pleasures and pain.<br>
+Be not raised up or crushed<br>
+By its good or its bane.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">As a mere throw of dice<br>
+Is the life of a man.<br>
+Fortune goes in a trice,<br>
+Just a flash in the pan.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">Take then a cup of wine,<br>
+Drink it down to the dregs,<br>
+And don't grumble or whine,<br>
+'Tis but the fool who begs.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Well! The night was as clear, as cold now. The stars?--how they
+sparkled and shone, all colours like jewels ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes! all things were the same except himself ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gentlemen!&quot; he said suddenly, rising unsteadily to his feet, &quot;I give
+you leave. I--I go to my bed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Like to a thunder cloud that rears itself<br>
+In towering mass across the peaceful sky,<br>
+Equal in threat, until the vivid snake<br>
+Of lightning, shot--God knows from East or West!<br>
+Flashes fierce war between the blended foes,<br>
+So stood those warriors, each to each a twin<br>
+In honour, courage, indivisible.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And they <i>were</i> afraid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Two-hundred-thousand!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 &quot;important re-inforcement from Kâbul&quot;; since by fair
+means or foul, the men's courage must be kept up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the butler who had been sent to Kâbul for wine had returned too
+with fifteen camel-loads of choice Ghazni!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! the stars cannot lie!&quot; it said; &quot;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!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God send thee to hell!&quot; burst out Babar. &quot;How camest thou hither,
+infamous fool?--Why didst not stay in Kâbul?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man--he had a pompous, self-satisfied face--was shrewd. He knew
+his power, and held his own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Science!&quot; echoed Babar hotly; &quot;thou meanest lies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The stars cannot lie,&quot; began the soothsayer, but Babar in a perfect
+passion of wrath had him by the throat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here! guards! seize this rascally fellow,&quot; he cried, then hesitated.
+&quot;No!&quot; he went on, loosing his hold and flinging the man from him in
+contempt. &quot;Let him go! Punishment would but invite credence. But mark
+my words, villainous soothsayer! if any more be heard of this
+opposition of Mars--&quot; He paused again and this time burst into bitter
+laughter. &quot;No! Let these men sup their fill of horrors if they wish
+it--but they shall hear me first.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned to his soldiers and stretched out his right hand in appeal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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--&quot; his quick
+eye had seized on an old veteran--&quot;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!&quot; His voice
+had risen and almost broke over the last word from sheer stress of
+emotion. &quot;And wherefore was I beaten?&quot; he went on more calmly;
+&quot;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--<i>Allah-hu-Akbar!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! he is good prophet,&quot; said one; &quot;he told my wife's sister her son
+would die and he did.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And 'tis all well enough to call it devils'-craft,&quot; put in another,
+&quot;but who made the stars, save God?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And to what use were they made?&quot; asked a third argumentatively, &quot;save
+to guide men aright? There is no other good in them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Emperor as he sat wearied out with anger and irritation could see
+it for himself shining red; steadily, placidly red.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! for God's sake, gentlemen!&quot; he said captiously when he had
+exhausted every argument he could think of to allay the evident alarm
+even of his highest nobles, &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He drained his cup to the lees, held it out for more, and called for a
+song.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank God for wine!&quot; he muttered under his breath as he felt the
+fumes rising to his brain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Never had merriment been more fast and furious; never had Babar drunk
+more recklessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 &quot;The Buss&quot;; a
+favourite Turkhomân ditty. It had rather a quaint, plaintive tune, and
+a catching refrain which was duly bellowed by the others.</p>
+
+<div class="poem1">
+<p class="i6">&quot;He (his moustache twirled) called to her aloud,<br>
+'Give me a buss, lass! Lo! your lips are red.'<br>
+She (her bright hair curled) spoke him back full proud,<br>
+'Give me a gold piece, merry sir,' she said.</p>
+<p class="t8">'Merry sir,' she said, etc.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">'Lass! I would give thee golden fee galore,<br>
+But my purse, alas! is in wallet tan<br>
+Of the saddle bag my swift camel bore,<br>
+And, see you, my dear, that's still at Karuwân,</p>
+<p class="t8">Still at Karuwân,' etc.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">'Lad! I would buss you, were my lips but free,<br>
+Only, as you see, they won't ope a span,<br>
+Mother locked my teeth! Mother keeps the key,<br>
+Mother (like thy camel) 's still at Karuwân,</p>
+<p class="t8">Still at Karuwân.</p>
+<p class="t0">Mother (like thy camel) 's still at Karuwân.'&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">The endless refrain went on and on sillily, mingled with the twanging
+of the <i>cithâras</i> and boisterous laughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But half-sober, he sat up and listened gravely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Cock!&quot; he quoted with a hiccup. &quot;Oh, Cock...!</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Cock, flutter not thy wings,<br>
+It is not nearly day.<br>
+Why with shrill utterings<br>
+Drivest thou sleep away?<br>
+Lo! in the Land of Nod,<br>
+To perfect peace I'd come.<br>
+Oh, Cock! there is a God<br>
+Will surely strike thee dumb,<br>
+Surely--strike thee--dumb--&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">He stood up, stretched with a lurch, passed unsteadily to the doorway
+of the tent, raised the curtain, and looked out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Far in the east a great drift of spent rose-leaf clouds lay softly
+between the lightening sky and the lightening earth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And see! already their curled petals were catching the underglow of
+the hidden sun.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A new day! A new day! A new day!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My charger, slave!&quot; he said hoarsely. &quot;It--it is time I went my
+rounds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It stood ready at the door; he mounted, and, after his wont, rode off
+alone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The fresh cool air of a North-Indian winter dawn bit softly at his
+cheek and brought him knowledge of his own conversion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bid a general parade be commanded at the second watch,&quot; he said on
+his return from his survey of the posts; then passed into his office
+tents, and began his daily work of supervision.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Twill be to harangue us all,&quot; grumbled a fine-weather soldier
+sullenly, &quot;but, King or no King, I fight not with one who wars against
+the fiat of the stars.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor I!&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Noblemen! Gentlemen! and Soldiers!&quot; rang out the strong mellow voice.
+&quot;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!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! I repent,&quot; he repeated, his face afire; &quot;who follows me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do, sire!&quot; said one Asâs, the heaviest drinker in the camp, and
+Babar turned on him a face radiant with friendly thanks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That makes it less hard,&quot; he said joyously. &quot;Thou hast more to
+renounce than I!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I also, Most-Clement!&quot; put in a soft grave voice. &quot;I follow fair
+where Babar goes.&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I!&quot;--&quot;And I!&quot;--&quot;And I!&quot; came here, there, everywhere.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Break up the gold and silver and give it to the poor, and pour the
+wine back to the storehouse of God!&quot; came Babar's voice. &quot;Where it
+falls shall be built a well whence travellers may quench their
+thirst.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How much better is it to die with honour than to live with infamy,&quot;
+he cried. &quot;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.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Persian verse came to him unsought, echo from his far youthful
+days when Firdusis' Shah-namah had been the delight of his boyhood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">None too soon. That very evening a patrol brought in the news that the
+enemy was within touch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Flanking columns right and left, wheel and charge!&quot; came the order.
+&quot;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!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Most-Clement <i>shall</i> see!&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar set his teeth. &quot;Reserves to the flanking columns! And steady,
+steady, in front!--no rushing--close in--close in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But this was no battle of an hour or two as at Pâniput.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo!&quot; he said, &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had been worth beating.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he had been beaten--effectually.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">Distraught am I, since that I gave up wine,<br>
+Confused, to nothing doth my soul incline<br>
+Regret did once my penitence beget;<br>
+Now penitence induces worse regret.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:25%"><i>Babar</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar wrote these verses from a full heart; for he found much
+difficulty in reconciling himself to the desert of abstinence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 <i>darvish</i>,
+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 <i>entourage</i>. And now to have
+none ready with quip and crank that held just the salt of life
+wherewith it must be salted!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Oh, ye! who left us alone to die<br>
+'Neath the sultry heat of an Indian sky,<br>
+Who shirked the labour of life to fly<br>
+Back to its comfort, its jollity,<br>
+Lo! you have had your recompense fair,<br>
+Of joy and delight your proper share.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="t0">But we have struggled to hold our own,<br>
+Have tilled and laboured without a moan,<br>
+And God's great mercy a way has shown<br>
+To patient content as the seed was sown,<br>
+You in Life's garden God's harvest missed.<br>
+I gather it here in <i>Hesht-Bishist</i>.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue"><i>Hesht-Bishist</i> or the Eighth-Paradise being the name of his favourite
+garden in Agra.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;My fever grows each day,<br>
+My slumber fades away,<br>
+My pains go on increasing--<br>
+My patience is decreasing.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 <i>Ghâzi</i> or &quot;Defender of the
+Faith&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 <i>entrepreneur</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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: &quot;If my lord desireth another
+son let him take another wife. I am accursed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To Humâyon,&quot; he began, &quot;whom I remember with such longing to see him
+again, health.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It, also, was the most loving of letters. &quot;Thanks be to God,&quot; he
+wrote, &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He went on to tell his son gently but firmly that indolence and ease
+suit but ill with royalty. Did not the poet say:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;The world is his who gives himself to work;<br>
+Inaction is no fellow to ambition;<br>
+In wisdom's eyes all men may find repose,<br>
+Save only he who seeks a King's condition.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is but ill manners in a prince,&quot; he wrote, &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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, &quot;for had you attempted to do so,&quot;
+he wrote--and the letter is still extant, &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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. &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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. &quot;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 <i>you</i> 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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Well! he had had his share. And there was Canopus hanging in the
+south!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All hail <i>Soheil!</i>&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">Good old St. Martini patron of the drunk!<br>
+Lo! in thy summer thou givest potent draught<br>
+To warm our cockles ere the world be sunk<br>
+In winding sheet of snow. This is thy craft,<br>
+O cheerful saint! to give ere the year dies<br>
+A euthanasian drink of cloudless skies.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed simply incredible that before many hours were over he should
+see Mahâm again. Mahâm, his moon, his more than wife!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Certain it is that in this, the commencement of this St. Martin's
+summer of his life, Babar needed no pity for spent power.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Never was there such a fussy host as he showed himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Truly, nephew Babar,&quot; snorted Khadîjah, his chief paternal aunt, when
+he cavilled at some domestic arrangement in Mahâm's private apartment,
+&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your Majesty!&quot; faltered a breathless messenger, rushing into the
+Presence unceremoniously--all Agra was on the <i>qui vive</i>, and this was
+no time for the delay of etiquette--&quot;Her Highness is on the road--four
+miles out--I have just passed Her--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mahâm! Mahâm!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the rest, what does it matter? Let those two keep it to themselves
+for all time and eternity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My lord! let me descend and walk, too,&quot; faltered Mahâm after a bit,
+but he shook his head lightly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nay, my moon--that would delay us and thou must get
+home--<i>home?</i>--God! what delight! Now then, ye bearers, a good foot
+first, or the King will do gangleader and make the pace!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 &quot;Yea&quot; and &quot;Nay&quot; to the torrent of his words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They crossed the river, and were in <i>Hesht-Bishist</i>. That is all there
+is to say; that is all we know.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Except that ere the blessed night was over Babar wrote in his diary:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There are many dishes,&quot; remarked the little lady superbly, and
+afterwards described the meal as having been drawn out to &quot;fifty roast
+sheep, bread, sherbet and much fruit.&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is no need to rise for her,&quot; said the Wazir hastily, when his
+wife entered and little Gulbadan would have saluted her. &quot;She is but
+your old serving woman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And then,&quot; as she told Mahâm afterwards in the seclusion of the
+women's apartments, &quot;this little insignificant personage felt such
+happiness that greater could not be imagined.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mahâm laughed. &quot;Truly thou art a quaint little marionette, Gulbadan!
+And what dost think of thy father?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The little maiden pursed up her lips and sat quiet for a minute. Then
+she said firmly: &quot;I think he is too beautiful to put into words.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her father, however, did not share her opinion in regard to <i>her</i>
+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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! little mouse,&quot; he would say, looking round to lay a kindly hand
+on her smooth head, &quot;mayhap thou mayest write a book thyself some day;
+thou hast more brains than thy brothers.&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gulbadan shook her head gravely. &quot;The Emperor speaks in ignorance of
+my brother Alwar,&quot; she said, not without hauteur, &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her dignity was supreme, and Babar laughed. &quot;Nicer than Hindal,
+Gullu?&quot; he asked, knowing her preference for the boy who had been
+brought up with her under Mahâm's care.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The child flushed up visibly, and tears stood in her eyes. &quot;Lo!&quot; she
+said, &quot;Hindal is indeed my brother. Mayhap he is not clever; but I
+love him, I love him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Emperor caught her in his arms and kissed her tears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So do I, sweetheart, so does everybody. Lo! I dare swear it! we all
+love each other, do we not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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: &quot;He is not long for this world.&quot;
+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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar came over to her and laid his head--it was fast grizzling--on
+her lap in the old affectionate Turkhi fashion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Little mother!&quot; he said, and there was a break in his voice, &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a faint stir at the door, and Babar turned to look. Then
+with a bound he was on his feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Humâyon!&quot; he cried joyously; &quot;Humâyon himself! Look! little mother!
+thy son! thy son!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereat Dildar giggled faintly, till Dearest-One, who, tall, pale, a
+childless widow now, had also come to see her brother, said softly:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he took the lute and sang sweetly enough, though his voice had lost
+its youthful ring.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Ah! would I were the morning wind<br>
+To braid her scented hair.<br>
+Ah! would I were the noonday sun<br>
+To kiss her cheek so fair.<br>
+Ah! would I were the lamp at eve<br>
+Where she her court doth keep.<br>
+Ah! would I were the happy moon<br>
+To watch her in her sleep.<br>
+My heart is like a famished wolf<br>
+That licks the frozen snow<br>
+The while it tracks its quarry far<br>
+Wherever it may go.<br>
+From morn till night I follow her<br>
+But she no word doth deign.<br>
+Oh! ice chill maid! for pity's sake<br>
+Give me at least disdain.<br>
+Wind! make each scented tress unbind.<br>
+Sun! set her life-blood free.<br>
+Lamp! make her weary for true love.<br>
+Moon! bring her dreams of me.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis only a translation,&quot; he said thoughtfully, &quot;but I like it--'tis
+so simple.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo!&quot; he said suddenly, &quot;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?&quot; He spoke half
+in earnest, half in jest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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: &quot;May God keep you in His
+Peace upon the throne for many, many years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the Blessed-Damozel who always sat a little apart only smiled. &quot;My
+lord means the Garden of the Eighth Heaven,&quot; she put in quickly. &quot;Yea!
+there is peace there, and rest for everybody.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My lady says sooth,&quot; acquiesced Babar and their grave eyes met.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But little Gulbadan was agog because it was time the fireworks began
+or <i>Nanacha</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When I am a big man like my father, the Emperor,&quot; he said boastfully,
+&quot;I will fire ten guns at a time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis silly to say such things,&quot; retorted Madam Gulbadan superbly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the child's keen little face was not in the least abashed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;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.&quot;
+And he waved his hand contemptuously towards Babar's great palaces.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereat they all laughed; for they were a merry, happy party. So they
+feasted and enjoyed themselves. As little Gulbadan wrote in after
+years: &quot;It was like the day of Resurrection.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">Death stood among my flowers, his bright wings furled:<br>
+&quot;This bud I take with me to that still world<br>
+Where no wind blows, where sunshine does not fade,<br>
+Yon open rose is yours,&quot; he gently said;<br>
+But I refused. He smiled and shook his head,<br>
+So empty-handed back to Heaven sped<br>
+And lo! by sun-scorch and the wild wind shorn<br>
+Ere eve, my bud, my blossom both were gone.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Humâyon remained with his father for a week or two. Handsome,
+<i>insouciant</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My Kâbul,&quot; as he ever called it; saying to his sons in jesting
+earnest--&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! my lord,&quot; 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. &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the bare suggestion hurt the Emperor's affectionate heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mahâm,&quot; he said in pained astonishment, &quot;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?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Babar's friend Târdi-Beg came back to him, not as soldier, but in
+the <i>darvesh's</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Babar would follow, as often as not with Alwar, who was but a
+weakling in body, perched on his broad shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The &quot;four children,&quot; 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.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/king340.png" alt="p340"><br>
+&quot;THE FOUR CHILDREN, AS MAHÂM WOULD CALL THEM&quot;</p>
+
+<br>
+<p class="normal">Yes! they were very happy, very guileless, very innocent, as Babar
+himself had written so often over less commendable amusements.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 &quot;something like a heart&quot; upon
+the breast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 <i>Darvesh</i> Târdi-Beg who recited the committal prayer, and
+that gave him comfort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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: &quot;They say that
+sort of thing always in grief-time, nephew; so why fuss about it. She
+will forget it after a time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Ak-Begum came with her bright squirrel eyes all soft with tears to
+Babar, and whispered: &quot;We all know it is not true, nephew. Our lady is
+God's kindness itself; so why fret.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it did fret the man and added a bitterness to his grief, which
+even Mahâm could not sweeten.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If my lord will listen to this slave,&quot; said the Blessed-Damozel at
+last, &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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 <i>had</i> taken from her
+as a baby.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let her have the boy, my lord,&quot; said Mahâm pitifully. &quot;Lo! it is but
+fair she should have one son; and I have Humâyon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I would fain come, too, dear-heart,&quot; said Babar pitifully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou wilt look after him, lady,&quot; she said quite tearfully, &quot;and see
+that he wearies himself not with over-anxiety?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All shall be as if thou wast here, sister, so far as in me lies,&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea! I will guard him as thou wouldst,&quot; she said again, &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Would to God he could but drink a bit--he need not get drunk,&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He will soon be well, dear-heart,&quot; he said cheerfully; &quot;he does not
+look so very bad. When the fever leaves him--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it was Mahâm's turn to be despondent. &quot;It does not leave him,&quot; she
+said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My sisters! I want to see my sisters!&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even Babar himself, had to see after a while that the Shadow-of-Death
+lay on his son.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mahâm!&quot; he said pitifully,--&quot;the boy, the boy--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why should my lord grieve,&quot; she said, &quot;because of my son? There
+is no necessity. He is King. He has other sons--I have but this
+one!--therefore <i>I</i> grieve.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a second Babar stood as if turned to stone, then he answered
+almost sternly: &quot;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--&quot; softness had crept back to his voice--&quot;Nay!
+what need to tell thee, since thou knowest that there is nothing in
+the wide world I would not do for Humâyon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou canst do nothing! There is naught to be done,&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is naught I would not dare, anyhow,&quot; he said, &quot;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...!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Death makes no Conquest of this Conqueror,<br>
+For now he lives in Fame.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then there is no hope to save Death,&quot; said Babar sternly. He stood,
+his face blanched, amongst a group of Court-physicians, professional
+prayer-makers, astrologers, sorcerers; frail reeds at which anxiety
+caught distractedly in its despair. And they were all silent save a
+priest who mumbled of God's goodness. Prayer remained, said the
+unctuous voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But that strong human heart was almost past petitions; it craved
+something more tangible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is there naught to be given--naught that I could do to make God
+listen from His High Heaven? Naught that would mayhap soften His hard
+heart?&quot; he asked sharply: he was thinking of a ransom: many a soldier
+had had to offer one; he, himself, had given a dear one--once....</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Some of those who heard, looked at each other. This death to them
+meant little; but here was an opportunity for personal gain that could
+do no harm to anyone. So they whispered among themselves, and greed
+grew to some of the faces that encircled the man, to whose face it had
+never come, once, in all his life. For Babar had been giver, not
+taker. He had lavished all things on his world; he had been
+spendthrift even in forgiveness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is there naught, gentlemen?&quot; he asked drearily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the chief-preacher spoke. &quot;It hath been written, and is, indeed,
+approved, that in such times of stress some Supreme Sacrifice to the
+Most High may be effectual--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But it must be Supreme,&quot; put in a coarse-faced reader of the stars,
+his mind busy with money, &quot;a small gift will not suffice--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aye,&quot; added another voice. &quot;Look, you! It must be the most precious
+possession of a man; that which he holds dearest. In this case I would
+suggest--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar, who was standing, his back to the light, held up his hand
+for silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I give my life,&quot; he said quietly, but his voice rang strong and
+firm; for he had come straight from his interview with Mahâm and her
+words had roused every atom of his marvellous vitality.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea! I give my life--for sure there is naught that a man can hold
+more precious.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Absolute surprise kept his hearers silent for a moment. The very
+suggestion in one so instinct with life, made it incredible; then
+dismay came to some faces, disappointment to others.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your Majesty!&quot; began his faithful servant, the Wazîr swiftly--&quot;Our
+Emperor's life is too precious--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Naught is too precious, friend, to save Humâyon!&quot; came the equally
+swift reply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea! the Wazîr is right,&quot; palpitated one who saw money slipping
+through his fingers. &quot;Some lesser thing, yet still supreme, might be
+found. What of the Great Diamond--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No stone can outweigh my son's life. No! I offer myself to God--it is
+all I have.&quot; The strong voice rang firmer than ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the offering must be dear to both parties,&quot; put in a pompous
+voice. &quot;And since, by the generosity of the Emperor, the diamond in
+question--whose value represents they say one day's revenue of the
+habitable world--was bestowed upon the Prince Humâyon, it fits in
+double manner the circumstances--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar turned in quick reproof and scorn to the speaker. &quot;Knowest thou
+so little of love, friend? Lo! I am dearer to my son than many
+diamonds. Could he speak now--&quot; Babar's voice almost broke--&quot;he would
+say, 'I am not worth the price of thy life, my father, for it is all
+the world to me.' But he cannot speak! He is in the grip of Death, so
+I have my say!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he flung out his right arm as he had been used to fling it out
+when leading on his soldiers to some desperate charge--&quot;Come!
+gentlemen,&quot; he said, command in every word, &quot;let us lose no more time.
+It is precious. I will give my all--may God be merciful!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The sick room was hushed. Humâyon lay motionless, unconscious, on a
+low bed set in the middle of the bare, spacious corridor. A physician
+sat to one side holding his patient's wrist, so appraising, minute by
+minute, the fluttering battle between Life and Death. On the other
+side knelt the poor mother; all unveiled, for they had sent for her,
+thinking the supreme moment was at hand, and she had no thought for
+anything save her dying son. Her right hand was stretched out in
+helpless appeal over the loved form which seemed to take up so little
+room amongst the quilts. But her left hand was held fast, consolingly,
+under the folds of a white veil which shrouded another female figure
+close behind her; for Mubârika-Begum, the Blessed-Damozel, was ever to
+the fore in sickness or in trouble.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Babar did not notice either of them. He stepped swiftly to the
+head of the bed and stood looking down on the face of his dying son.
+Almost it seemed as if he were too late; as if Life had already
+unfolded her wings and fled. Then, with eyes literally blazing with
+inward fire he stretched out his hands, trembling with nervous strain,
+and began his prayer of intercession.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;O God Most High! If a life may be exchanged for a life, and they tell
+me it is so, then I, who am Babar, give mine for his, who is Humâyon!
+Let my strength bear his weakness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Husband! No! No! Not that--&quot; moaned Mahâm, awakened to a sense of
+what was passing. But the figure behind her bent forward and whispered
+in her ear--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let be, sister! Canst not see that God's mist clouds his brain from
+this world. Lo! Mahâm, both thy dear ones stand before the Throne. Let
+God decide!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And with a low sob, Mahâm fell on her outstretched arms; she said no
+more; she felt nothing save that cool, tightening clasp of sisterhood
+upon her hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The hot sunshine streamed in upon the floor, the distant sounds of
+life outside were dulled to a low murmur as of bees, and on it came
+softly-hurried steps, as Babar, with clasped hands, circumambulated
+the bed solemnly. That he knew was the ritual of sacrifice. Round and
+round patiently, his voice rising above the low sobbing of a faithful
+friend or two ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On me, kind God! be all his suffering. May all my strength be his. I
+gave him life once, Most-Clement! Let me give it to him again! Let my
+strength be his weakness; his weakness my strength.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Over and over again; over and over! The fire dying out of the man's
+eyes with the nervous strain, until his very steps hesitated--&quot;On me
+be his suffering! On me! on me!&quot; Then suddenly, through the room,
+thrilling every soul in it, a woman's sobbing ghost of a shriek!--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He moved! His hand moved--I felt it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar swayed towards the voice. &quot;I have prevailed,&quot; he muttered. &quot;I
+have borne it away--&quot; threw up his arms blindly, staggered and fell in
+a dead faint on to sobbing Târdi-Beg's breast. The rest crowded round,
+awestruck, curious.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is dead--God hath accepted the sacrifice,&quot; they said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The face of Babar's best friend worked; of that, who could say, but
+for the present it was not true.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not he!&quot; he cried roughly. &quot;Give him air! 'Tis but the strain on him,
+and what that has been all these years, fools do not know. Here,
+slaves! Carry him to his chamber! Nay! Madam Mother! there is no cause
+for anxiety! H'st! no noise, you there, lest you disturb the Prince
+who in good sooth seems coming to himself!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And it was true. The nameless change which comes to a fever face when
+the crisis is passing showed clear upon Humâyon's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Her Royal Highness had best stay with the invalid,&quot; went on
+Târdi-Beg, &quot;I can attend the Emperor in this passing indisposition.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But a veiled white figure rose quietly. &quot;I go with His Imperial
+Majesty,&quot; said Mubârika-Begum. &quot;There is no fear, sister; as the
+gentleman says it is but a fainting fit. The Emperor hath been
+over-anxious.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So when Babar came to himself, which he did rapidly, he found the
+Blessed-Damozel bending over him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My son?&quot; he asked faintly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The prince is better,&quot; she replied. &quot;The fever hath gone--he will
+recover.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Babar gave a sigh of relief and turned his face to the wall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Possibly the strain had been too much for him, coming as it did after
+long years of steady, hard work. Perhaps he had worn himself out with
+sheer, restless energy. Doubtless those ten years of drink, possibly
+even the four of total abstinence, had something to say to this
+premature break-down; for in years he was but forty-eight. Yet, deny
+it as they would, it was soon evident to all, that he had lived
+through the tale of heart beats allotted to him by Fate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Humâyon, with the speed of youth, recovered and came to his father's
+bedside; but Babar never rose again. Perhaps he would not have done so
+if he could, for he had a made a promise. He had given his life to God
+in exchange for his son's, and there was an end of it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he was quite cheerful. Only to two people did he speak openly of
+coming death. One was Târdi-Beg who stayed with him night and day. To
+him he spoke lightly, almost jestingly, of his long desire to follow
+his example and become a <i>darvesh</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For years--aye! three years--I have desired to make over the throne
+to Humâyon and retire to the Gold-Scattering-Garden! What gay times we
+have had there, friend, with the flowers, and the birds, and the
+children--and our own wits! Now shall I retire to Paradise, and God
+send it be as innocent, as guileless.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And to Mubârika he talked of his beloved Kâbul and his mother's grave.
+&quot;Lo! thou shalt lay me there, lady, for the others have children, and
+thou dost love thy Kâbul also!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he lay and looked at her with kindly questioning eyes, until he
+said, &quot;It hath come to me at times, that I did thee a wrong in taking
+thee, a young girl, from thy tribe. Say, is it so? I would have the
+truth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she spoke softly. &quot;Yea! it is so, Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar
+Emperor of India. Yet was the wrong righted long ago. By sacrifice
+comes life. And my people have lived in peace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As we have,&quot; he said half-appealingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She laid the hand she held on her forehead. &quot;As we have, my lord.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But there was one other wrong about which he was not so satisfied.
+Before death came he wanted to restore Hindal to his mother. And
+Hindal did not come. He had started from Kâbul but had been delayed by
+marriages in his tutor's family.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must see him,&quot; complained his father. &quot;Write and bid him come at
+once. I need him sorely.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the one bitter drop in the cup which he drank contentedly,
+smilingly. He held an audience every day, laughing and joking with his
+old friends over past times, and when evening came he would sit with
+some woman's hand in his and talk of little things.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sometimes it was his most reverend of paternal aunts, sometimes it was
+even poor Astonishingly Beautiful Princess. And little Ak-Begum
+brought him posies of violets, or, best of all, Dearest-One would sit,
+her hand in his, and both would be unable to say anything because
+their thoughts reached so very, very far back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And there was always a joke when Mahâm gave him his medicine in the
+Crystal-Bowl-of-Life. It had found its proper use at last, he said:
+for this it was neither too big nor too small.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the days slipped by.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why does not Hindal come? Where is he?&quot; he said fretfully, one
+evening; and they told him that the boy had reached Delhi and would be
+with him in a day or two.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who brought the news?&quot; he asked, and when they said it was the
+tutor's son who had come on in hot haste to re-assure the Emperor, he
+bid them bring the messenger up, and a tall, half-grown lad appeared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thy name,&quot; asked Babar faintly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mîr-Bârdi,&quot; replied the youth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dying man laughed, his old boyish laugh. &quot;Master Full-of-fun,&quot; he
+translated, &quot;a good name for the companion of my son. Say! how tall
+hath Hindal grown?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lad hesitated. &quot;Lo! I wear a coat the Prince bestowed on his
+servant. The Most-Clement can judge by that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot see,&quot; murmured the sick man impatiently. &quot;Come hither, boy,
+that I may feel how tall my son hath grown.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So with fluttering fingers the hand that had once been so strong felt
+the brocaded coat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is well,&quot; he said at last, &quot;but I would that I had seen him. I
+wanted to give him back to his mother myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All Christmas Day he lay but half-conscious.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Baisanghâr,&quot; he said faintly, when Dearest-One leant over to kiss
+him. And when Mahâm begged him with tears to drink his medicine,
+he did so with a smile, then thrust the cup into her bosom and
+whispered--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lie there, friend, and bring her comfort.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Towards evening he roused and sent for his nobles, and for Humâyon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To you I leave my son,&quot; he said; &quot;fail not in loyalty to him. And to
+you, my son, I commit my kingdom, and my people, and my kinsfolk. Fail
+not in loyalty to them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After that he lay silent, with wide-open, smiling eyes. That was his
+farewell to splendid life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Night was passing to dawn when the end came.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Black fell the day for children and kinsfolk and all. They bewailed
+and they lamented. Voices were uplifted in weeping. There was utter
+dejection. Each passed that ill-fated day in a hidden corner.</p>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">On a hill-side above the town of Kâbul there lies a garden planted
+long years ago by a man who loved his world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thither a new world comes to make holiday. The man himself has gone.
+As the white marble slab that looks up into the cloudless sky says
+shortly:</p>
+
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size:90%">&quot;Heaven is the Eternal Home of the Emperor Babar.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal">But his spirit remains in the endless Spring of leaf and flower, in
+the happy vitality of the Children who still lay flowers to cover the
+words of hope.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div4_01" href="#div4Ref_01">Footnote 1</a>: The Persian name for the Great Bear.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div4_02" href="#div4Ref_02">Footnote 2</a>: Contempt.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div4_03" href="#div4Ref_03">Footnote 3</a>: Kalendars are men vowed to poverty.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of King-Errant, by Flora Annie Steel
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING-ERRANT ***
+
+***** This file should be named 39794-h.htm or 39794-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/7/9/39794/
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
+Google Books (Harvard University)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
+
+
diff --git a/39794-h/images/king01.png b/39794-h/images/king01.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ae4536c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39794-h/images/king01.png
diff --git a/39794-h/images/king175.png b/39794-h/images/king175.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b6743b2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39794-h/images/king175.png
diff --git a/39794-h/images/king23.png b/39794-h/images/king23.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b714038
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39794-h/images/king23.png
diff --git a/39794-h/images/king24.png b/39794-h/images/king24.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dac660e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39794-h/images/king24.png
diff --git a/39794-h/images/king340.png b/39794-h/images/king340.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7b581bb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39794-h/images/king340.png
diff --git a/39794-h/images/king52.png b/39794-h/images/king52.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a86d522
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39794-h/images/king52.png
diff --git a/39794-h/images/king53.png b/39794-h/images/king53.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..08fda0d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39794-h/images/king53.png
diff --git a/39794.txt b/39794.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6f34608
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39794.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,12288 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of King-Errant, by Flora Annie Steel
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: King-Errant
+
+Author: Flora Annie Steel
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2012 [EBook #39794]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING-ERRANT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
+Google Books (Harvard University)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+
+  1. Page scan source:
+     http://books.google.com/books?id=wNIMAAAAYAAJ
+     (Harvard University)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            KING-ERRANT
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "I would the court painter were not a fool," she said
+regretfully.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            KING-ERRANT
+
+
+
+
+                                 BY
+
+
+                         FLORA ANNIE STEEL
+
+
+           _Author of "On the Face of the Waters," etc_.
+
+
+
+
+                _WITH FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR AND TWO
+
+                  ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK-AND-WHITE
+
+                           BY THE AUTHOR_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                              NEW YORK
+
+
+                    FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
+
+
+                             PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       _Copyright, 1912, by_
+
+                    Frederick A. Stokes Company
+
+                             *   *   *
+
+  _All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
+
+              languages, including the Scandinavian_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                              PREFACE
+
+This is not a novel, neither is it a history. It is the life-story of
+a man, taken from his own memoirs.
+
+"_Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, gentleman, apothecary, ploughboy,
+thief_."
+
+So runs the jingle.
+
+The hero of this book might have claimed as many personalities in
+himself, for Zahir-ud-din Mahomed commonly called Babar, Emperor of
+India, the first of the dynasty which we mis-name the Great Moghuls,
+was at one and the same time poet, painter, soldier, athlete,
+gentleman, musician, beggar and King.
+
+He lived the most adventurous life a man ever lived, in the end of the
+fifteenth, the beginning of the sixteenth centuries; and he kept a
+record of it.
+
+On this record I have worked. Reading between the lines often, at
+times supplying details that must have occurred, doing my best to
+present, without flaw, the lovable, versatile, volatile soul which
+wrote down its virtues and its vices, its successes and its failures
+with equally unsparing truth, and equally invariable sense of honour
+and humour.
+
+The incident of the crystal bowl, and the details of Babar's
+subsequent marriage to Maham (the woman who was to be to him what
+Ayesha was to Mahomed), are purely imaginary. I found it necessary to
+supply some explanation of the curious coincidence in time of this
+undoubted marriage with the pitifully brief romance of little Cousin
+Ma'asuma; for Babar was above all things affectionate. I trust my
+imagining fits in with the general tone of my hero's life.
+
+If not, he will forgive me, I am sure. He forgave so many in life that
+he will not grudge forgiveness in death, to his most ardent admirer.
+
+                                                 F. A. Steel.
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS
+
+
+                                BOOK I
+
+Seed Time--1493 to 1504.
+
+                               BOOK II
+
+Blossom Time--1504 to 1511.
+
+                               BOOK III
+
+Fruit Time--1525 to 1530.
+
+
+
+                                BOOK I
+
+                              SEED TIME
+
+                             1493 to 1504
+
+
+
+
+                             KING-ERRANT
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+                                       ".... for I know
+              How far high failure overleaps the bounds
+              Of low successes--"
+                                         _Lewis Morris_.
+
+
+The fortified town of Andijan lay hot in the spring sunshine. Outside
+the citadel, in the clover meadows which stretched from its gate to
+the Black-river (a tributary to the swift Jaxartes which flows through
+the kingdom of Ferghana) a group of boys and men were playing leap-frog.
+
+"An _ushruffi_ he falls," cried one watching the leaper.
+
+"A _dirrhm_ he doesn't!" retorted another who had a broad, frank,
+good-natured face.
+
+"There! He's done! I said so," continued the first not without
+satisfaction, for he was rival for championship.
+
+"Not he!" asserted the second gleefully as the stumble was overborne
+by an extra effort. "Trust him and his luck! He wins! Babar wins!"
+
+And Nevian foster-brother's voice was the loudest in acclaim as
+the frog-like figure with wide-spread legs, after successfully
+backing the long row of bent slaves arranged--with due regard to
+difficulty--adown the meadow-path, finally overtopped the last and
+with a "_hull-lul-la la!_" of triumph subsided incontinently into the
+white clover. And there it lay on its back gazing at the blue sky
+cheerfully.
+
+It was that of rather a lanky boy; to western eyes a well-grown one of
+at least fifteen, with a promise of six feet and more of manhood in
+its long, loose-jointed limbs. But Babar, heir-apparent to this little
+kingdom of Ferghana was only in his twelfth year. His face,
+nevertheless, was extraordinarily intent, with an intentness beyond
+his years, as he lay silent among the clover; for something had come
+between him and his game, between him and the work-a-day world.
+Something that came to him often with the sight of a wide stretch of
+blue sky, a narrow stretch of blue river, or even with the sight of a
+flower upon that river's brim.
+
+How glorious! How splendid it was--this world in which he, forsooth,
+played leap-frog! The clover on which he lay, how sweet it smelt, how
+soft it was! It was just like a mantle of lambskin, covered as it was,
+till you could hardly see a speck of green, with its white, furry
+blobs of blossom.
+
+A lambskin mantle!--that was a good description!
+
+And the sky was like the turquoises that folk brought down from the
+higher hills in the summer when they were not weaving the purple
+cloth, which somehow always got mixed up in his mind with the pale
+blue. Why both recalled the multi-coloured tulips on the mountain
+slopes was a puzzle, except that one beauty recalled another. At that
+rate, however, memory in Ferghana would be unending, for though it
+was, as everyone knew, situated on the extreme boundary of the
+habitable world, it was abundantly pleasant!
+
+The lad's amber-tinted hazel eyes darkened as he ran over in his mind
+the excellencies of his native valley hidden away at the back of the
+Pamirs.
+
+Its snow-clad hills clipping it on all sides save the west; its
+running streams; its violets--so sweet, but not piercing-sweet like a
+rose;--its profusion of fruits! Truly, that way they had over in the
+township of Marghinan of removing apricot stones and putting in
+chopped almonds instead was excellent indeed--
+
+"Most Mighty!" came a voice breaking in on his thoughts. "There is
+news--bad news!"
+
+The voice was breathless, yet full of concern, and Babar sprang to his
+feet, alert in a second. A messenger stood before him; one who had
+come far and fast. And in his hand was a blue kerchief; therefore he
+was a messenger of death.
+
+Death? Incredible in this splendid joyful world! A sudden surge of
+resentful life-blood seemed to stop the boyish heart with its
+tumultuous claim for free passage.
+
+"Well?" he asked thickly.
+
+The answer came like a blow; dully, yet with stunning force.
+
+"Your father, O King!"
+
+His father! And he, Babar, was King! In the rush of realisation
+incredulity came uppermost.
+
+"But how--?"
+
+He stood there bare-headed, unbelieving, while the others crowded
+round to listen.
+
+It was a simple enough tragedy. Omar-Shaikh, his father had been
+feeding his tumbler pigeons on the scarp of a precipice which overhung
+the steep ravine below the fort at Akhsi. He had been watching them
+against the blue void, throwing golden grain to make them play their
+antics, when the ground had given way beneath his feet and he had been
+precipitated on to the river rocks beneath. That was all. The little
+group of listeners showed shocked faces, but Babar, even as he heard
+the tale with dismayed grief, seemed to see the fluttering white wings
+of the startled pigeons, to see the startled soul amongst them, taking
+its flight--
+
+Whitherwards?--Gone!... Never to be seen again! Yet how clearly he saw
+him now ... short, stout, a bushy beard hiding a humorous mouth ...
+the turban without folds and with such long ends ... the tunic all
+over tight ... how often the strings had burst and how angry he had
+been at consequent childish gigglings ...
+
+A sudden spasm of remorse for idle thoughts sent the son's memory back
+to his father's kindness ... a good sportsman too, though but a poor
+shot with the bow ... still with uncommon force in his fists--everyone
+he had ever hit had gone down before father's....
+
+The last word brought memory of a still dearer tie.
+
+"My mother?" asked the boy swiftly, "my mother? How--"
+
+Then the real meaning of what he had heard came to him. He gave a
+little short, sharp cry and cast himself face downwards on the
+sweet-smelling white clover.
+
+And all the joy of splendid life passed from him.
+
+Nevian foster-brother who worshipped him, went over to him and
+crouched beside him.
+
+"It is God's will, sire," he mumbled mechanically. "Kwaja Kazi says
+so, and Kwaja Kazi is a saint."
+
+But saintship did not interest that young human heart, face to face
+for the first time with the deprivation of death.
+
+Meanwhile those others, the bearded nobles and broad-faced courtiers
+who had crowded out at the news, looked at each other in doubt.
+
+What had best be done? The times were troublous. Their new King was
+over-young. The King of Samarkand, the King of Tashkend, his paternal
+uncles, were already on the war-path. The former almost within
+striking distance; and this news of death would hasten, not retard.
+
+In such case, might not refuge in the hills be wise? At any rate till
+Kasim-Beg, most faithful of Governors, and Hassan-Yakoob, wiliest of
+advisers, could be recalled from the front?
+
+But, while they still cogitated, Babar, who even at that age was not
+to be handled, rose suddenly, the tear-stains still on his sun-tanned
+cheeks. His voice, however, was firm.
+
+"To horse, gentlemen!" he cried. "I go to secure my kingdom!"
+
+He was on his lean-necked, goose-rumped Turkhestan mare Zulaikha
+almost before the words passed his lips, and ere two minutes had sped
+the low arched gateway of the city echoed and re-echoed to the hoofs
+of horses, as--the riders low bowed upon their saddles--they swept
+through in a stream of tails and tassels. So had it echoed many a time
+to the wild Turkhoman cavalry, since life in those days was one long
+war and rumour of war.
+
+"My King!" said Shiram-Taghai spurring close as Barbar drew rein on
+the citadel terrace, and laying a detaining hand on his bridle. "That
+way lies death! Thine uncles mean evil! Come with us to the hills."
+
+For an instant the boy hesitated and his eyes sought the distant blue
+of the mountains.
+
+There, doubtless, lay safety--but what of that unknown
+quantity--kingship?
+
+He had no ideals of it. He had not even been brought up to expect the
+chiefship. In those days succession was too uncertain for
+anticipation. But it was something now within his grasp. What if he
+lost it?
+
+Still the faces around him were anxious and their owners were old;
+they had experience. And he was so young! How young none knew but
+himself. As this thought came he felt inclined to cry out-loud for his
+mother as in his heart he was crying for her loving care.
+
+Then from the citadel came a running messenger to bid him enter
+without fear.
+
+"It is a trick, Sire," protested Shiram-Taghai. "Safety lies with us."
+
+And others echoed his words; so the lad wavered, uncertain, till an
+old man seated in the sunshine mumbling to himself, his long white
+beard wagging the while, spoke chance words that gave him the clue.
+
+"Whatever happens is God's will, as the saints say."
+
+Five minutes afterwards the young King knelt before Khwaja Kazi, the
+saint of his family, for his decision. He was a thin ascetic-looking
+man whose sunken eyes, hollowed by many fasts, hardened by much
+thought, but softened by the unshed tears of a lonely life, dipped
+critically into the clear, shadowless youth of the hazel ones and
+appraised the character of the young face with its fine-lipped mouth
+that tempered the strong square of the chin. And Khwaja Kazi knew the
+inside of the boy as well. He had watched him from birth; and lawyer
+and judge by profession, had accurately gauged the volatile, versatile
+vitality which would carry him triumphantly over all the obstacles in
+the leap-frog race of life. But he saw the dangers ahead also, and he
+loved the lad as his own soul; as indeed, despite all his faults, most
+people did love Babar in fortune and misfortune, in sickness and in
+health.
+
+And the keen observer noticed how firmly the young hand closed over
+his scimitar-hilt. It was enough for one accustomed to weigh evidence
+and give verdicts.
+
+"Draw thy sword, my son! and stand firm!"
+
+The decree fell on glad ears. The boy was on his feet in a second and
+the war-shout of his race rang through the smoke-grimed old hall.
+Kingship lay before him.
+
+As yet, however, the tragedy of death clouded his outlook. His dead
+father awaited burial at Akshi, thirty miles distant; but ere he could
+start thitherwards many arrangements and new appointments had to be
+made. The novelty of power carried him far from thought. It was
+dream-like to be giving orders when but an hour before he had existed
+solely by the pleasure and permission of his father; as every other
+son in Moghulistan lived in those quaint old days.
+
+It was dark, therefore, ere he and his galloping party stumbled over
+the stone causeways leading up to the high-perched citadel at Akshi.
+Too late to disturb the women-folk, who, outworn by wailing, had gone
+to rest. But a little knot of long-robed physicians showed him the
+dead body of his father, lying ready for the funeral on an open bier
+in the Audience Hall. Babar had often seen death before, but never in
+this guise, with watchers and flaring torches and all the insignia of
+chiefship discarded, before the poor deserted shell of power.
+
+It impressed his emotional nature vividly, and the mystery and the
+pity of it went with him to the dim royal room--so rough in its
+ancient royalty--where his father had been wont to sleep, and where
+the very touch of the royal quilts, surcharged with the personality of
+the cold dead in whose place he lived, seemed to burn in upon his
+young body and keep it awake. Not with concern or regret for things
+past, but with keen curiosity as to what was going to happen in the
+future to one Zahir-ud-din Mahomed commonly called Babar.
+
+Lineal descendant of Timur the Earth Trembler; also of the Great
+Barbarian Ghengis Khan, was he to follow in their footsteps of
+conquest? Or would he be snuffed out at once by Uncle Ahmed of
+Samarkand? Wherefore, God knew, since he, Babar, had never done his
+uncle any harm. On the contrary; if he lived, he would have to marry
+that uncle's daughter Ayesha.... Here his vagrant thoughts wandered to
+remembrance of how sick he had been from overeating himself on sweets
+at the betrothal ceremonies;--that was his very earliest _real_
+recollection--when he was five years old.
+
+Then there was Uncle Mahmud of Tashkend. Even in the dark the boy's
+cheek flushed at the mere remembrance of him; equally devoid of
+courage and modesty, of unbelieving disposition, keeping buffoons and
+scoundrels about him who enacted their scurvy and disgraceful tricks
+in the very face of the court, and even at public audiences!--of no
+outward appearance either, but all rough-hewn and speaking very
+ill ...
+
+The lad, always unsparing of epithet, painted the portrait with
+remorseless hand. So his thoughts passed to Mahmud's sons, his first
+cousins. He knew them well, but Masaud the eldest was a nincompoop,
+and as for Baisanghar? What was there that jarred at times in
+Baisanghar? Baisanghar who was so charming, so elegant, so clever, so
+sweet-tempered?
+
+Here the lad's mind passed swiftly, without conscious cause, to his
+own sister, Dearest-One as he always called her; for he was given to
+caressing nicknames for those he loved. And he loved none better than
+the tall, straight girl, five years his senior, who hectored him and
+petted him by turns. But she ought really to get married; it was
+nonsense to say you preferred being a sainted Canoness!
+
+Baisanghar did not say that, though, he, too, refused to marry. He
+said women were unnecessary evils. Was that true? Not that it
+mattered, since he, Babar, would have to marry, because he was
+King ...
+
+King! Would it make him happier, he wondered? Could anyone be happier
+than he had been in this splendid world? Supposing it was to make him
+unhappy? Supposing it took the charm from life ...
+
+The idle thoughts went on and on. He felt sleepy, yet he could not
+sleep. And by and by the glimmering oblong of the unglazed window kept
+him watching the slow growth of light.
+
+Out on the hills, the still dawn must be stepping softly so as not to
+waken the world too soon ... soft, sandalled feet among the snow-set
+flowers....
+
+The mere thought of it was sufficient to rouse him thoroughly. He
+rose, passed to the window, and thrust his young body into the chill
+air of dawn. All shadow! A deeper shadow in the valley, a lighter
+shadow in the encircling hills, and above it all the clear, grey,
+pellucid shadow of the sky.
+
+Hark! That was the dawn cry of the wild fowl on the marsh and he held
+his breath to listen like the young Narcissus, while the whole joy of
+splendid life seemed to fill his world once more. He did not
+realise--few humans do--that he was but listening for the echo of
+himself; the self which came back to him from sights and sounds, that
+many a better man might have seen and heard unmoved.
+
+So he waited and watched till the eastern sky showed pale primrose,
+and the unseen sun encarnadined the distant snows, and separated the
+white morning mists from the blue shadows of the hills.
+
+It was a new day, and yonder over the brow of the road were pennons
+and lance-points. The tribesmen were coming to bury the dead, to do
+homage to the living.
+
+It was a busy day, filled up with long-drawn, intricate ceremonial.
+Bare time for more than one tight clasp of tearless mother and
+tearless son, while that Dearest-One, his sister, stood by silent, the
+tear-stains still on her cheeks. But that did not matter; those three
+understood each other.
+
+And old Isan-daulet, his maternal grandmother, had set emotion aside
+also, and, stern old disciplinarian as she was, had bidden him--in
+high staccato phrases which betrayed her effort to keep calm--take his
+father's place as bravely as he could.
+
+And he did what he could, though it was a strain upon his twelve young
+years, for the long night had left him feverish and the long day with
+its need for initiative had outwearied him. So that when at last the
+ordeal was over, and he was free to seek the women's apartments for
+rest, his nerves were all a-rack, his pulse fast and irregular.
+
+He found his grandmother alone by the big coal fire. Mother and
+sister, outwearied also, had gone to bed; the best place, the old lady
+said oracularly, for sore eyes and broken hearts. And Babar felt it
+was better so. The company of the stern-featured, soft-hearted old
+woman of whose sagacity and clear-sightedness he stood somewhat in
+awe, would be more bracing than the tears which must come sooner or
+later.
+
+People said he was like his grandmother. Was he, he wondered, as he
+lay prone on the sheepskin rug watching the firelight on her fine old
+face.
+
+"Tell me!" he said suddenly, "the tale of thy youth--of Jaimal and the
+lover who was slain."
+
+But Isan-daulet, though she smiled, shook her wise old head.
+
+"Nay, child! Such tales do to stir phlegm. They are not meet when the
+humours are already disturbed."
+
+The boy leaned over on his elbows and looked up at her.
+
+"Like cures like by comparison! 'Twould steady my pulse to know others
+throbbed. Feel mine, Grandam--how it beats!"
+
+She took the thin, muscular wrist held out to her and appraised it
+judicially.
+
+"I will give thee a purge the morrow's morn," she said shortly. "That
+will keep thy head cooler than idle tales; there is nothing for hot
+boy's blood like a purge."
+
+Babar's face showed obstinate yet whimsical. "I will not take it,
+_nanni_, if thou wilt not tell--so there! And Kings are not to be
+coerced, see you, by black draughts, as mere boys are. And 'tis the
+first boon I have asked from thee--_as I am_."
+
+The ring of almost apprehension in the last words was too much for the
+old woman, who loved the lad as the apple of her eye. She laid her
+hand caressingly on the boy's hair. It was cut, Florentine fashion, to
+the ears, and the ends, outsweeping in a gentle curve were sun-burned
+browner than the rest of the dark head.
+
+"It is little to tell, sweetheart, save that it shows how even
+womanhood may confound strength by being resolute. It was not many
+years after my lord, your grandfather, married me in my father the
+Khan's tents upon the Steppes. He was a bold, brave man, was my lord,
+and like all bold, brave ones, he fought sometimes and won, and
+sometimes he fought and lost. 'No battle is ended save by Death,'
+remember that, O! Zahir-ud-din Mahomed! And once when he lost, his
+women--I was one--fell into the hands of Jaimal Shaikh, his enemy.
+And he--low-bred hound who knew not the first principles of
+politeness!--did not even keep me for himself!--I was not ill-looking
+in those days, my child--but sent me to his officer. I, the wife of
+Yunus Khan, Chagatai, of the house of Timur the Earth Trembler! Well!
+the fool came decked as for a bridal with blandishments and perfumes,
+and I welcomed him. Wherefore not? for the supper was good and he
+played on the lute passably. But when that was over, and we withdrew
+smiling to the inner room, my maids locked the door by my orders,
+stabbed the silly rake to death and flung his be-scented body through
+the window to the gutter. 'Twas its proper place."
+
+The old voice which had gained strength and fire in the recital,
+dropped to cold, hard finality.
+
+"And Jaimal Shaikh?" queried Babar unwilling to lose a word.
+
+"He sent for me and I went. 'Why hast thou done this evil thing?' he
+asked. 'Because thou didst worse,' I answered. 'Because thou sentest
+me, the wife of a living man, to another's embrace. Therefore I slew
+him. Slay me also, if so it pleases thee.'
+
+"But it did not please him. 'Take her to her husband's prison,' he
+said, 'and leave her there. They are one flesh indeed.' So I stopped
+with thy grandfather and comforted him until his star rose again. Now,
+get thee to thy bed, child, and see thou take the draught without
+demur. Remember 'God is no maker of the promise breaker.' 'Twill make
+thee feel sick, doubtless; but what matter if the result be good."
+
+Babar made a wry face and laughed. "Thou hast done me more good with
+thy tale, revered one! Lo! I can see thy would-be lover in the gutter
+and my esteemed grandmother, all beautiful as a bride, peeking through
+the lattice for a glimpse of his corpse--"
+
+"Go to thy bed, child," put in the old lady, delighted. "There be more
+than pictures for thy sight now; so may the Great Maker of Kings guard
+thee, his creature."
+
+And that night Zahir-ud-din Mahomed commonly called Babar, forgot that
+he was King in sound, dreamless, boyish sleep.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II
+
+   "There's a sweet little cherub who sits up aloft  To keep
+    watch for the life of Poor Jack!"
+
+
+In truth, Babar needed such a cherub in the first days of his
+King-ship, for Kasim and Hussan, his two advisers, fell foul of one
+another. The former, bluff, honest, facetious, a pious, faithful,
+religious Moslem who carefully abstained from forbidden meats and
+drinks, and whose judgment and talents were uncommonly good though he
+could neither read nor write, was for the forward policy. Hussan,
+polished, active, a man of courage who wrote excellent verses and was
+remarkable for his skill in playing polo and leap-frog, was for
+diplomacy. And against these latter qualifications even honest Kasim's
+ingenuous and elegant vein of wit could not stand.
+
+At least in young Babar's judgment. Old Isan-daulet his grandmother
+was, however, of a different opinion, and even Dearest-One, his
+sister, ventured to rally him gently on his choice of Prime-minister.
+
+"What," asked Babar hotly in reply, "is Hussan the worse for playing
+games? Is a man the worse for doing all things well?"
+
+"Nay! but rather the better--so be it that they be men's things," she
+replied, going on imperturbably with the embroidery of a new pennon
+for her brother. It was green and violet, his favourite colours, and
+she was scrolling a text on it in crinkled gold. As she sat in the
+sunshine on the flat roof of the citadel, her bare head gleaming brown
+in the glare of light, her mourning garment of dark blue short in the
+sleeves and low at the neck showing her wheat-coloured skin, she was a
+pretty creature, though her nose was too long, her chin too short for
+real beauty: that lay in her eyes, amber-tinted like her brother's.
+
+"Man's things! What be man's things?" argued Babar irritably. "Is
+cousin Baisanghar no man because he could help thee embroider two
+years agone?"
+
+The princess held her head very high. It was not nice of her brother
+to import strange young men into the conversation, and distinctly mean
+of him to mention that old breach of etiquette. Had she not heard
+enough of it from her mother, ever since? Luckily grandam Isan-daulet,
+being desert-born, had not been so shocked, or life would have been
+unendurable. And as for Baisanghar! Everyone knew he was not at all a
+proper young man, though he was so charming, so sweet-tempered, so ...
+
+"Lo! brother!" she said with asperity, checking her vagrant thoughts,
+"if one fool shook a baby's rattle better than another, he would be
+wise man to thee. But 'tis not I only who find leap-frog Hussan a
+smooth-tongued hypocrite. Grandmother has her eye on him."
+
+"Then can no harm happen," said the boy-King cheerfully, rising,
+however, with suspicious alacrity as if to escape from the subject. In
+truth he was somewhat afraid of old Isan-daulet though he tried to
+minimise his awe by asserting that very few of her sex could equal her
+in sagacity!
+
+Events, however, had marched with great rapidity, and Sultan Ahmed,
+his uncle, was now with his army but sixteen miles from Andijan.
+
+So something must be settled. Kasim was for defiance and defence,
+Hussan for diplomatic and dutiful submission; since the King of
+Samarkand was, ever, indubitably suzerain-lord of Ferghana.
+
+"Words against works," quoth honest Kasim, who loved to be
+epigrammatic. His experience told him that if you fought fair you
+failed at times, but in the end you came out top dog in the general
+scrimmage of claims and clans.
+
+"Nay!" retorted Hussan, "I desire diplomacy, not dare-devil disregard
+of common precautions."
+
+Babar, however, frowned at both as he sat listening to the council of
+war or peace. He favoured neither pugnacity nor deceit.
+
+"Look you, gentlemen," he said, frowning. "All admit my Uncle Ahmed to
+be a fool whom fools lead by the nose; but is that cause why I should
+treat him foolishly, and so disgrace myself? I will neither fight nor
+yield till I have made him understand how the matter lies. So, let a
+scribe be brought and I will indite him a letter."
+
+"No letter ever did any good," grumbled illiterate Kasim.
+
+"Especially if it be not received nor read," suggested Hussan
+sardonically. "The King of Samarkand is supreme and may refuse aught
+but a personal interview."
+
+Kasim shot furious glances: such talk savoured to him of treason; but
+Babar only looked gravely from one adviser to the other.
+
+"So be it," he said cheerfully. "If he refuse reception or
+understanding, then--if so it pleases God--I can defeat him at my
+leisure. Meanwhile write thus, O scribe!--with all proper titles,
+compliments and reverences--'I, Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar, rightful
+heir, and _by acclaim_ (underline that, scribe!) of this Kingdom of
+Ferghana, do with courtesy and reasonableness point out that it is
+plain that if you take this country you must place one of your
+servants in charge of it, since you reign at Samarkand. Now I am at
+once your servant and your son. Also I have a hereditary right to the
+government. If therefore you entrust me with this employment, your
+purpose will be attained in a far more easy and satisfactory way than
+by fighting and killing a number of people (and horses) needlessly.
+Wherefore I remain your loyal feudatory Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar.'"
+
+He beamed round on the council for approval of this logical argument,
+then added hastily, "And, scrivener! put 'Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar'
+large; and 'King of Ferghana' larger still at the very end. That will
+show him my intentions."
+
+If it did, the effect was poor: for though the letter was duly
+engrossed on silk paper sprinkled with rose-essence and gold-dust,
+enclosed in a brocade bag, and sent to the invading camp at Kaba,
+the only answer to its irrefutable logic was a further advance of
+spear-points and pennons to within four miles of the citadel.
+
+Kasim was jubilant. Jocose and bellicose he routed out armouries for
+catapults, and kept long files of men busy in passing up stones from
+the river bed, while forage parties raided the bazaars for provisions.
+
+If there was to be a defence it must be the longest on record, even if
+it were unsuccessful in the end.
+
+Babar himself donned mail and corselet for the first time. But he
+discarded the latter soon; it made him, he said, feel like a trussed
+pheasant, and he preferred the wadded coatee which would turn most
+scimitar cuts. It made him look burly as he strode round the ramparts,
+so that the sentries smiled to themselves and felt a glow at the heart
+remembering how young he was.
+
+The stoutness, resolution, and unanimity of his soldiers and subjects
+to fight to the last drop of their blood, the last gasp of their life,
+without yielding, filled the boy with unmixed admiration. It was part
+of the general splendidness of things which almost dazzled him.
+
+"My younger troops display distinguished courage," he said gravely,
+and Kasim hid a smile with difficulty as he replied, "They have youth
+in their favour, Most Excellent. It is a great gift."
+
+Then he went out and roared over the joke on the ramparts to the
+sentries' huge delight. When next the young King went his rounds,
+smiles greeted him everywhere. He was a King to be proud of, and his
+family was worth fighting for--all of them! Especially the tall, slim
+figure with close-drawn veil which would often accompany the King at
+dusk. For Dearest-One was keenly interested in things militant, and
+was free to come and go, as the Turkhi women were, with due
+restrictions. And these were few in Babar's clan, which, as
+Grandmother Isan-daulet would boast, was "desert born."
+
+But, after all, the preparations were unnecessary. The little cherub
+intervened, rather to the boy's chagrin, though he admitted piously
+that Providence in its perfect power and wisdom had brought certain
+events to pass which frustrated the enemies' designs, and made them
+return whence they came without success, and heartily repenting them
+of their attempt.
+
+An exceedingly satisfactory but at the same time a disappointing end
+to his first chance of a real fine fight; and he watched one reverse
+after another overtake his foes on the other side of the Black-river
+with almost sympathetic eyes.
+
+"There is a murrain amongst their horses now," reported the chief
+farrier one day, "my sister's son who is in service with the
+Samarkandis crept over last night to beg condiments for Prince
+Baisanghar's charger which is down--the same that the Most Excellent
+gave him three years agone."
+
+"Baisanghar?" echoed Babar hurriedly. "I knew not that he was--amongst
+mine enemies!" Then he paused, and reason came to him. "Likely he is
+with his father of Tashkend who hovers on the edge of invasion, and
+hath ridden over--there is no harm in that. What didst give the
+fellow?"
+
+The farrier laughed. "A flea in his ear, Most Clement! A likely story,
+indeed, that I should help our enemies."
+
+Babar frowned and turned away. "'Twas a good horse, poor beast," he
+murmured. And afterwards, he went over to the women's quarters, and,
+as his wont was, retailed the story to those three, Isan-daulet, his
+mother and Dearest-One. The grim old Turkhoman lady was sympathetic
+about the horses, as a daughter of the Steppes must needs be, but
+stern over the necessities of war. His mother, more soft-hearted than
+ever by reason of her mourning, wept silently. But Dearest-One, was,
+as ever, a joy.
+
+"I would bastinado the farrier," she said vindictively. "The poor
+brute; and then think of cousin Baisanghar. He loved the horse!"
+
+Her beautiful eyes flashed and yet were melting, her long brown
+fingers gripped her embroidery closer yet more caressingly. Her
+brother sate and looked at her admiringly, yet with a certain
+diffidence. Sometimes Dearest-One went beyond him; she seemed to
+unfold wings and skim away into another world. And when he asked her
+whither she went, she would smile mysteriously and say:
+
+"Thou wilt unfold thy wings also, some day, O little-big-one, and find
+a new world for thyself."
+
+There was little leisure now, however, for aught but watch and ward.
+Any moment of the day or night might bring assault; but the days
+passed and none came. And then one morning broke and showed a smaller
+camp than had been on the low lying river bank the night before; there
+was a bustle, too, about the still-standing tent pegs, and with the
+first glint of sunlight one Dervish Mahomed Turkhau rode over the
+narrow bridge and demanded, on the part of his master, an audience
+with Hussan. Old Kasim looked daggers, but there was no objecting. By
+virtue of his position as Prime-minister Hussan was the man to go, and
+he went. So out in the Place-of-Festivals beyond the gates, they met
+and parleyed: thus patching up a sort of peace, as Babar reported
+contemptuously to his faithful three. He was intensely disgusted and
+disappointed, while Kasim looked sorrowfully at his piles of stones.
+
+"They will do for next time," he said finally, cheering himself up
+with the remembrance that there were many other claimants to the
+throne of Ferghana to be reckoned with besides Sultan Ahmed. And by
+evening most of the garrison had found solace for their disappointment
+in overeating themselves, after the disciplined rations which
+Kasim-Beg, mindful of the possibility of a long siege, had already
+ordained; but Babar and his foster-brother Nevian were out all day on
+their little Turkhoman horses, chasing the white deer and shooting with
+their bows and arrows at a cock pheasant or two.
+
+They brought home one in the evening which, as the boy boasted, was so
+fat, that four men could have dined on the stew of it!
+
+"'Twill do for our dinner anyhow," said Babar's mother, and
+thereinafter she and Isan-daulet bullied cooks and scullions and
+gently quarrelled with each other for a good two hours over the proper
+family recipe for making "_ishkanah_."
+
+And afterwards they sat together in an arched sort of balcony
+vestibule between the women's apartments and the men's rooms and
+talked happily, yet soberly of the future. Old Isan-daulet indeed,
+waxed prophetic. "See you, my sons-in-law will come to harm, not good.
+Ahmed has had to renounce his evil desires. Mahmud will have to do the
+same; and let them pray God He send not punishment also." And she
+pursed up her thin lips and looked as if she knew something.
+
+But the Khanum, Babar's mother, said little; her heart was still
+sad and she crept away early to her bed, followed after awhile by
+Isan-daulet, leaving stern injunctions on Dearest-One not to sit up
+over-long.
+
+So brother and sister were left alone, and she went and sat beside him
+as he dangled his legs over the parapet of the balcony; for he dearly
+loved looking down from a height. It was to be a dark night so he
+could see little even of the roofs below, or the slabs of stone let
+into the wall at intervals to form a sort of ladder by which a bold
+man could climb from one to the other. And beyond, all was shadow,
+darker in some places than others. Besprinkled too with stars: the
+moving star or two of a lantern in the earth-shadow, but in the sky
+those changeless, changeful beacons, those twinkling tireless stars,
+motionless in their constellations, yet ever moving on and on ...
+
+Round what?...
+
+"Look!" he cried suddenly, "the scimitar of the Warrior is sheathed in
+the hills--my hills!"--
+
+And it was so. Orion shone to the north, setting slowly behind the
+mighty rampart of shadowed mountains in which the starry sword was
+already hidden.
+
+They sat silent for a little while, hand in hand, like the children
+that they were. And then suddenly a noise below them, made Babar swing
+his legs to the ground and stand firm before his sister.
+
+"Who goes?" he asked and his voice rang through the darkness; but no
+answer came.
+
+"'Twas a falling stone, methinks," said his sister carelessly; yet
+even as she spoke she also sprang to her feet, every atom of her, soul
+and body alert for something, she scarce knew what.
+
+She knew, however, in a second, for a darker shadow showed vaguely at
+the end of the balcony, vaulted lightly over the parapet, and a
+pleasant voice said gaily--
+
+"Mirza Baisanghar of the House of Timur, cousin to the King of
+Ferghana, at your service."
+
+"Baisanghar!" echoed Babar. "How camest thou?--" then, even in his
+confusion remembering, as he generally did, _les convenances_ for
+others he added: "Thou hadst best retire, my sister, after making thy
+appropriate salutation."
+
+So, for one second the girl's eyes straining through the starlight
+could see her cousin. A charming figure truly! Not dressed, like her
+brother, in country clothes, but in the silks and satins of the town.
+A dainty figure too, of middle height and slender make, yet manly
+withal. The round face, unlike the faces of his cousins, showing
+Turkhoman descent unmistakably, yet with such indescribable
+attractiveness.
+
+"May the Peace of the Most High be upon you, my cousin," she said
+softly and her voice fluttered.
+
+"And may His Peace remain with you, fair lady," he replied gravely,
+with the finest of Court salutes. That was all; then she withdrew and
+the shadows hid her going.
+
+"By my soul, Baisanghar," said Babar joyously, when he had seated
+himself and his cousin side by side among the cushions, "I am utterly
+rejoiced to see thee again; though how, or wherefore thou camest--"
+
+Prince Baisanghar interrupted him with a light laugh. "How, sayest
+thou? By the roof of course; have I not been in Andijan before? and
+did I not once climb hitherwards--but of that, no more! Only thou wilt
+have to set thy masons to work, coz; for by God's truth my foothold
+was but rotten more than once. Sure I must be born to the bowstring
+since sudden death will not have me elseways! Yet of all seriousness,
+I
+came nigh to being dashed to pieces. And as for wherefore? Sure I came
+in duty bound to thank my kingly cousin for his courteous gift of
+horse-medicine. Aye! and for my horse too--for the second time--since,
+thanks to the drugs, he is alive and kicking."
+
+Babar sat back. "Horse-medicines?" he echoed. "What horse-medicine?--I
+sent thee none."
+
+Baisanghar turned his head instantly to the darkness, and his voice
+rose perceptibly. "Yet it came from thee, my cousin," he replied
+blandly, "with thy salutations. In a packet of silken paper--such as
+ladies use for their trinkets, and tied with crinkled gold-thread such
+as ladies use--"
+
+"Yea! it was I, Mirza Baisanghar," came a voice from the darkness; a
+voice clear, unabashed. "I sent it--I, the Princess Royal, so
+there is no need for fine wit to beat about the bush. I sent it,
+because--because my brother the King gave thee the horse and I was
+loth--loth it should die."
+
+The voice trailed away faintly, and Mirza Baisanghar's eyes brimmed
+over with soft mirth; while Babar, forgetful of all save outraged
+etiquette, said sternly:
+
+"Sister! and I told thee to go."
+
+"And I went," retorted the voice rebelliously, "so far as eyesight
+goes. None can see me and 'tis the woman's right to listen."
+
+Prince Baisanghar laughed aloud. "By the prophet! she speaks truth,
+coz; ladies have the law of listening all over the world; aye! and of
+speaking too. So let be, since we are cousins and free-born Chagatai
+of the house of Ghengis."
+
+But Babar stickled. "Aye, _we_ are; but thou art not--not on thy
+mother's side."
+
+"My mother!" echoed Baisanghar, his voice full of amusement. "Lo! I
+admit it! On my mother's side I am beyond salvation, being of the wild
+Horde-of-Black-Sheep! for which may God forgive me since 'tis not my
+fault I was not born a White-Lamb!" He named the two great divisions
+of his Turkhoman ancestry with infinite zest, then went on lightly:
+"But I fail of myself in other ways--many of them. I made an ode
+concerning it, a while past, that sets Baisanghar Black-Sheep-Prince
+forth to a nicety!" and he began airily to hum a tune.
+
+"Sing it to us, cousin," came that sweet voice from the darkness.
+
+There was a moment of silence, as if the hearer were startled, perhaps
+touched; then came the almost stiff reply:
+
+"My fair cousin is too kind. The ode as verse is nothing worth. And
+its subject is, beyond belief--bad! Still, since she is Princess-Royal
+and I am but her slave, the order is obeyed."
+
+So through the night and out into the stars his high tenor voice rose
+and trilled in minor quavers.
+
+
+[Illustration: Music notes for first and third stanzas.]
+
+   1. Some-times with pi-ous-ness I crawl
+      To-wards High Heav'n on whit-ed wall
+
+   3. Back to the dust and dirt I fly
+      Where un-sub-stan-tial shad-ows lie.
+
+[Illustration: Music notes for second stanza.]
+
+   2. Or rest a-while on tree or flow'r
+      And dream but on-ly for an hour.
+
+
+The quavers ceased, and there was silence from the darkness; but
+Babar's boyish voice rose cheerful as ever.
+
+"'Tis good, cousin, and, in a measure, true. Yet need it not be so,
+surely. Thou hast no lack of parts. Who is more accomplished, of more
+pleasant disposition or more charming manners?"
+
+"I came not hitherto to be catalogued for sale," interrupted
+Baisanghar curtly. "Of a truth I am admirable. I sing, I dance, I
+paint--yea! I paint uncommon--I could paint one fair lady's portrait
+could I but see her--"
+
+Still there was silence from the shadows, and a frown came to the
+laughter-loving face. "But I waste time," he continued, "and I have
+much to say, for thine ear alone."
+
+He spoke to the darkness, and he waited, his face softening while a
+whispering sound as of light departing feet rose for a space then died
+away in the distance.
+
+It was a good half hour afterwards that Mirza Baisanghar, who knew his
+way well about the palace at Andijan, came with buoyant step down the
+spiral stairs which ended in a narrow vaulted passage that led to the
+sally-port.
+
+His cousin, from whom he had parted most affectionately, had given him
+the pass-word, so, secure from molestation, he was carelessly humming
+the refrain of his own ode ...
+
+
+      "Back to the dirt and dust I fly
+       Where unsubstantial shadows lie."
+
+
+The light-hearted, cynical words echoed along the arches and on them
+rose a curious sound, half cry, half sob, followed by a torrent of hot
+denial.
+
+"It is a lie! It is not true and thou knowest it. Why shouldest thou
+say such things of thyself, O Baisanghar?--they--they--hurt!"
+
+The young man stood still as if turned to stone.
+
+"Dearest-One," he whispered at last, using the familiar name he was
+accustomed to hear--"Dost really care--so much?--And I--" he paused
+and a mirthless laugh rang false upon the darkness--"Princess--I
+cannot even thank thee--I--I dare not--save for the horse-medicines--"
+Here the artificial note left his voice and with a sudden cry "If I
+could--if I could, beloved," his eager hands went out and found what
+they sought, a lithe, warm, young body ready to his arms. But almost
+ere he clasped it he thrust it from him roughly.
+
+"Go!" he said briefly. "Go, girl--and forget me--if thou canst. Yet
+remember this--if ever woman's lips touch mine, they would be
+yours--but that will be never--never!"
+
+The next instant he was gone. Dearest-One stood, straining her eyes
+unavailingly into the darkness for a space: then she cowered down in
+on herself and sat shivering, her wide eyes open, fixed. But there was
+nothing to be seen in her heaven or earth: nothing to be realised,
+save that he would not even touch her.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III
+
+   "Draw near, O Man! and lift thy dreamy eyes.
+    See! this the ball; this the arena too
+    Where, mounted on the steed of Love, the prize
+    Is to be won by him who--God in view--
+    Strikes skilfully.
+    The Goal is distant; narrow too the Field;
+    Yet strike with freedom. God will send the Ball
+    Thy hand as sped in faith, where it should fall.
+    Backwards and forward strike and if thou yield
+    Yield cheerfully."
+
+
+Grandmother Isan-daulet proved true prophet. Ere forty days had passed
+from that patched up peace, another hasty messenger bearing a blue
+'kerchief of death had arrived at Akshi whither the court had gone to
+celebrate the late king's obsequies. Ahmed, the King of Samarkand had
+been seized with a burning fever and after six days had departed from
+this transitory world.
+
+Babar was sorry. His uncle, he said, had been better than most. A
+plain, honest Turk not favoured by genius, who had never omitted the
+five daily prayers except when honestly drunk. And that was but
+seldom, seeing that when he did take to drinking wine, he drank
+without intermission for a month or six weeks at a stretch and
+thereinafter would be sober for a considerable time. So there had
+always been periods for piety.
+
+The womenkind wept, of course, for blood feuds enhanced blood
+relationships when Death the peace bringer stepped in between the
+combatants. Besides, mourning was already afoot; so they could kill
+two birds with one stone. Even Fatima Begum, the late King's first
+wife, who, losing her premier position through childlessness had
+retreated in a huff to a separate establishment, joined in the chorus
+of wailing. And she brought her belated son Jahangir--nigh three years
+younger than Babar--to take his rightful place in the palace; much to
+old Isan-daulet's indignation.
+
+"Set her up, indeed," she said with a toss of her head, "her and her
+belated brat. Mark my words, had the child been lawful, 'twould have
+come betimes. But when 'tis hoighty-toighty and a separate house, only
+God knows to what an honest man may be made father."
+
+Still the function was a function, and the ladies enjoyed all the
+ceremonies; for they were simple folk, content with little, and that
+little rough and rude, for all they were Queens and Princesses.
+
+Babar, however, wearied of all save the giving of victuals to the
+poor. He loved to see joy at a portion of _pillau_ and butter cakes.
+Indeed he surreptitiously ordered more sugar for the children's thick
+milk. It made him feel hungry, he said, to see them eat it. And there
+was no better enjoyment in the world than real hunger; provided always
+that food was in prospect. For he was tender-hearted over frail
+humanity. He could not see, for instance, why the Black-eyed Princess,
+his father's last and low-born wife who was, of course, quite beyond
+the circle of distinction, should not be allowed, if it pleased her,
+to discover a roundabout relationship to the family of Timur. It did
+not alter facts. But Isan-daulet sniffed.
+
+"'Twill not alter her manners or her speech anyhow; though 'tis true
+in a way. We be all descended from Adam, as I tell her morn, noon, and
+night."
+
+So Babar had to listen to the Black-eyed one's wails; which he did in
+kindly kingly fashion, for he liked the good-natured, stupid, pretty
+creature. He had, however, other things to think of. His Uncle Ahmed's
+death had vaguely disturbed him; for Uncle Ahmed left no male heirs;
+and the question of succession was a burning one, since, by all the
+laws of Moghulistan, Babar had a double claim to the throne through
+his maternal grandfather Yunus Khan.
+
+"Of a surety," he said to Dearest-One who was ever _confidante_ of his
+ambitions and innermost thoughts, "there is no doubt that, now, Uncle
+Mahmud, as brother, succeeds of right. But at his death? Cousin Masaud
+and Cousin Baisanghar are not so close to Yunus Khan as I. Then Masaud
+is a nincompoop, and Baisanghar--" he paused.
+
+"Well! what of Cousin Baisanghar?" asked the girl hotly.
+
+Babar whittled away with his knife at the arrow he was making--for he
+was ever useful with his hands--ere he replied slowly:
+
+"Baisanghar will never make a king. Wherefore I know not; but there it
+is. He is not fit for it."
+
+Dearest-One was aflame in a second. "Not fit for it?" she echoed.
+"That is not true. He is as fit for it really as--as thou art,
+brother. Only he will belittle himself! He will talk of himself as a
+shadow--an unsubstantial shadow! It is not true, it is not right, it
+is not fair, and so I told him the other night."
+
+Babar put down his knife and stared.
+
+"Thou didst tell him so--but when?"
+
+Dearest-One hung her head, though a faint smile showed on her face.
+She had given herself away; but she was not in the least afraid of her
+brother. Many youngsters of his age might, from their own experiences
+in love affairs, have been seriously disturbed at the idea of their
+sister speaking to a young man on a dark stair; but Babar was an
+innocent child. To him it would be but a slight breach of decorum. Yet
+something made her breath short as she replied coolly:
+
+"I met him on the stairs. It was dark, so he could not see me,
+brother; and I spoke to him as--as a mother to her son." The head went
+down a little more over the last words; true as they were in one
+sense, she knew better in her heart-of-hearts.
+
+"And he--what said he?" asked Babar alertly, taking his sister
+completely by surprise. With the memory of that cry "Beloved!
+beloved!" in her mind--it had lingered there day and night--she
+faltered.
+
+"Dearest-One!" said the boy, grave, open-eyed, after a pause, "did he
+kiss thee?"
+
+The girl looked up indignantly, a dark flush under her wheat-coloured
+skin. "Kiss me?" she echoed--"he did not even really touch me--"
+
+And then, suddenly, she hid her face in her hands and burst into
+tears. True--he had not touched her--he had shrunk from her eager
+body. Why? oh, why?--
+
+Babar was full of concern. He laid down his knife and arrow, and went
+over to his sister. "Then there is nothing to weep about, see you," he
+said stoutly, "save lack of manners, and for that thou art sorry. Is
+it not so, dearest?"
+
+The girl's sobs changed to a half-hysterical giggle. "So sorry--" she
+assented, "and thou wilt not tell Grandmother--"
+
+"The prophet forbid!" cried her brother aghast; "I should never hear
+the last of it."
+
+And Dearest-One's tears changed to real laughter.
+
+"Brother," she cried, "thou art the dearest darling of all! I would do
+aught in the whole world for thee."
+
+"Nay," replied Babar gravely, "that will I never ask of thee. My
+womenkind shall have no task to do that my hands cannot compass
+alone."
+
+He felt virtuous as he spoke; rather uplifted, too, by that same
+virtue. He did not know what Fate held in store for him. He did not
+dream that he would have to ask of her the greatest sacrifice a woman
+can make, and that she would make it willingly.
+
+Meanwhile it was gorgeous summer tide, and Hussan played forward in
+the King's game of polo, down in the river meadows. He was the best of
+forwards; the best of men consequently to the boy-King.
+
+"Thou art a young fool, child!" said old Isan-daulet who never minced
+her words, "as thou wilt surely find out ere long unless God made thee
+stupid blind. Luckily mine eyes are open; so go thy way and knock
+balls about after the manner of men."
+
+Thus it was early autumn ere Babar's eyes opened; but then what he saw
+made his young blood surge through him from head to foot. The
+meanness, the deceit of it! To conspire with the ambassador from
+wicked Uncle Mahmud at Samarkand who had come ostensibly to present an
+offering of silver almonds and golden pistachio nuts, to depose him,
+Babar, and put "the brat" Jahangir on the throne. And all the while to
+be playing forward in the King's game! It was too much! It was not
+fair! It was emphatically _not_ the game!
+
+"Throw away bad butter while it's melted," said Isan-daulet firmly;
+"Send Kasim-Beg and other trustworthy friends to strangle him with a
+bow string! Then wilt thou be quit of such devils' spawn."
+
+But Babar was a sportsman. Even if it came to killing the forward in
+the King's game, he was not going to do it underhand. So he looked
+round the assembly of loyalists who had met to convince him in his
+grandmother's apartments in the stone fort, and said briefly: "To
+horse, gentlemen! I go to dismiss my Prime-minister from his
+appointment."
+
+But that gentleman had already dismissed himself. When they arrived at
+the citadel, they found he had gone hunting; and from that expedition
+he never returned. Someone must have blabbed; for he had posted off to
+Samarkand, rather to the boy-King's relief. It would have been a
+terrible thing to imprison or blind the best forward in the kingdom.
+
+And even when news came that the offender had paused by the way to
+make an attack on Akshi, and in the consequent _melee_, having been
+wounded in the hinder parts by an arrow from his own men, had been
+unable to escape and so had fallen a victim to the loyalists the
+boy-King was glad that Providence had taken judgment from his hands.
+Hussan had but himself to thank. As the poet said:
+
+
+      "Who does an evil deed
+       But sows the seed
+       Of his own meed."
+
+This was finely philosophic; but it did not quite comfort the
+philosopher. The first actual experience of ingratitude and disloyalty
+made its mark upon him and sobered him. He began to abstain from
+forbidden and dubious meats and but seldom omitted his midnight
+prayers.
+
+Mercifully, however, the season for polo was past, and Nevian
+Gokultash was almost as good at leap-frog as the deceased statesman.
+Nevian Gokultash, who, as foster brother, was above the possibility of
+suspicion.
+
+"Truly," said Babar one evening, throwing his arm round his playmate's
+neck affectionately, "rightly are thy kind named _Gokultash_--'heart
+of stone.' Thy love is founded on rock, whereas my brother by blood--"
+he broke off impatiently--"but there! 'tis not his fault--he is so
+young--two whole years younger than I."
+
+Despite the good-natured excuse which in all his chequered life, ever
+came easily to Babar's kindly nature, he felt the first chill of the
+cold world at his heart. He found to his great irritation and
+annoyance, that his _milieu_ was not nearly so reasonable as he was
+himself. It was the irritation and the annoyance which besets
+capability and vitality. Other folk had not nearly such good memories,
+were not half so nimble-minded, or straight-forward, as he expected.
+
+When, for instance, he sent an envoy to a rebellious chief, in order
+to remonstrate with him, before proceeding to arms, the wrong-headed
+man, instead of returning a suitable answer, ordered the ambassador to
+be put to death.
+
+Such, however, not being in the pleasures of God, the envoy managed to
+escape, and after having endured a thousand distresses and hardships,
+arrived naked and on foot, to pour the tale of his wrongs into Babar's
+indignant ears. Urged by wrath at such ill-manners, the boy-King
+proposed instant reprisals, and set off; but a heavy fall of snow on
+the encircling hills and a slight sprinkling on the clover meadows
+warned him that winter was approaching, and his nobles added their
+opinion, that it was no time in which to commence a campaign.
+
+So he returned to Andijan and to a boy's life of study and sport. The
+saintly Kazi was his tutor, and kept the boy to his Al-jabr (algebra)
+and Arabic, and abstruse dialectic dissertations on the nature of the
+Kosmos. There were not many books to be read in Andijan, but Babar
+knew them all. He had the _Epic of Kings_ almost by heart, and used to
+regret there were not more details about the great Jamsheed with his
+wonderful divining cup; Jamsheed who reigned with might, whom the
+birds, and beasts, and fairies, and demons obeyed; Jamsheed of whom it
+was written "and the world was happier for his sake and he too was
+glad." That was something like a King!
+
+And Babar learnt also, in a rude, unrefined way, all the
+accomplishments of a Turkhi nobleman. He could strum on the lute, bawl
+a song fairly, and play with singlestick to admiration. The latter was
+Kasim's care; Kasim who was the best swordsman in the kingdom and who
+used to quarrel with the Kazi as to whether the young student's
+strongest point was fencing, or the fine _nastalik_ hand-writing in
+which Babar excelled.
+
+As for sport, the snow falling early brought the deer down to the
+valleys; and the undulating country about Andijan was always full of
+wild fowl, while pheasants by the score were to be shot in the skirts
+of the mountains.
+
+The boy was growing fast and in his lambskin coat worn with the fleece
+inside, the soft tanned shammy leather without all encrusted by
+gold-silk embroidery to a supple strength that kept out both cold and
+sabre cuts, he looked quite a young man; and his high peaked cap of
+black astrachan to match the edgings of his coat and bound with
+crimson velvet suited his bright animated face.
+
+Dearest-One admired him hugely.
+
+"I would the court painter were not a fool," she said regretfully as
+he came in one day from the chase and held up for her inspection a
+cock _minawul_ pheasant all resplendent in its winter plumage. "But he
+cannot see. When he paints thee he makes thee all as one with Timur
+Shah and Ghengis Khan--on whom be peace--but I want _thee_."
+
+In truth it needed a better artist than Andijan held to do justice to
+the fire which always leapt to the boy's face when beauty such as the
+iridescent bird's struck a spark from his imagination and made the
+whole world blaze into sudden splendour.
+
+"Baisanghar might do it likely," replied Babar thoughtlessly; "he hath
+a quaint turn with his brush that is not as others; and he said he
+would love to paint thy portrait--" he broke off suddenly, aware that
+this was a subject which had better not have been introduced. But,
+indeed, there seemed a fate that he should always talk of Baisanghar
+to his sister. Could it be her fault? He looked at her with boyish
+reproach, but the girl's face was lit up with smiles and dimples.
+
+"Aye! he said that. Did he say more after I had gone? Tell me,
+brotherling."
+
+But he walked off in dignified fashion with the cock pheasant. His
+sister thought too much of Baisanghar. And it was time she married.
+
+He talked to his mother quite seriously about it, and she met his
+anxiety by the calm remark:
+
+"Why should she not marry Baisanghar?"
+
+Why not, indeed, now he came to think of it. Somehow it had not
+occurred to him before. But when he suggested it to his sister she met
+him with a storm of tears. She was never going to marry. She was going
+to be a sainted canoness and pray for her brother. Why could he not
+leave her alone; and Cousin Baisanghar also, who apparently was of the
+same mind, since, though he was nigh nineteen, he had never taken a
+wife. And, if it came to weddings, was it not high time that he,
+Babar, King of Ferghana, bethought himself of bringing _his_ betrothed
+home? That would procure festivities enow, if _that_ was what he was
+wanting.
+
+From which deft shaft in the enemy's camp, Babar fled precipitately.
+The very idea irked him; he had no time for such nonsense. In fact he
+wearied even of the three loving women who insisted upon consulting
+him by day and by night.
+
+But ere the winter was over yet another messenger of death arrived,
+and this one made the boy-King feel like a caged young eagle longing
+for his first flight.
+
+Wicked Uncle Mahmud after disgusting Samarkand for six months with his
+unbridled licentiousness and tyranny, until great and small, rich and
+poor, lifted up their heads to heaven in supplications for redress,
+and burst out into curses and imprecations on the Mirza's head, had,
+by the judgment that attends on such crime, tyranny, and wickedness,
+died miserably after an illness of six days.
+
+The women wept, of course, though old Isan-daulet's tears were
+considerably tempered by smiles at her own prophetic powers. Had she
+not said that both the men who dared to attack the apple of her eye,
+young Babar, would suffer? And so they had. And now ...
+
+The old lips pursed themselves and were silent. But the old thoughts
+were busy. Her grandson was, mayhap, over young to try his luck this
+year, yet for all that he was the rightful heir to the throne of
+Samarkand. In this way: Father Yunus Khan, Suzerain of all
+Moghulistan, had been suzerain also of Samarkand. None questioned
+that. Had not the triple marriage of Yunus Khan's three daughters with
+the King of Samarkand's three sons been arranged especially in order
+to put an end to the Khan of Moghulistan's undoubted claim, by joining
+the two families? Well, one of those marriages had produced no son.
+Mahmud who had married the younger daughter, had but one son by her, a
+perfect child. But Babar, son of the eldest sister, was adolescent;
+therefore, by every right, every claim, he was the heir.
+
+But she was a wise old woman. There was no use being in a hurry.
+Samarkand might as well seethe in its own sedition for awhile. By all
+accounts the Turkhans were up in arms; and the Turkhans were ticklish
+folk to deal with. Then Khosrau Shah, the late King's prime-minister
+was an able man and might be trusted to fight for what he wanted. The
+time for intervention would be when the combatants had weakened each
+other.
+
+And the shrewd old woman once more proved herself right. For Khosrau
+Shah, having plumped for the nincompoop Masaud--doubtless because
+he knew that with a nonentity on the throne, his power would be
+absolute--the Turkhans declared for Baisanghar, sent for him express,
+and having driven out Khosrau, who had attempted to conceal his
+master's death until his plans were completed, placed the former on
+the throne.
+
+And here another factor came in to the wary old woman's mind. What if
+her granddaughter were to marry Baisanghar? Babar could lay claim to
+other kingdoms when he was fit to fight for them, and thus there would
+be a down-sitting for both her daughter's children. So, most of the
+affairs of importance at Andijan being conducted by her advice,
+Kasim's swashbuckler instincts were held in check for the time.
+Something however must be done to occupy the lad meanwhile; and the
+news that his uncle by marriage and cousin by descent, Hussain, King
+of Khorasan, meditated an expedition against Hissar, the neighbouring
+province, prompted the suggestion that the boy-King should take
+advantage of proximity to pay his respects and make acquaintance with
+the premier prince of the age.
+
+Babar's imagination was aflame in an instant. Tales of the splendid
+court at Herat were broadcast in Asia. Folk said they had even spread
+to Europe--that dim unknown horizon to which the boy's thoughts often
+reverted. And Sultan Hussain was as his father and his elder brother.
+It was always wise to make the personal acquaintance of such; it
+dispelled misunderstanding on their part, and gained for yourself a
+nearer and better idea of their strength and weakness.
+
+So one day at the beginning of winter, with stout Kasim wrapped to the
+eyes in furs and a hundred-and-a-half or so of hardy troopers equipped
+for a mountain march, Babar started for the low passes by the White
+Hills to the valley of the Oxus river.
+
+"Have a care of thy soul, my son," said the saintly Kwaja, "and
+remember what the poet sings:
+
+
+      "The soul is the only thing to prize;
+       Heed not the body: it is not wise.
+       The wiles of the Devil are millionfold,
+       And every spell is a fetter to hold.
+       Thou hast five robbers to keep at bay,
+       Hearing and sight, touch, taste and smell,
+       So chain them up and govern them well.
+       Some things are real and some but seem;
+       The mundane things of the world are a dream."
+
+
+But Isan-daulet sniffed. "So be it that he keep the institutes of
+Ghengis Khan as his forebears did, he will do. They be enough for a
+brave man, and death or the bastinado sufficient punishment."
+
+The Kwaja looked grave. "Yet be they not the law of Islam, sister; and
+we, of the faith, are not heathens."
+
+"Heathen or no!" retorted the old lady, "my grandson will do well if
+he touch Ghengis Khan's height." And she sniffed again.
+
+Perhaps her words put it into the boy's head, but in this, his first
+flight beyond his hill-clipped kingdom his thoughts were with his
+great ancestors. He rather swaggered it in consequence round the camp
+fires at night, and was overbold in the chase; so that more than once
+on the higher hills Nevian-Gokultash had to pick him out of a
+snow-drift. But his dignity was always equal to the occasion, and when
+at last Sultan Hussain Mirza's camp showed in ordered array on the low
+ground beyond the passes, he took it as if he were quite accustomed to
+see the large pavilions, the rows on rows of orderly tents, the
+_laagers_ of chained carts.
+
+He held his head very high too, as he rode down the central alley, his
+pennant carried before him by two jostling troopers. The smart
+soldiers, lavish of buckles and broideries, who lounged about, smiled
+at the uncouth troop; but each and all had a need of praise for the
+boyish leader who sat his horse like a centaur and whose bright eyes
+seemed everywhere.
+
+"He is a gay enough young cockerel," admitted a scented noble with a
+smile. "Let us see if his uncle will make him fight."
+
+But even if Babar had been more pugnacious than he was, sheer
+astonishment at his first interview would have kept him quiescent.
+Even Kasim-Beg, stickler as he was for etiquette, gave up the hopeless
+attempt at ceremonial.
+
+"Thou art welcome, nephew," said the old man whose long white beard
+contrasted with his gay-coloured, juvenile garments, that better
+matched the vivacity of the straight narrow eyes. The black astrachan
+cap perched on the reverend head, however, suited neither. "Sit
+ye down, boy, and watch my butting rams! Yonder is the Earth
+Trembler--peace be on my ancestor's grave ... and this is the
+Barbarian Ghengis--no offence meant to thine, young Chagatai! Three
+_tumans_ of gold, Muzaffar, he smashes the other's horn first butt!"
+
+The man he addressed, who had been, Heaven knows why, prime favourite
+for years, and showed his position by the most arrogant of airs,
+turned to his neighbour. "Not I; a certainty is no bet for me, though
+by our compact, Excellence, I would get my fair share of two-thirds
+back, if you won! But Berunduk Birlas here, having lost his best hawk
+after bustard to-day, is in a mood for tears, and would like to lose
+gold also."
+
+Berunduk Birlas, the ablest man at the court, shook his head sadly.
+"Of a truth, friend, my loss is great enough to content me. Had my
+sons died or broken their necks I could not grieve more than for my
+true falcon-jinny Brighteyes! No man could desire a more captivating
+beauty."
+
+Sultan Hussain went off into a peal of laughter. "Li! where is
+Ali-Shir? Where is our poet? Brighteyes the captivating beauty who
+catches hairs, eh? There is a subject for word-play. Out with a
+_ghazel_ on the spot, friend Ali."
+
+A thin, elegant-looking man with a pale, refined face, got up and made
+a perfect salute. From head to foot he was exquisite, the Beau Brummel
+of his age.
+
+"Look," nudged one young courtier to another enviously, "he hath a new
+knot to his kerchief. How, in God's name, think you, is it tied?"
+
+The incomparable person paused for one second only; then in the most
+polished of voices he poured out a lengthy ode, deftly ringing the
+changes on the word "_baz_" (falcon) which in Persian has at least a
+dozen different meanings.
+
+A ripple of laughter followed his somewhat forced allusions, and he
+sat down again amid a chorus of applause.
+
+Babar stood dum-foundered, yet in every fibre of his body sympathetic.
+Here was something new indeed! A new world very different from the
+rough and tumble clash of arms and swords and polo sticks at Andijan;
+but a world where, mayhap, he might hold his own.
+
+"Well done! Well done!" he cried with the rest, and his uncle the
+Sultan nodded approval at the lad.
+
+"Sit ye down, sit ye down!" he said; "and, cupbearer! a beaker of
+Shiraz wine for the King of Ferghana!"
+
+For the life of him the boy could not refrain from one swift look at
+Kasim's face, Kasim who was all shocked propriety at such a violation
+of the rules both of Islam and Ghengis Khan; but after that one scared
+glance dignity came back.
+
+"Your Highness!" he said, with pomp, waving his hand towards one of
+the butting rams, "like my ancestor the Barbarian I drink water only."
+
+A smile went round the assembly and young Babar felt a glow of pride
+that he had not fallen so far short in wit. Thereinafter he sat and
+listened with wide eyes. His uncle was certainly a lively, pleasant
+man; but his temper was a bit hasty and so were his words. Still,
+despite that and overfreedom with the wine cup, he evidently had a
+profound reverence for the faith, since at the proper hour he put on a
+small turban tied in three folds, broad and showy, and, having placed
+a plume on it, went in this style to prayers!
+
+That night when Kasim was snoring in the tent and the
+hundred-and-a-half or thereabouts of his followers were slumbering
+peacefully, full up of kid _pullao_, Babar lay awake. He was composing
+an ode for the first time in his life. It was a sorry composition of
+no value except that it filled him with desire to do better.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV
+
+       In this world's inn, where sweetest song abounds
+       There is no prelude to one song that sounds;
+       The guests have quaffed their wine and passed away
+       Their cups were empty and they would not stay.
+       No sage, no stripling, not a hand but thine
+       Has held this goblet of poetic wine;
+       Rise, then, and sing! Thy fear behind thee cast
+       And, be it clear or dull, bring forth the wine thou hast.
+                                                        _Jami_.
+
+
+Babar could not tear himself away from his uncle's camp. He lingered
+on and on, watching the military operations with a more or less
+critical eye, but absorbing culture wholesale.
+
+It was a revelation to him, meeting men to whom fighting was not the
+end and aim of life; and these Begs and nobles of his uncle's court,
+though they were all supposed to be engaged in warfare with Khosrau
+Shah who was holding Hissar over the river, for his nominee the
+nincompoop, had yet time for other things.
+
+Ali-Shir, for instance, was wise beyond belief in all ways.
+Incomparable man! So kind, so courteous. Babar profited by his
+guidance and encouragement in his efforts to civilise himself. Thus
+becoming--since there is not in history any man who was greater patron
+of talent than Ali-Shir--one of that great company of poets, painters,
+professors, and musicians who owe everything to him, who, passing
+through this world single and unencumbered by wife or child, gave
+himself and his time up to the instruction of others.
+
+So far, therefore, as the clash of intellect went, young Babar was
+satisfied. In regard to the clash of arms it was different. How such a
+mighty body of Mirzas, Begs, and chiefs, who, with their followers, if
+they were not double the number of the enemy over the water were _at
+least_ one-and-a-half times that number, could content themselves with
+practical inaction passed his understanding.
+
+When, too, they had such battering rams and catapults as positively
+made his mouth water! There was one of the latter which threw such a
+quantity of stones and with such accuracy that in half an hour--just
+before bedtime prayers--the enemy's fort was beautifully breached. But
+the night being deemed rather dark for assault and the troops
+preferring the safety and comfort of their trenches, no immediate
+attack was made; the result being that before morning the breach was
+repaired.
+
+There was absolutely no real fine fighting, and at this rate his
+uncle, the Sultan, would doubtless spend the whole winter on the banks
+of the Amu river, and when spring came, patch up some sort of a peace
+from fear of the floods which always came down with the melting snow.
+
+"That is his way," asserted Kasim with a shrug of his shoulders. "He
+leads his army forth with pomp and state, and in himself is no mean
+general; but ever it comes to naught. It is so, always, when folk take
+to rhyming couplets, and putting spices to their food. Give me orders
+that hang together, and plain roast venison."
+
+But all the while the honest man was stuffing his mouth full of lamb
+and pistachio nuts, and Babar smiled. Still he felt that, so far as
+the art of war went, he might go back to little Andijan without fear
+of leaving behind him any knowledge worth the learning. It was
+otherwise with the culture, and he flung himself with characteristic
+vitality into music lessons, and dancing lessons, elocution lessons
+and deportment lessons, until as he entered the court audience no one
+could have told that but a few weeks before, he had been as rough and
+as uncouth as old Kasim, who stoutly refused veneer.
+
+"What I am, God made me," he would say, "and if folk like it not let
+them leave. I budge not."
+
+To which uncompromising independence, one pair of hands--delicate,
+long-fingered, ivory hands--gave fluttering applause. They belonged to
+a young man who, almost at first sight, impressed young Babar more
+than anyone he had seen in all his life. He was a helpless cripple who
+yet took his part in life like any other man. Every evening his
+spangled litter would be brought into the big audience tent and set
+down just below the King's. For Mirza Gharib-Beg (who styled himself
+Poverty-prince in allusion to the meaning of his name--poor) was the
+King's son by a low-born woman who had been passionately loved. So,
+despite the fact that he had been born misshapen, ugly, and that
+ill-health had always been his, Poverty-prince still had a hold on his
+father's affection. And no wonder; since, though his form was not
+prepossessing he had a fine genius, and though his constitution was
+feeble, he had a powerful mind. There was nothing, it seemed to Babar,
+that he could not do. He could rhyme with Ali-Shir, play the guitar
+with Abdulla-Marwarid and paint with Bahzad. What is more, he could
+talk mysticism far better than Kamal-ud-din, with his wagging black
+beard, who pretended to raptures and ecstasies and had written a
+portentously dull book about Sufism which he called "The Assembly of
+Lovers"--portentously dull and also profane--which was inexcusable.
+
+But when Poverty-prince spoke of roses and nightingales and even of
+the red wine cup, he took you into another world; and he evidently
+believed what he said, whereas Kamal-ud-din was all pose.
+
+Yet the next instant the thin ugly face would show almost impish in
+its amusement and its owner would burst out with some sally that would
+set them all a-laughing; and him a-coughing for the change of air
+which was to have done him good was doing him harm; though he would
+not admit it.
+
+"Wherefore should I?" he laughed gaily in some anxious face. "A man is
+as ill as he thinks himself--he is all things that he believes himself
+to be. So I am strong, and well, and young, and deeply enamoured of a
+beauteous lady. She is called Feramors--a pretty name," and he would
+catch up a lute over which his thin, long, ivory hands would flutter
+like butterflies and sing:
+
+
+      "Say! is it Love or Death, O Feramors!
+       That hides behind thy bosom's pearly doors?
+       I care not, so I reach the heart within.
+       Oh! let me in;
+       Open the closed doors, O Feramors!"
+
+
+Truly he was a marvellous person! To Babar, boy as he was, the most
+marvellous thing in the camp. How could he, cripple, suffering, almost
+dying as he was, keep life at bay as it were? How could he sit so free
+of it? He, Babar, with his health and strength was not so independent,
+though he was more so than most, for, almost unconsciously, he set
+himself as free as he could from encumbrance even of thought.
+
+He shrank even from so much as came to him from Gharib, and avoided
+his cousin in consequence, spending such time as he could spare from
+his numerous lessons, and the watch Kasim made him keep on military
+matters, in hunting amid the low hills.
+
+But it was no use. That dark, curiously be-scented tent wherein the
+cripple lay laughing at life, had a strange attraction for him. He
+took to dropping into it on his way elsewhere, until old Kasim grew
+uneasy.
+
+"He lays spells on you, my liege," he protested. "They tell me he can
+do it to all young folk--so have a care!"
+
+"Smear my forehead with lamp-black against the evil eye; then shall I
+be safe," laughed the boy, and yet in his heart he felt the spell.
+And, oddly enough, he liked it. He was fascinated by something in this
+distant, faraway cousin of his; so far-away that it scarcely seemed
+worth while calling him cousin. Yet, as grandmother Isan-daulet would
+say: "all men were descended from Adam!"
+
+"Come in on thy return from the chase," said Poverty-prince one day
+when he had looked in on the scent sodden tent, a picture of youth and
+strength and health, in his fur _posteen_ and his high peaked cap.
+"And bring thy bag with thee for this lifeless log to see. What shall
+it contain? _Imprimis_--a brace of chameleon birds. I love to see
+their iridescent necks and the six different colours between head and
+tail--mark you! how I remember thy description, cousin-ling?"
+
+Babar blushed. "Thou said'st thou had never seen them," he began
+apologetically.
+
+"Save through thine eyes and they are good enough for most folk. Be
+not ashamed, coz, of the gift God hath given thee. And thou shalt
+bring me a fat deer and some _kalidge_ pheasant--and, with luck, a
+cock _minawul_. Then we will look at it with the same eyes--thou and
+I--" A wistfulness had crept into his voice, and he said no more.
+
+But the curious thing was that the bag was ever just what
+Poverty-prince had predicted, neither more, nor less.
+
+"Thou art a wizard, for sure," said Babar half seriously. "The
+thought of thy words makes my aim sure at times, and at another sets
+my bow arm a-quiver. Wert thou to say '_naught_,' I should return
+empty-handed."
+
+"So be it," laughed the cripple. "Why should we kill God's pretty
+creatures?"
+
+And thereinafter two whole hunts produced nothing. Whether it was a
+fresh fall of snow in the hills that brought ill luck Babar could not
+say, but he looked at his cousin with awe.
+
+"Thou hast more power I verily believe," he said, "than the Dream-man
+whom Uncle Hussain keeps--"
+
+"For his amusement," put in Poverty-prince with a frown. "But _that_
+is black magic; mine is white. I do naught. 'Tis thy mind that
+answers--" he broke off and his large eyes--the only unmarred feature
+in his face--narrowed themselves to a piercing glance. "Wherefore
+should I not say it, cousin? Has it not struck thee, that had'st thou
+been born crooked and not straight, or had I been born straight and
+not crooked, we should have been as two twins? That is why I like
+thee, and thou likest me."
+
+The boy sat and stared at him, almost incredulously. He could not
+imagine his youth and strength pent up in that prison of a body; and
+yet ...
+
+Yes! without doubt there was some tie. Else why should he feel so
+intimate--why should he speak to Poverty-prince of things which every
+decent young Mahomedan was taught to keep to himself; for instance of
+Dearest-One and the possibility of her marrying Baisanghar?
+
+The blood rushed to his face, however, with shame when he felt his
+cousin's hot, long-fingered, trembling hand close on his wrist in
+quick arrest.
+
+"Marriage--say not the word! Dost not know? Nay--I forgot thy
+youth--and I will not soil thine ears with the tale. But we in foul
+Herat know most wickedness, most degradations. And there is that in
+miserable Baisanghar's life that bars marriage with any woman worthy
+the name. Aye! and he knows it--poor maimed soul enmeshed for ever by
+the wickedness of one who should have protected him--May God's curse
+light on him for ever. So think not of marriage, cousin."
+
+Babar shook off his cousin's clasp haughtily. It was not that he
+resented having substance given to his vague doubts of Baisanghar--it
+was better to know for sure; but interference with his womenkind was
+intolerable. And he had brought it on himself!
+
+"By your leave," he said with terrific dignity, "we will speak no more
+on such private matters. 'Tis my own fault. Such subjects are not meet
+for public conversations."
+
+Poverty-prince lay back on his cushions and kindly raillery took
+possession of his face. "Not meet, sayest thou cousin-ling? Yet are
+they the best half--nay! the three quarters of life. Dost know that
+even to me, cripple, marriage hath played the major part?"
+
+Babar's eyes involuntarily travelled over the distorted body, the
+crumpled limbs, and Poverty-prince laughed cynically.
+
+"Thou art right, boy," he went on; "loathsome to sight and touch, what
+had I to do with weddings. But princedom weighs heavy with the pandars
+of the court. And 'twas done early. Mayhap they did not dream I would
+grow up so monstrous--as I did." He paused and his pale face grew
+paler, his hot fingers clasped and unclasped themselves. "Mayest thou
+never--nay! thou will not--see fear upon a girl's face. I saw it. Dost
+understand? Nay, thou art but a child still. Thank God! I did. So she
+waits for release by my death. And then--" He paused again and this
+time bright, cold raillery took possession of his face as he said:
+"Thou wilt make a fine bridegroom, cousin-ling, some day! Fair maids
+will not be alarmed at thee!"
+
+"Likely I shall be of them," answered the boy stoutly; and it was
+true; barring Dearest-One, the stupid, mincing creatures filled him
+with dismay.
+
+This passed but a few days before Kasim, who thought his young charge
+had had quite enough of the camp, proposed starting homewards. There
+seemed no prospect of the campaign coming to a close. Quite a variety
+of strategical movements had been made, mines had been dug, forts
+besieged, but the result was nil. And time was passing. Events had not
+been going smoothly at Samarkand, the moment for intervention might be
+near and Grandmother Isan-daulet had sent a messenger advocating
+return.
+
+None too soon, for the very same day King Hussain's runners brought
+news of a conspiracy to turn out Baisanghar, and bring in a younger
+brother Ali-Khan.
+
+"But he is not of the blood, either," said Babar hotly. "Kasim! we
+must go back at once." The desire for conquest was stirring in him
+once more.
+
+"The sooner the better, sire," replied the stout warrior, settling his
+sword belt. He had wearied terribly among the smart soldiers and was
+longing for a real raid once more.
+
+"To say farewell," echoed Poverty-prince, when Babar looked in that
+night at his cousin's tent; "I thought it was not to be for a week
+yet." And his hot hand clasped the cool one with a lingering touch.
+
+"There was news from Samarkand," replied the lad, regret tempering the
+keenness which had come to his face with the prospect of action. "And,
+cousin, it matters little--'tis but a few hours' difference--"
+
+"A few hours?" echoed the cripple, speaking, for the first time since
+Babar had known him, almost regretfully; "that means much to one who
+has but a few days or weeks to live. Not that it does so really, coz,"
+he added, recovering his usual serenity. "And thou wilt spare me one
+of the hours? I dare claim so much of my twin?"
+
+The pathetic playfulness of the appeal went straight to the lad's soft
+heart; he fell on his knees beside the cushions, then sat back in the
+Mahomedan attitude of prayer. "Nay, brother," he said--and there was
+quite a tremble in his young voice--"say not so--I am but a poor
+creature beside thee. Thou art--truly I know not what! Sometimes I
+think an angel from God's paradise--thou art so splendid!"
+
+"Knowest thou if angels be splendid?" asked Poverty-prince with
+radiant raillery. "For myself I know not--only this--that I shall miss
+my double--" He looked at the lad's lithe limbs, at his long legs, his
+great stretch of arm. "And to think," he muttered, "that I might have
+been born so--My God! to think of it."
+
+Then suddenly he clapped his hands and gave a peremptory order to the
+servant who appeared.
+
+"See that I be not disturbed--that no one enters."
+
+He waited till they were alone, then drew something from his bosom and
+held it before him in both hands. It was a tiny crystal bowl scarce
+large enough for his finger tips. But they held the glittering thing
+lightly. It looked like a diamond body to two fluttering ivory wings,
+as he said slowly, musically.
+
+"It hath lain in my breast, ever. I found it in the hand of death," he
+said dreamily, "but the Riddle-of-Life ends for me, and begins for
+thee. So take it, when I have told thee how it came to me."
+
+Those ivory hands of his seemed more like wings than ever as, still
+holding the bowl before him, he lay back and it showed clear against
+the shadows of the tent.
+
+"Thou knowest," he went on, "the graveyards of the hill-folk? Set on
+an hill and thick with iris flowers--the flowers of immortality--the
+green sword leaves guarding the blossoms, guarding the quiet dead
+below? It was the day I saw fear in a maiden's eyes--there was
+such a graveyard not far from her father's dwelling--he is dead now
+and she awaits the release of death amongst beneficent ladies in a
+House-of-Rest at Herat--and I bid them carry me there; for my heart
+was aflame and I cursed God for this carcase, seeing she was fair. So
+they left me there overlooking the valley, and when they had gone I
+lay amid the crushed iris and writhed--but of that no more. It hath
+passed.
+
+"So, suddenly, between my empty wide-spread arms and clutching fingers
+I saw something amid the crushed blossoms. It must have been a very
+old grave on which I lay, since the iris roots matted thick upon it as
+if to hide the dead that lay in the hollow of it; for the rams and the
+winds sweeping on that high exposed spot had torn the covering of soil
+from Mother Earth's bosom. What I saw was this crystal cup. Perchance
+it had been used when the dead was laid to rest, and forgotten.
+Perchance some sad lover had set it there with flowers and tears in
+the poignancy of first grief, and gone away to love another. Who
+knows? The iris-roots had grown to a cup around it; twisted, white,
+iris-roots like dead fingers; and I took it from them. Take thou it, O
+Zahir-ud-din Mahomed, from one close to the Adventure of Death. I
+burden the gift with but one condition--if ever thou comest across a
+frightened maid--" here his whole face became radiant with smiles--"be
+not afraid of her. So take it cousin-ling. It is no cup of King
+Jamsheed to bring thee counsel in thy need. Yet it hath its virtue to
+those, who, like thou hast, have eyes to see. It can bring content."
+
+Content! was this the secret of Poverty-prince's charm? Babar, bold,
+young, every fibre of him keen-strung for the Life, on the brink of
+which he stood, cared little for content. Yet he took the cup and
+looked at it curiously. Quaint of a surety! Taller than it was broad.
+Small enough to lie in the hollow of the hand. The brim over-thick by
+reason of heavy bosses below the edge: five bosses like those in blown
+glass, but oval, like eyes. The rest faintly frosted by fine
+scratchings (were they without or within?--within surely) which, were
+they letterings, would need a magnifying glass ere they could be
+deciphered. But at the bottom, so disposed that one must read in
+drinking, these words showed clear:
+
+
+      "Save the cup of life, what gift canst thou bring?"
+
+
+That was from Hafiz surely?
+
+"Aye! divine Hafiz," replied his cousin answering his thought boldly.
+"Now, hold it to the light, cousin-ling, and see its virtue."
+
+The boy did as he was bid, feeling dazed and dreamful. A seven-lamped
+tripod behind his cousin's cushions had been lit--at least he could
+not remember that it had been there when he came in--Seven little
+lamps ...
+
+Why! those five bosses were deftly arranged to gather the light and
+send it ... God and His Prophet! How beautiful!
+
+Through the clear eye before his eyes he saw his cousin's face--all
+glorified--splendid utterly ...
+
+That something which came to him ever with the sight of beauty, filled
+him with joy ...
+
+But stay! the bosses must be magnifying glasses also! He could read
+something.
+
+What was it?
+
+_Ishk_ (love)? or _Ashk_ (tears)?
+
+"Thou wilt see more clearly when thou hast learnt to use the five eyes
+of the soul," came his cousin's voice; "then thine own thoughts will
+return to thee from the Mirror-of-Life. Now put it into the bosom of
+thy fur coat. There is room there for it and majesty likewise. And now
+I will sing the Song-of-the-Bowl ere thou goest."
+
+He clapped his hands once more, and the boy sighed and rubbed his eyes
+dreamily. Surely the seven lamps had been lit? But now they were not;
+the semi-darkness of the scent-sodden tent closed in on him, and that
+was his cousin's every-day voice:
+
+"Bring me my dulcimer, slave! Lo! King-ling, it suits the measure
+better than the _cithara_ and I am proud of the tune! 'Tis my own."
+
+So, after a while, the tinkling notes began, the voice rose
+plaintively:
+
+
+[Illustration: Three Bars of Music with words]
+
+
+      "Clear Crystal Bowl! Thy sun-sparkles blind
+         Every poor soul whose eyes seek to find
+       Way through Life's wilderness on thy bright brim,
+           Crystal Bowl!
+         What wilt thou bring to him,
+             Darkness or Light?
+
+       Clear Crystal Bowl! Thy touch, icy cold,
+         Chills lovers lips that lay overbold
+       Hot clinging kisses on thy bright brim,
+           Crystal Bowl!
+         What wilt thou bring to him,
+             Love or Despair?
+
+       Clear Crystal Bowl! I laugh like thy wine!
+         Bring me Life's whole! all things must be mine!
+       Is not the wide world mirrored in thee
+           Crystal Bowl?
+           I bid thee bring to me
+             Joy, Grief, Life, Death--"
+
+
+The voice ceased and there was silence for a little while.
+
+But in all the long after-years the memory of those tinkling notes,
+that thin voice claiming the whole of life, remained with Zahir-ud-din
+Mahomed.
+
+"Well! God's peace go with thee," said Poverty-prince brightly at the
+last; "methinks thy boyhood is about past, and sterner stuff hath to
+come. But keep the gift of death and if thou lose it--at least
+remember my poor verses. And, coz--" here the wizened face almost
+dimpled with laughter, "if thou comest across the frightened maid--I
+give no names, they are an encumbrance, remember to make her not
+frightened of my twin! Farewell."
+
+It was a stirring night. The river had to be crossed silently in the
+very face of Khosrau Shah's pickets (for he was holding the north bank
+for his nominee the nincompoop) and a stealthy way made skirting the
+enemy's camp, ere they could reach the hills beyond. Some of the party
+felt inclined to put Andijan tactics in force, make a rush through the
+out-posts, give and take a few sabre cuts, and so make off; but Babar,
+even though old Kasim hesitated, had learnt something besides
+accomplishments in his uncle's camp; he had learnt that time was long,
+and that it was well to choose your own. So he rode canny.
+
+It was dawn ere they reached the last vantage ground whence they could
+see the camp they had left. It lay curiously calm and peaceful. Kasim,
+more than half-asleep on his horse now there was no chance of a fine
+fight, yawned, and stretched his arms wide.
+
+"No more of that for me," he said lustily. "I am for cut and thrust
+and a good bellyful of plain food."
+
+"But I am for all things," laughed Babar. He was trying to pick out
+his cousin's tent, and as he spoke he put his hand into the bosom of
+his coat to feel for the Crystal Bowl.
+
+He could not find it!
+
+Had it dropped out or what...?
+
+"I must go back," he said, half to himself--"I must, I must!"
+
+"Go back? Wherefore?" asked old Kasim. "What is it, sire--to go back
+is Death; the enemy is awake by now."
+
+The boy-King looked at him keenly. "Aye!" he said shortly, "and to go
+on is Life. I must remember, as he said. Forward! gentlemen!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V
+
+       The day of delight has come and the wind brings scent
+       Of musk and rose and lilies and peppermint.
+             Oh! day of delight pass slow!
+             God's flowers must blow.
+
+       The day of despair has come and the wind brings dust
+       To bury the flowers; the song of the birds is hushed.
+             Oh, day of despair pass swift!
+             Let God's clouds lift.
+
+       The days of despair and delight have come;
+       Ah, me! I care not away from my home.
+             The days of God pass swift and slow.
+             Allah-i-hu--allah-i-ho!
+                                            _Ashraf the Exiled_.
+
+
+Old Isan-daulet, who had been Queen-regent to all intents and purposes
+during Babar's absence, welcomed him back to Andijan somewhat charily.
+She had sent for him in a hurry when news came that the Turkhans of
+Samarkand had revolted against Baisanghar, captured that prince by
+stratagem, and put Mirza Ali his younger brother on the throne.
+
+But now the tables were turned. Baisanghar, whom all knew to be wily
+as a fox, had not only managed to escape, but having somehow gained
+the sympathy of the townspeople, they had risen tumultuously against
+the Court-folk and the Turkhans, had besieged the citadel which had
+not been able to hold out for a single day, and had replaced
+Baisanghar--why only God knew!
+
+"'Twill be because of his love odes, grandmother," said Babar gravely;
+"there is not a house in Samarkand where a copy of them is not to be
+found."
+
+Isan-daulet sniffed captiously. "I would he would keep his love-songs
+to himself. There is Dearest-One sick as a magpie still with the shock
+of his death, and he is not dead, the good-for-nothing."
+
+Babar's lip set. "He is dead to her anyhow," he said, "so no more
+dreams of that, grandmother. I forbid it, and so I will tell her."
+
+"Hoighty-toighty!" sniffed the old lady; but in her heart of hearts
+she was glad.
+
+"Look you!" she said to her daughter afterwards, "he spoke for all the
+world like his grandfather when things went wrong. Lo! he is boy no
+longer. We must treat him as a man, with wiles."
+
+Such, however, was not Dearest-One's treatment of her brother; nor was
+his of her, what might have been expected from his peremptory tone to
+his grandmother. How could it be, when he found her pale and
+dispirited, despite her joy at seeing him? He beat about the bush
+uncomfortably for quite a long time, until with characteristic
+clarity he blurted out: "And, sister, thou must think no more of
+Baisanghar--he is a worthless scoundrel--"
+
+The girl, ill as she was, looked as if she could have stabbed him with
+her eyes.
+
+"That he is not," she said proudly; "thou art like the rest of
+them,--even the Kwaja--yea! I have talked with him concerning it and
+he knows, mayhap, more than thou dost--who confound the sinner with
+the sin. But look you, Zahir-ud-din Mahomed, were there no man on
+earth but Mirza Baisanghar I would not have him; and yet I love him
+dearly, dearly." She sank back on her bed, hid her face in the quilt,
+and sobbed.
+
+Babar stood aghast, yet feeling as if he could cry too.
+
+"I wish thou had'st known Cousin Gharib," he said suddenly,
+causelessly. "He would have understood. I cannot--not yet."
+
+Then he turned and left her. What was the use of trying to comfort
+anyone when you did not know the cause of their sorrow? And Joy and
+Grief, Life and Death had to come if one were to live.
+
+Then life was so full just at the present. The very story of
+Baisanghar's escape was enough to make one's heart beat. Under
+sentence of death, and such a death! To be taken with pomp
+and ceremony to the foot of the throne in the Gokserai--the
+Green-palace--that wonderful palace, four stories high, built by the
+Great Timur in the citadel, where every kingly descendant of his must
+be enthroned, where every kingly descendant of his must die--and
+there to be strangled! With _that_ before him, to have the nerve in a
+few minutes to unbrick a closed door, run to the bastion, fling
+himself over the parapet wall, and so find shelter in Kwaja Kwarka's
+house--the holiest man in the city! A thousand pities, indeed, that
+Baisanghar had sunk so low. Aye! Dearest-One was right. One could
+condemn the sin, and yet do justice to the sinner. Yet there was a
+lack of kingliness too that was inexcusable. To allow his brother Ali
+to escape also was perhaps to err on the side of mercy, but to submit
+to be beaten by him in battle immediately afterwards was distinctly
+unnecessary!
+
+It complicated matters, too, most dreadfully. For here was Baisanghar,
+acclaimed by the people, more or less imprisoned in the City of
+Samarkand, and Ali-Mirza, nominated by the Court, beleaguering him
+from the Bokhara side, while Khosrau Shah, relieved from the necessity
+of defending Hissar for his nincompoop by the withdrawal of Sultan
+Hussain back to Khorasan, was hastening all he knew to put in his oar
+for _his_ nominee from the Hissar side!
+
+This being so, and neither of the three claimants having a shadow of
+right beside his, Babar's, there was nothing for it, but to be on the
+spot at once.
+
+So kettledrums were beat and pennons unfurled, while Nevian-Gokultash
+saw to his young master's coat of mail, and the latter pored over the
+memoirs of his great ancestor Timur to see what wrinkles he could pick
+up in regard to the disposition of troops in a real fine fight; for,
+being a born general, he was dissatisfied with what he had seen, even
+with Uncle Hussain's smart soldiers.
+
+Only Dearest-One took no interest in the military preparations; she
+embroidered no flag with crinkled gold. She sat on the roof and
+watched the young King ride out in all his bravery and then she prayed
+God for his safety, and also for the safety of that other one, who
+deserved none.
+
+And, for a time, both her prayers were answered. The summer passed on
+to winter and still Samarkand, the protected city that has never
+really fallen, sat gaily secure in its wide suburbs and vast network
+of fortified gardens. Scarcity, indeed, pressed harder outside the
+walls than within. Then the nincompoop whose only object apparently in
+advancing on Samarkand had been to pursue his mistress, the daughter
+of a high Court official, succeeded in marrying her, and so retreated.
+
+Thus Babar found himself confronting Baisanghar supported by the
+populace, and Ali by the Court. They waited and looked at each other
+for some time; and then one morning, after preliminaries, Babar moved
+his army some twelve miles down the right bank of the river Kohik, and
+Ali-Mirza moved his down the left. So, with their armies behind them
+(though it would seem, somewhat helpless either for support or
+protection) the two young Princes each with five followers rode from
+their own side to the middle of the stream and with the chill water
+just touching their horses' bellies, agreed that if the summer came
+again they would harry Samarkand together.
+
+After which solemn ceremonial Ali returned to his side of the river,
+and Babar to his; whence he set off to Ferghana.
+
+It was not a very distinguished campaign but it was his first. Perhaps
+it was as well it was uneventful for he was busy working his small
+army into something like discipline. Therein, he saw clearly, boy as
+he was, lay success; without it, there was nothing but one long
+succession of isolated raids, incoherent, useless, leaving the people
+ready, as they had been in the beginning, for a new, and yet another
+new conqueror.
+
+It was something, therefore, when in the next spring, he found himself
+able to restrain his troops and to punish severely many straggling
+Moghuls who had been guilty of great excesses in the different
+villages through which they had passed. It was an unheard-of idea, but
+it had a marked effect; for shortly afterwards when his camp was close
+to a place called Yam, a number of persons, both traders and others,
+came in from the town to buy and sell, and somehow, about afternoon
+prayer-time a general hubbub arose during which every shop and every
+stranger was plundered. Yet an order that no person should presume to
+detain any part of the effects or property thus seized, but that the
+whole should be restored without reserve before the first watch of the
+next day was over, resulted in not one bit of thread or a broken
+needle being kept by the army!
+
+It was a glorious victory for pure ethics and quite repaid Babar for
+having to remain for six weeks outside Samarkand. Besides, the peach
+gardens were in full bloom. It was curious going out into the pleasure
+ground of the city, to slash, and hack, and hew, and kill! But there
+was no other way for it, and many were the sharp skirmishes that took
+place with the townspeople where folk as a rule had been wont to
+disport themselves on holidays. But in war-time things got upside
+down; witness the dastardly deceit of the Lover's Cave where five of
+Babar's most active men were killed. Seduced by a treacherous promise
+to deliver up the fort if a party came thither by night, a picked
+troop was chosen for the service, with this result.
+
+It rankled bitterly in the young commander's heart; he felt himself at
+fault for his greatest weakness--an inveterate habit of believing what
+he heard.
+
+Yet he had his consolations. Day by day, as he waited, doing his best
+with the small force at his command to cut off the supplies from the
+city, the number of townspeople and traders who came out to traffic in
+the camp bazaar increased, until it became like a city and you could
+find there whatever is procurable in towns. And day by day, the
+inhabitants of the country around came in and surrendered themselves,
+their castles, their lands, high and low. Only the city of Samarkand
+held out. It was in the end of September and the sun was entering the
+Balance, when Babar, weary of waiting, made a feint march to the rear
+and the garrison of Samarkand, jumping to the conclusion that he was
+in retreat, rushed out in great number, both soldiers and citizens.
+Then orders were given to the cavalry in reserve to charge on both
+flanks; whereupon God prospering the proceeding, the enemy were
+decisively defeated; nor from that time forward did they ever again
+venture on a rally. No! though Babar's soldiers advanced through the
+now leafless peach gardens to the very ditch and carried off numbers
+of prisoners close under the walls.
+
+And still fair Samarkand stood secure. Seven whole months had the
+blockade lasted, and now the winter's cold was coming on to aid the
+garrison. In addition, the great Turkhestan raider Shaibani Khan was
+said to be on his way with a large force to intervene in the quarrel.
+Both dangers had to be faced. Babar felt, in view of the first, that
+he must cantoon his men, and set to work marking out the ground for
+the huts and trenches; so, leaving labourers and overseers to go on
+with the work, he returned to his camp. None too soon, for the very
+next morning a hostile army showed to the north. It must be Shaibani,
+prince of Free-lances!
+
+Nothing dismayed, by the fact that fully half his soldiers were away
+seeking winter quarters, Babar put the forces he had with him in
+array, and marched out to meet the enemy. Boldness met with its
+reward. Shaibani withdrew, and after giving the young King some nights
+of sleepless anxiety went back whence he came, and Baisanghar,
+disappointed in relief, resigned himself to despair and fled
+accompanied by two or three hundred naked and starving followers.
+
+"In the whole habitable world are few cities so pleasantly situated as
+Samarkand." So wrote Babar when at the age of fifteen he found himself
+met as King by the chief men of the city, by the nobles, by the young
+cavaliers, and escorted to the Garden-Palace where Baisanghar had
+lived. It was a great relief to him that his cousin had escaped,
+indeed he had taken no precautions to prevent his doing so. Babar's
+quarrel was not with him, but with his claim, and as the lad--for he
+was but a lad still--sat that night under the roof which had sheltered
+the deposed prince, he told himself he had been right when he had said
+to Dearest-One that Baisanghar would never make a king. There were no
+signs of kingship in that Garden-Palace. No plans or sketches, no
+dry-as-dust schedules. Not one of the papers and models such as
+he, Babar, already carried with him. Only a lute, a dulcimer, some
+dice-boxes. Not even luxury! Poor Baisanghar! Rightly had he called
+himself an unsubstantial shadow. His poetry was the best part of him;
+and his painting.
+
+Babar sitting alone in the alcoved room which Baisanghar had evidently
+left in a hurry, lay back among the cushions of the divan and thrust
+his hand beneath them to adjust them to his head. There was something
+hard beneath their softness. He drew it out and found a small square
+frame. Of gold--no! it was green enamel and on it were set, like
+flowers, turquoises, rubies, amethysts, topazes.
+
+Why did it remind him of the spring meadows about Andijan? The spring
+meadows set with forget-me-nots and tulips? It was a bit too dark
+where he was to see the pale painting it held, so he rose and took it
+to the light.
+
+Dearest-One!
+
+And with a rush came back accusingly something he had almost forgotten
+all these months of striving and stress. Poverty-prince! the
+Cup-of-Life! those bosses that gathered the Light and magnified what
+was written by Fate. Once or twice he had thought of it carelessly;
+but now...?
+
+Why had the thought come back to him?
+
+It was a speaking likeness. Faint-coloured, delicate as a dream.
+Perhaps Baisanghar had meant it to be so. It was likely he did. Poor
+Baisanghar! For the life of him Babar could not help pity, even when
+he found the back of the frame was covered with fine writing--with
+verses!--not even when he recollected that it was to his sister that
+they were dedicated!
+
+In truth there was little in them of offence, and Babar as he went to
+sleep that night, King of Samarkand, caught himself repeating them.
+They were certainly very neat--very neat indeed. And now that he had
+had time to think, why should not poor Dearest-One see them? They had
+given him a kindlier feeling towards the writer, so why should not
+she...?
+
+Why not, indeed! The Cup-of-Life held all things for all.
+
+Yes! he would send, or give her the portrait as it stood. It was
+really an excellent piece of work; and the words were perfect--the
+construction, and the _grammar_ so good.
+
+He fell asleep reciting them.
+
+
+                            HEFT-AURANG[1]
+
+                          THE SEVEN THRONES
+
+       Seven thrones and each a star
+       Set in God's Heaven afar;
+       Seven thrones and each for thee;
+       Thank God there is no place
+         Beside thy face
+         For me! for me!
+
+       Seven sins! Ah! more than seven
+       To cast me down from heaven;
+       Seven sins; and each of me!
+       Thank God there is no place
+         Beside my face
+         For thee! for thee!
+
+       Seven stars and one a pole
+       To guide the wandering soul
+       To rest; but not for me--
+       There is no grace or place
+         Beside thy face.
+         Ah me! Ah me!
+
+
+---------------------
+
+[Footnote 1: The Persian name for the Great Bear.]
+
+---------------------
+
+
+"Samarkand is a wonderfully elegant city."
+
+So wrote its young King the next evening. He had spent the day in
+going round his new possessions and had found them to his liking. Not
+only was the little Mosque with its carven wooden pilasters quaintly
+beautiful, but the big one was magnificent with its frontispiece on
+which was inscribed in letters so large that they could be read a mile
+off:
+
+"And Abraham and Ishmael raised the foundations of the House of God
+saying 'Lord accept it from us; for Thou art He who heareth and
+knoweth.'"
+
+Then the gardens were a joy, the baths the best he had ever seen, the
+bakers' shops excellent, the cooks skilful. And the dried prunes of
+Bokhara, a fruit renowned as an acceptable rarity and a laxative of
+approved excellence, were to be found in perfection. Then there was
+the Observatory built by Ulugh-Beg, his ancestor, who had been a great
+mathematician. Babar had never seen an observatory before; indeed
+there were at that time but seven in the whole world, so it was an
+honour to possess one. He spent many days poring over its astronomical
+tables, trying to understand them; and finally put on a mathematical
+master, since no science could possibly come amiss to a King.
+Meanwhile Nevian-Gokultash and Kasim and all the Andijan nobles,
+bickered inevitably with the Samarkand grandees, and Babar found no
+small difficulty in keeping the peace.
+
+Still, life was once more splendid; at any rate for the young King.
+But the soldiers grumbled at the lack of loot. It was all very well to
+say that the country had voluntarily submitted and was therefore
+beyond plunder, and that from a city which had suffered the
+vicissitudes of war for two years and withstood a siege of seven
+months, it was impossible to levy anything by taxation. It was all
+very well to supply the inhabitants with seed corn and supplies to
+enable them to carry on till harvest time. But charity began at home,
+and home under these circumstances was best.
+
+The wild Moghuls deserted first; then by twos and threes, the other
+men slipped away by night.
+
+Yet still life was splendid. On those same clear winter's nights Babar
+could watch the stars with new-found knowledge.
+
+"If the Most Excellent would watch the barracks instead," growled old
+Kasim, "it would be well. Our men grow thin. There are scarce a
+thousand of them left, all told; and new friends are not so good as
+old ones. The Samarkandis are doubtless fine fellows, as the Most
+Excellent appears to find them; but would they follow back to Andijan
+if occasion occur?"
+
+And occasion did occur. A letter arrived from Babar's maternal uncle
+the Khan of Moghulistan who, urged doubtless by the deserters, wrote
+saying that as the former had possessed himself of Samarkand, it was
+only fair that his younger brother Jahangir, who, after all, _was the
+son of Omar Saikh's first wife_ should be given Andijan.
+
+Kasim, who with his usual frown at all letters sat listening, spat
+solemnly on the ground. "Poison breeds poison," he said; "I deemed
+that talk had been spilt in the blood from Hussan Yakoob's hinder
+parts four years past. But 'tis never too late for mischief when women
+are left to themselves as they are at Andijan."
+
+"But my grandmother is sagacious," began Babar.
+
+Kasim shrugged his shoulders. "Saw you ever a woman who could manage a
+woman, sire? So have not I. Begum Fatima and she have been spitting at
+each other like wild cats, and what is wanted is a stick. Now, what is
+to be said?"
+
+Babar spoke hotly. "That I will not hear of it! No! though I might of
+myself have made my brother governor. But of myself. This savours of
+command. He knows my men have gone back! I will not hear the tone of
+authority."
+
+And Babar as he spoke felt himself tremble with anger. His voice was
+hoarse, too, and his head ached. He had been sitting up all night in
+the Observatory to watch an eclipse of the moon, and despite his fur
+coat had felt chill; for February had brought bitter winds.
+
+"So be it!" said old Kasim gleefully. He was getting weary of
+Samarkandi side, and foresaw more fighting now the spring was at hand.
+
+Next day a special messenger, foot in hand from Andijan, found Babar
+in bed with a severe cold. And the letter from Kwaja Kazi did not mend
+matters. Briefly, the deserting soldiers, discontented, disloyal, were
+giving trouble, and if help were not sent at once events might come to
+a very bad termination.
+
+That night delirium came to the young soul, as the young body lay
+fighting for breath against pneumonia.
+
+The physician bled him, of course, and fed him with almonds and
+ginger. And they closed every door and window, so that the wood-smoke
+filled the room and such little lung-space as was left. But splendid
+youth and health were his, and after a few days he lay outwearied with
+his hand-to-hand fight with Death, looking at the letters which had
+followed fast upon each other during his illness. And each brought
+worse news than the last. Andijan was besieged. Any moment his
+women-folk might fall into the hands of the enemy. He must start at
+once. To set aside Nevian-Gokultash's protestations, was easier than
+to rise and dress. Once up, however, he managed the council of war
+creditably, and for a day held his own bravely, giving orders for this
+and that.
+
+A tall, thin, haggard young figure with sharpened features and
+eager eyes defying Fate; until suddenly voice left him, he struggled
+on for an hour or two, then lay unconscious. So weak that they did
+not dare bleed him again, but mercifully left him as he was. Only
+Nevian-Gokultash at his right hand, moistening the dear lips with
+cotton dipped in water, while Kasim sat still as a statue, the tears
+running down his furrowed cheeks.
+
+Was this, then, the end of that vivid young life, the like of which
+had never been seen?
+
+But the Samarkandi fellows who did not really care might go about the
+city as dogs, and yelp the news that Zahir-ud-din Mahomed their King
+was dying, nay! was dead. It was easy to see that this had been done,
+for hour by hour, day by day the Garden-Palace became more and more
+empty, more and more solitary.
+
+A runner from Andijan, bearing further news found it so, and, anxious
+for the truth, stole upstairs on tiptoe to see for himself.
+
+How still! How cold! How silent! And that half-seen form in the dusk,
+motionless among the quilts? Dead! Dead! or so close to Death that no
+alternative remained.
+
+That night as his bells tinkled from his post-runner's pike as he ran
+past village, and field, and wood, they jangled the refrain that was
+on his mouth for all who cared to listen.
+
+"Babar is dead! Life has ended! The cup is finished!"
+
+Yet, even as the words rang out on the chill air, other words, faint,
+scarce to be heard, were startling those two sad watchers in the
+Garden-Palace.
+
+"The Crystal Bowl. Give it back to me ... I ... I laugh as I
+drink.... Bring me the whole, I say, the whole."
+
+The boy's brain, faintly conscious, was taking command once more.
+
+And the body obeyed. In four or five days he was reading letters of
+despair from his mother, from old Isan-daulet, from Dearest-One.
+Samarkand, they said, had been taken with troops from Andijan. Could
+not _one_ man be spared from Samarkand to keep Andijan?
+
+Babar had not the heart to delay, and ill as he was set off in a
+litter with such followers as he could gather together. It was a
+Saturday in March that he started; just a hundred days since he had
+entered Samarkand, and he knew he could not hope to return as King.
+"_One hundred days only_," he thought, as he jolted through the peach
+gardens that were once again swelling to bud.
+
+He reached Khojend by forced marches in a week's time; but by then he
+was on his horse again, beginning to regain strength and colour.
+
+So he wondered why the people looked at him so strangely as he rode
+through the town. Did they take him for a ghost?
+
+Yet he was even as one when they told him the news. Just a week
+before, on the very Saturday when he had started in such haste from
+Samarkand, Andijan had capitulated, needlessly capitulated, to the
+enemy on the news of Babar's death brought by a returning post-runner.
+
+For the sake of Andijan he had lost Samarkand, and now found that he
+had lost the one without preserving the other.
+
+Worse still, he had lost a dear friend; for the saintly Kwaja Kazi,
+protesting against the premature yielding of the citadel while there
+was yet no lack of provisions or of fighting men, had been barbarously
+martyred by being hanged in a shameful manner over the gate of the
+citadel.
+
+No wonder Babar wrote in the diary he had begun to keep: "I was in a
+very distressed condition and wept a great deal."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI
+
+   Blest is the soul that is lifted above
+   The paltry cares of Self's selfish love,
+   Which adds no weight to another's care
+   And gives no soul a burden to bear,
+   Which takes what comes as its part and lot,
+   Which laughs at trouble and worries not,
+   Which sleeps without malice or fraud in its breast
+   And rises pure from its daily rest.
+                                                  _Jami_.
+
+
+There was a sad meeting, naturally, with the womenfolk Babar had hoped
+to help, and who were--somewhat contemptuously--sent to him, unharmed,
+after a few days. Or perhaps that "divinity which doth hedge a king"
+or whatever it was, which all his life long ensured Babar's own
+safety, extended itself to those who were dear to him.
+
+Anyhow they came, and fell with tears on the neck of their dethroned
+darling. Dearest-One, slim and tall, her face still showing the lines
+of conflicting anxieties, yet still sweet utterly, without trace of
+bitterness for her brother. The Khanum, too rejoiced at seeing her son
+alive and well to care so much about his loss of dignity. Old
+Isan-daulet, keener of look and sharper of tongue than ever, but with
+a world of sympathy in her stern eyes for the lad who had lost all
+save honour. For she realised that Babar had practically given up
+Kingship for the sake of his womenkind. He had had fair grip of
+Samarkand, and even with but a thousand devoted followers of his own
+to help him hold it, could, nay would have done so.
+
+Babar, himself, did not attempt to deny his virtue. He never did; he
+was too frank to gloze over any of his actions, good or bad. He had
+done the right thing and he accepted the fact gravely; perhaps a
+trifle pompously; but that was his nature. In the same way, he could
+not fail to see, that what had placed him in the unfortunate position
+of having insufficient followers to hold both Samarkand and Andijan,
+was no error of judgment on his part, but simply his extreme and
+unusual justice in refusing to grind down the distressed inhabitants
+of the former city for the benefit of his soldiery. Could he only have
+shut his eyes to the usual undisciplined plunder his army would not
+have deserted wholesale.
+
+He was not introspective, but he knew, vaguely, that he had, somehow,
+had no choice in the matter. He had been born with this strong sense
+of justice, so he could not help himself; therefore despite this
+recognition of his own virtue, it slipped from him like water off a
+duck's back leaving no self-conceit behind.
+
+So he welcomed his loving women quite whole-heartedly, and then wept
+more profusely than ever at the difficulty of maintaining them in
+proper fashion. Not that they wanted this. The Khanum, gentle, kindly
+soul, was only too glad that her quite capable hands should do all
+things for her darling, Dearest-One brisked up with work that took her
+out of herself, and Isan-daulet had roughed it too much in her youth
+not to enjoy the familiarity of roughing it again. And life, even at
+Khojend, a miserable place in which a single nobleman would have found
+it difficult to support his family, was not without its interests. Of
+the rather more than two hundred, and considerably less than three
+hundred followers who chose exile with their young King, quite a
+number were men of good family, whose wives and children joined them.
+
+There was, therefore, company of a sort. Then Babar, despite his
+tears, was not one to give in. Inspired as he was by an ambition for
+conquest and extensive dominions, he could not, on account of one or
+two paltry defeats, sit down and look idly about him.
+
+So, at any rate, he told the three loving women with his usual serious
+pomp, when he sent a request for assistance to his uncle, the Khan of
+Moghulistan, and then set off to reconnoitre around Samarkand. He
+returned ere long disappointed; but was soon on the march again
+to see his uncle in person at Tashkend. In this he was encouraged by
+Isan-daulet who remembered her brother of old. "Lo! I know him. A good
+soul but a stupid. The brains of my father, Yunus, went in the female
+line. But if you beat his ears with words he will listen. And keep on
+the soft side of Shah-Begum, my husband's widow--God rest his soul!
+Anyhow he is at peace from her! A clever woman, but like a camel in
+mud--slippery!"
+
+And this expedition was so far successful that the young leader
+actually returned from it once more at the head of some seven or eight
+hundred horsemen. Rather a wild lot, mostly free-lance Moghuls eager
+for loot and violence. But it was better than nothing, though Khojend
+was not large enough to hold them, even for a night. Mercifully,
+however, there was an enemy's fort some forty miles off, so, taking
+scaling ladders with them, they rode on to it and carried the place by
+surprise. But even one day of Babar's strict discipline was more than
+enough for the wild men of the desert, and the very next morning the
+Moghul Begs represented that, having but a mere handful of men, no
+possible benefit could result to anyone from the keeping of one
+miserable castle; and so, there being truth in this remark, they rode
+off to their desert again unabashed, leaving Babar to return annoyed,
+but not despondent. For at this particular fortress there grew a
+particular melon, yellow in colour, with skin puckered like shagreen
+leather. A remarkably delicate and agreeable melon, with seeds about
+the size of those of an apple, and pulp four fingers thick, which
+everyone agreed was not to be equalled in that quarter.
+
+It was as well, certainly, to have gained _something_ if only a good
+melon, and the little party at Khojend feasted on it and thanked God
+they had their boy back again safe and sound.
+
+The summer was passing to autumn when another fit of despondency came
+to young Babar in the news of his cousin Gharib-Beg's death. The
+invalid had lingered far longer than had been expected, but still the
+certainty that he was gone brought grief; the more so because it
+re-aroused regret for the lost Crystal Bowl; regret which had almost
+been forgotten in the clash of arms of the last few months. But now he
+had time--only too much of it--for thoughts. Not given to mysticism in
+any form, he yet wondered vaguely if the Crystal Bowl had ever
+existed, or if the whole incident had not been part of the curious
+hold Poverty-prince had had upon his imagination; and not on his only,
+but on the imagination of all with whom the cripple had come in
+contact.
+
+And now he was dead! Gone for ever, like so many friends in these last
+troublous times.
+
+Babar, translucent as the crystal itself, gloomed under the shadow of
+his regrets till his mother began to fret with the fear of on-coming
+illness.
+
+But Dearest-One knew her brother better. "He must get away from us
+all," she said. "Yea! even from old Kasim and his warriors. Let him go
+to the White Mountains a-hunting for the winter."
+
+But Babar would have none of it.
+
+The White Mountains? Aye! they would be splendid--there were more
+bears there than in any other part of the country. Aye! and snow
+leopard too--the lad's eyes glistened as he admitted this--but he
+_could_ not leave his women-folk again, and he ought not to leave
+those who, to their own cost, had chosen to stick by him.
+
+"Then we will go also," said Dearest-One, nothing daunted. "We are not
+of towns more than thou art, and thou canst divide thy magnificent
+army!--take a hundred men with thee and leave an hundred to guard
+Khojend!"
+
+Her sweet eyes smiled at him, and he agreed. No one in all his life
+had understood him like Dearest-One, he thought; there was perfect
+confidence between them, though, strangely enough, he had never yet
+given her the portrait he had found in the Garden-Palace--the portrait
+left by Baisanghar in his flight.
+
+Why had he not done so? He scarcely knew, except that he had felt shy
+of broaching a subject that seemed buried. 'Twas best not to rouse
+coiled snakes, and Baisanghar, who had taken refuge in Bokhara, had
+gone out of their lives altogether; out of his, Babar's, at any rate.
+
+But everything seemed gone out of that; as the Turkhi couplet said:
+
+
+      "No home, no friends, no roof above my head;
+       Six feet of earth, no more, to make my bed."
+
+
+The White Mountains, however--white indeed during winter with their
+snowy slopes invading all save the tiny cleft of the valley where the
+skin tents of the little party had been pitched--soon brought back
+content. It was as if the soft covering of snow had blotted out the
+past, and the winter slipped by, full up with trivial distractions.
+
+Babar, returning long after dark to the encampment with half-a-dozen
+or so of bear-skins, forgot he was, or ever had been, King. And when
+early spring came on, and the bears were breeding, he took to hunting
+tulips instead. There were so many different kinds of them. Over
+thirty; and one yellow, double and sweet-scented like a rose.
+Dearest-One used to accompany him on these expeditions, for she was a
+real Moghul maiden, and the bright, cold winter had braced her up,
+until her cheeks glowed once more. Yet still Babar had never given her
+the portrait of herself, though he carried it with him more than once
+with that determination. Again, he scarcely knew why, except that it
+seemed to him the right thing to do. Why should she not have it?
+
+But one day the brother and sister had wandered high over the melting
+snow slopes, where the flowers lay thick as a carpet. Blue spring
+gentian and clustered pink primrose, purple pansy, and deep brown
+nodding columbines above a mosaic of forget-me-not and yellow
+crowsfoot. Great sweeps and drifts of flowers where the snow-drifts
+ended, and beyond in the far, far distance, in a dip of the hills, a
+level line of clear cobalt-blue.
+
+"Yonder lies Samarkand," said Babar, glooming in a second with the
+thought of past defeat; but his mind, ever vagrant, followed swiftly a
+line of new thought as he narrowed his long eyes to see better. "Had I
+the quaint contrivance at the Observatory there," he went on; "did I
+not tell thee of it?--no!--Well! 'twas a thing with curved glasses in
+a box and it made far-off things seem near--but blurred sometimes.
+Still had I it, I could mayhap see the Green-Palace. It stands high
+above the town."
+
+Dearest-One, her hands clasped idly over her knees as she sat on a
+little peak of rock and ice that rose out of the flowers, was silent
+for a space; then she said dreamily:
+
+"'Twas in the Green-Palace, was it not, where Kingship comes and goes,
+that Baisanghar was to die that time he escaped?"
+
+Babar hesitated. It was the first time his sister had mentioned her
+cousin's name to him; but now that the subject had been broached,
+might it not be better to take the opportunity offered? He had the
+portrait with him. Why not have it out and have done with it? After
+all it was a fitting place; the green alp all starred with flowers
+reminded him of the Andijan meadows and they of the green enamel frame
+starred with ruby, turquoise, amethyst, topaz.
+
+"I have something here," he said, fumbling in his fur coat, "that I
+have meant to give thee for some months; but--I know not why--" So he
+began haltingly; then warming to his subject told her in his own
+inimitable way, every tiny touch giving life to the picture, how and
+where he had found what he finally placed in her hands.
+
+The girl who had listened coldly looked at it still more chillily.
+
+"'Twas not meant for me," she said at last, and her tone was as
+ice--"And he prized it little, since he left it behind him."
+
+Babar with the returned miniature in his hand, stared at her in
+confused amaze, feeling that, of a truth, women were kittle cattle.
+One could never count on them--and all these months he had been afraid
+of exciting a storm of tears!
+
+Distinct ill-usage was in his voice as he said gravely: "But thou hast
+not seen the verses writ behind, and they are good. I stake my word
+they are excellent and correct in every elision, every poetic
+licence."
+
+It may have been the bathos in the lad's last eager protest which kept
+the pathos of poor Baisanghar's words from making full mark, which
+kept the girl's lips from quivering overmuch, which kept the mist of
+tears from overflowing to her cheeks as the words fell on the
+flower-scented air. So little, to frail humanity, turns grief to
+laughter and smiles to tears.
+
+Anyhow Dearest-One sat silent, and a faint smile curved her thin red
+lips.
+
+"Yea!" she said softly, "they are good verses; but he was ever a
+poet."
+
+And then suddenly the poetry which lies hid at the heart of all
+sorrow, all longing, all deprivation, surged on her and her face lit
+up with passionate feeling. "Give it me back, brotherling! give it me
+back. Let us leave it here! Here! on this high unknown place among
+God's flowers! Here! amid ice and snow! Here! overlooking the Palace
+where he would have died. Here! close to high heaven where there is
+understanding!" Her voice had risen as her thought rose, and now
+rang out joyous, triumphant. "Lo! the _Heft-Aurang_ will look down on
+my face night after night and the pole star will point the way to
+him.... Ah! Baisanghar! have patience, have patience! love will point
+the way!..."
+
+She laid the portrait face upwards to the clear blue sunshiny sky on a
+cold slab of ice that filled up--and looked as if it had filled up for
+centuries of chill summers and frost-bound winters--the wide clefts of
+the rock beside her; then stood up and stepped down amid the flowers,
+tearless, radiant.
+
+"Come, brother!" she said. "It grows late. Let us descend, they will
+be waiting."
+
+But Babar looked meditatively at the pictured face, and then at the
+one before him transfigured by emotion.
+
+"So that is love!" he said at last with a curious impersonality in his
+tone. "Truly it is wonderful; and after all there is not so much
+difference between it and tears!"
+
+So in a flood, came back to him that one glimpse he had had in the
+Crystal Bowl of his cousin's face. He saw it again clearly; he seemed
+to hear his voice telling of the frightened maiden. He had never
+thought of her since; such things passed quickly from his boyish mind.
+But now the wonder came as to whether he _would_ ever meet her. He
+might, without recognising her, since he did not know who she was.
+
+But Dearest-One might know; such things were part and parcel of the
+woman's life. His sister, however, was already half way down the slope
+and he had to run to overtake her.
+
+"Do I know?" she echoed to his question, quite calmly, having had time
+to recover her serenity. "Wherefore not? Such knowledges have to be
+kept by someone; so we women guard it. She whom Mirza Gharib-Beg
+deserted--" she spoke with distinct blame--"was well within the circle
+of distinction, being both of the royal house and also of the lineage
+of Sheik Jami, the divine poet--on whom be peace! Therefore she
+deserved a better fate than to live her life in a House-of-Rest--as I
+shall live mine," she added with conviction.
+
+"But thou art so young," protested Babar, ever ready to follow any new
+lead of thought.
+
+Dearest-One flashed out on him in her old way. "Young! One year older
+than she--so there! She was but a child, and Gharib-Beg, remember, was
+but two years older." She paused, then added hurriedly: "Did I not
+tell thee we silly women guarded such trivial knowledge as our lives?"
+
+To judge by Babar's women-folk (one of his many widowed aunts had
+joined the little camp on a visit--he had endless aunts and he seemed
+to be a favourite with all--) they guarded other trivial knowledges as
+their lives also. Babar returning home of an evening would find a
+regular Turkhi feast including goats' milk cheese fritters, made, of
+course, after the family recipe, spread out for his delectation, and
+Dearest-One never forgot to put violet essence in the thick milk. And
+plenty of sugar, for the lad had a sweet tooth. Then as they sat round
+the great, pine-log fire at night, Isan-daulet would call for a song;
+none of those niggling Persian odes, about the Beloved's Eyebrows and
+a Cup of Wine--the which was forbidden, though many good men fell away
+from grace and were none the worse for it--not in _this_ world at any
+rate, and for the next who could tell since the dear Kazi was not
+there to lay down the law ...
+
+"The Kazi was a saint," interrupted Babar with certainty; "I know it;
+first because the men who martyred him have all since died. That is
+one proof. Then he was a wonderfully bold man. Most men have some
+anxiety or trepidation about them. The Kwaja had not a particle of
+either, which is also no mean proof of sanctity."
+
+Old Isan-daulet chuckled. "Then are all my family canonised," she
+said, "and Paradise will have small peace! But sing, boy, a rattling
+Turkhoman ballad and bawl it fairly, if thou canst, now-a-days."
+
+But Babar had learnt better than bawling over in Uncle Hussain's camp,
+and though his grandmother shook her head over his rendering of
+"Toktamish Khan" still 'twas a fine song with a good stirring chant to
+it:
+
+
+       The pale white willows grow in the sand,
+       Toktamish Beg.
+       Choose one to hobble thy horse's leg
+       That thy bay steed stand.
+
+       Thy red blood drips on the yellow sand,
+       Toktamish Khan.
+       Wilt bind his wound, wife of Mirza Jan
+       With thy jewelled hand?
+
+       The wound is doleful, the kiss was sweet
+       Toktamish Kull.
+       Which poison, man! makes thine eyes so dull
+       And thy breath so fleet?
+
+       Oh! my bay horse neighed when I did sing,
+       And Mir Jan's wife
+       Swore she would love me all my life
+       And gave me a ring.
+
+       Thy steed will find him a rider soon
+       And fair Narghiss
+       Will have a new lover to cuddle and kiss
+       Ere another moon.
+
+       But thy mother is old; she has lost her brave
+       Toktamish Khan;
+       Let her carry her sheaf to Death's wide barn
+       And dig her a grave!
+
+
+The firelight danced on the young face as it sang cheerily. The
+Khanum, his mother, wept unobtrusively at the thought of what she
+would do if _her_ young brave were to die. Old Isan-daulet beat time
+with precision; Dearest-One smiled gently; but Nevian-Gokultash--the
+Heart-of-Stone--held up his finger.
+
+"Hist!" he said, "a horse's steps."
+
+Not one but many. A little detachment of loyalists headed by Kasim
+Beg, arriving in hot haste with renewed hope!
+
+Babar stood up tall, strong, and threw his wide arms out as if to
+shake off inaction.
+
+"Whence?" he asked briefly; "East, west, north or south?" There was
+weariness in the thought, not in the tone. He was ready to fight
+anywhere for Kingship again, though his heart sank at the futility of
+it all. Bokhara, Samarkand, Hissar, and half-a-dozen other chief-ships
+always changing hands. But this, a message of treaty from Ali Mirza
+who had held Samarkand since it had dropped from Babar's hand might
+mean something. So he was in the saddle and off; only to return then,
+and half-a-dozen other times, despondent, to admit that his star was
+not yet in the ascendant.
+
+Isan-daulet wearied of waiting at last, and set off herself to
+Moghulistan to levy troops to aid her grandson in the name of her dead
+husband. The Khanum went with her, and Dearest-One took the
+opportunity of retiring with one of her old aunts, to a House-of-Rest.
+So Babar was left alone. He would not remain at Khojend, however; he
+felt that he had already taken too much from the loyalists there, so
+in a state of irresolution and uncertainty he made for the border land
+of the Pamirs beyond the White Mountains. There he remained amongst
+the nomad tribes, perplexed and distracted with the hopelessness of
+his affairs.
+
+And here, as winter passed to spring once more, a saintly Kwaja--also
+an exile and a wanderer--came to visit him. And having no help to
+give, no advice to offer to one so down-cast, prayed over him and took
+his departure much affected.
+
+"And so was I," writes Babar frankly. Doubtless he was; and yet before
+sunset that very day he must have been out on the hillside, possibly
+hunting for new tulips in this new country; for he descried a horseman
+making his way rapidly up the valley.
+
+A horseman!
+
+Within half-an-hour, without an instant's delay, Babar had backed his
+lean Turkhoman mare and, followed by a leaner troop of such friends as
+still clung to him (Kasim and Nevian-Gokultash of course amongst the
+number) was galloping for Marghinan (the place where they remove the
+stone from apricots and put in chopped almonds!). For a message had
+been sent by the governor of the town to say he was ready to give it
+up to its rightful owner, and would hope for forgiveness for past
+offences.
+
+It was then sunset, and Marghinan lay more than a hundred miles away
+as the crow flies. All that night till noon next day the little band
+rode fiercely on. On those wild hills there was no road to speak of;
+one could but follow the water-courses as the streams sought their
+level. At noon next day they drew bridle for the first time. They had
+not come far, or fast, yet so hard had been the way that their horses
+needed rest. Twelve hours to give them a chance, and also, in the
+close valley of Khojend to secure night time for the first part of the
+march, and they were off again; this time to let sunrise pass to
+sunset and sunset pass to night before they again drew rein in the
+grey dawn. Drew rein and looked at each other doubtfully. Yet their
+goal lay not four miles ahead of them, a shadowy hill crowned by a
+fort and scarce seen in the half light.
+
+But the doubt was this:
+
+They had ridden for forty-eight hours up hill and down dale, over
+breakneck precipices and roaring torrents, without ever considering
+that they had no real warranty for so doing!
+
+The Governor of the town was one who was known to stickle at no crime.
+With what confidence then could they unconditionally put themselves in
+his power?
+
+So at least urged Nevian-Gokultash. Others joined in, and Babar, ever
+reasonable, saw cogency in the doubt, and ordered a halt for
+consideration.
+
+Out in the dawn, the horses, heads down, taking a nibble of grass
+between heaving breaths, the sweat running down from their polished
+backs, the tired troopers, too tired to dismount, arguing _pros_ and
+_cons_ wearily, until Babar rising in his stirrups, showed tall,
+straight, strong, commanding.
+
+"Gentlemen!" he said. "Our reflections are not without foundation, but
+we have been too late in making them. We have now ridden three nights
+and two days without sleep or rest. Neither horse nor man has strength
+left. There is no possibility of retreating, since there is no place
+of safety to which we _could_ retreat. Having come so far we must
+proceed. Therefore let us go forward remembering that nothing happens
+save by the will of God. Right turn, gentlemen! Forward!"
+
+And forward it proved to be from that moment. Marghinan his, the
+country people, disgusted with the late usurpers, crowded round their
+old young King.
+
+Of course Grandmother Isan-daulet was in at the finish with her horde
+of two thousand wild Moghul horsemen; who nevertheless did good, if
+barbarous, service at Akshi, where treachery met with its just reward.
+For the Moghuls, stripping their horses, rode barebacked into the
+stream and sabred the escaping traitors in their boats.
+
+So the peach trees had not shed their blossoms before, by the Grace of
+the most High (and many real fine fights) Babar recovered his paternal
+kingdom, of which he had been deprived for two years.
+
+Two years!
+
+He could hardly believe it as he rode through on the mantle of
+lambskins between the fort of Andijan and the river, where not so long
+ago he had been playing leap-frog when first King-ship came to him.
+
+"Nevian-Gokultash!" he cried suddenly, "an thou lovest me! off from
+thy horse and give me a back like a kind soul. I must leap to my
+kingdom once more!"
+
+He stood there laughing, the embodiment of boyish youth and energy;
+forgetful of past troubles, eager to enjoy life.
+
+"Ul-la-la!" shouted some of the nobles catching the spirit of the
+thing and throwing themselves from their horses.
+
+So leap Babar did, not over Nevian only, but over half-a-score or more
+of the friends of his adversity including Kasim who nearly tumbled
+over with laughter and joy.
+
+And the young King, as he once more cast himself face upwards on the
+soft furry little blobs of blossom amid a chorus of applause, felt
+that the whole world was splendid indeed.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII
+
+       Blessed is he who has not to learn
+       How the favour of fortune may change and turn,
+       Whose head is not raised in his high estate
+       Nor his heart in misfortune made desolate.
+                                                _Nizami_.
+
+
+"There is no use in talking," quoth Isan-daulet decisively. "Send the
+trays to Ayesha Begum, my daughter, and prepare the wedding
+comestibles. It has been high time, these two years back, that
+Zahir-uddin Mahomed got himself married, but of a truth there was not
+the wherewithal. One cannot marry out of a basket. But now all is
+smooth, so send for the bride. God grant she be not so unwilling as
+the groom."
+
+And in truth Babar, seated on the floor, of course, between his
+grandmother and his mother, looked far from happy. His hands lean,
+supple, strong, hung over his grasshopper knees, and his head--small
+for the rest of his body--had not its usual frank bearing.
+
+"I am not unwilling," protested the young man; "Lo! it has to be done,
+that I know. 'Tis the duty of Kings to marry and have sons; but, see
+you, I have no experience at all; indeed I have never been so
+circumstanced as either to hear or witness any words expressive of the
+amorous passion, and I have never seen my betrothed since I was five."
+
+"God forbid!" ejaculated the Khanum piously.
+
+"But how then can I love her?" protested Babar; "'tis not like
+Dearest-One and Cousin Baisanghar--"
+
+A shriek of outrage drowned what he would have said. Not that either
+of the two good ladies really felt shocked, but that in dealing with
+Babar they held it wiser to adhere to the strictly conventional;
+otherwise, heaven only knew if he would not go off at a tangent as
+Dearest-One had done. Poor Dearest-One on whom the blow of uttermost
+fate had fallen at last. For a terrible tale had come to Andijan but a
+month before, snuffing out the lamps of festival like a dust-storm at
+a wedding. For who could rejoice when they thought of a poor young
+prince who was nobody's enemy but his own, like Baisanghar, strangled
+with a bowstring by the orders of the miserable and infidel-like
+wretch, worthless, contemptible, without birth or talents, reputation
+or wisdom, Khosrau Shah? Babar had been beside himself with rage, and
+had expended every known epithet on the murderer, who though he prayed
+regularly, was black-hearted and vicious, of mean understanding,
+slender talents, faithless and a traitor. A man who for the sake of
+the short and fleeting pomp of this vain world had done to death the
+sweetest prince, the son of his old benefactor, in whose service he
+had been and by whom he had been patronised and protected. Thus
+rendering himself accursed of God, abhorred of men, and worthy of
+shame and execration till the judgment day. Perpetrating his crimes
+too for the sake of trivial enjoyment, and, despite his power and
+place, not having the spirit to face a barn-door chicken!
+
+The young man had poured all this and much more into his sister's
+ears, hoping to comfort her, but she had only turned her face to the
+wall, and wept.
+
+Strange, indeed, were women-folk; she had been so composed when she
+herself renounced him, but now that Death had stepped in she was all
+tears.
+
+The thought of her weeping brought him a quick excuse. "Anyhow," he
+remarked, with evident relief, "there can be no weddings yet awhile;
+my sister is not in condition for festivals."
+
+Isan-daulet sniffed. "Sisters are not indispensables to a marriage. So
+be good boy, Babar, and listen to reason. Do I not ever advise thee to
+thy benefit?"
+
+"Not ever," retorted the young King sulkily; "thou did'st advise me to
+set my promise aside and let thy cursed Moghuls and others plunder
+those I had sworn to protect."
+
+"Not plunder, boy!" replied the old lady shrilly, "but to resume their
+own property."
+
+"I care not," said Babar sternly, and rising to go; "I say I was wrong
+to yield. 'Twas senseless, to begin with, to exasperate so many men
+with arms in their hands. And then--Lo! grandam--I was precipitate,
+and in affairs of state many things that appear reasonable at first
+sight require to be well weighed and considered in a hundred different
+lights ere orders are given. I shall have trouble over that yet."
+
+He stalked away in dignified fashion, and his mother sighed. "He grows
+a man, indeed. 'Tis time he married; but I wonder will she be good
+daughter to me?"
+
+"She will be good granddaughter to me, that I'll warrant me," retorted
+Isan-daulet viciously. She would stand no nonsense from young chits.
+
+So the marriage went on, and Babar performed his part of it with grave
+politeness and propriety. He wore his wedding garments with a
+difference, and when he sat beside his bride for the first time,
+holding her hand and repeating the words after the officiating Kazi he
+felt quite a thrill. In fact he would like to have squeezed the little
+hand he held, only it was so covered with rings and gew-gaws that he
+was afraid of hurting it. Altogether the fateful she looked rather
+small; but distinctly fetching--though of course he could not see her
+face, in her veil of jasmine blossoms. They smelt, however, rather
+sickly.
+
+That was in fact all that he vouchsafed to Dearest-One who, late in
+the evening, slipped in, dressed in white from head to foot, to wish
+her darling brother happiness.
+
+"I would she smelt of violets instead," he said thoughtfully; "dost
+think, Dearest-One, it could have been the jasmine perfume and not the
+sweets that made me sick when I was five?"
+
+And Dearest-One laughed; a laugh with a sob in it, and said to her
+mother ere she returned to her House-of-Rest:
+
+"He is not fond of her, see you?"
+
+"God forbid!" snapped Isan-daulet tartly. "Lo! he will love her when
+she is the mother of his son."
+
+And Dearest-One was silent; that might be; though she doubted it. But
+for the present she was right. Babar was not in love; what is more he
+was shy.
+
+The Khanum, his mother, who found her town-bred, mincing and
+thoroughly amiable daughter-in-law quite an amusing distraction, began
+by rallying him on his bashfulness; but as the first period of his
+married life went on, bringing a decrease of such affection as he had
+had, and a corresponding increase of shyness, raillery turned to
+tears, then to anger, until the gentle lady, outraged by her son's
+behaviour, would scold him with great fury and send him off like a
+criminal to visit his wife.
+
+Babar had, however, some excuse for his lack of interest. Marriage had
+come to him in the very moment when he needed all his vitality to keep
+his newly-recovered throne. What he had said to his grandmother
+concerning his overprecipitate permission for modified plunder had
+been true. The inconsiderate order, issued without sufficient
+foresight had caused commotions and mutinies.
+
+The Moghuls, still dissatisfied, had marched off in a huff; good
+riddance of bad rubbish, as Babar said, though he chafed inwardly at
+not having been able to control them amicably. Still the Moghul Horde
+had ever been the authors of every kind of mischief and devastation.
+Five separate times had they mutinied against him; and not only
+against him--that might have pointed to incompatibility of temper on
+his part--but against every one in authority, especially their own
+Khans.
+
+It was in the breed. True was the verse:
+
+
+      "If the Moghul race had an angel's birth
+       It still would be made of the basest earth;
+       Were the Moghul name writ in thrice-fired gold
+       'Twould be worth no more than steel, wrought cold.
+       From a Moghul's harvest sow never a seed,
+       For the germ of a Moghul is false indeed."
+
+
+Thank God! he was no Moghul; he was Turkhoman born and bred!
+
+Before winter came on, indeed, the position of affairs had become
+critical. Half the nobles had sided with young Jahangir who still
+claimed the throne, and fighting was general all over the valley of
+Ferghana. To shut himself up in the town of Andijan for the winter
+months would only be to leave the enemy free to ravage the country
+outside. He therefore chose a spot on the skirts of the hills and
+cantooned his army there. A pleasant spot with good cover for game! An
+excellent sporting ground, in fact, containing plenty of mountain
+goats, antlered stags, and wild hogs. In the smaller jungle, too, were
+excellent jungle fowl and hares.
+
+Then, when such sport palled, there were always the foxes, which
+possessed more fleetness than those of any other place. Babar rode
+a-hunting every two or three days while he remained in those winter
+quarters, and regaled himself on the jungle fowl, which were very fat.
+Keeping an eye all the time, however, on the enemy's movements, and
+guarding Andijan, where the Khanum and old Isan-daulet appeared to
+have forgotten wars and war's alarms in something more cognate to
+their woman's hearts; something that was almost too delightful to be
+true.
+
+Babar, when he first heard of the delightful prospect, was all that
+could be desired. Affectionate, overjoyed, proud. What else could he
+be when his mother hung round his neck hysterically, and even
+Dearest-One's pale cheeks flushed at the future.
+
+"He shall be my son as well as yours, brotherling," she said. "Lo! I
+will be his best-beloved aunt. So that settles it, and all silly
+women's talk about my marrying somebody--does it not, O King!"
+
+And Babar, as he sat holding his sister's hand as in the old days, saw
+a vista of happiness before him. It would be delightful. Imagine
+having a son of his very own! Ayesha Begum could not complain of his
+coldness on that visit, and he returned to his camp jubilant.
+
+But the knowledge of what was to come, made him restless. Of what use
+was an heir, unless he was heir to something tangible? Ferghana,
+divided against itself, was no permanent position for either claimant.
+
+But what of Samarkand? There, his cousin Ali (who had no claim) had
+just beaten Weis, his younger brother who had a claim, doubtless,
+through his mother: but after his, Babar's, since she was the younger
+daughter.
+
+He sat on the snowy slopes waiting for _bara-singha_, or bear, and
+ciphered it out; he came back to camp and talked it over with Kasim
+and the nobles.
+
+"Praise be to God!" said the old swashbuckler, "we may see some fine
+fighting once again."
+
+They were to see more than they had bargained for; since, when with
+the advancing spring Babar and his army arrived before Samarkand it
+was to find that they were pitted, not against the weakling Ali and
+his half-hearted troops, but against the great Usbek raider, Shaibani
+Khan, who, God knows why or wherefore, had attacked Bokhara, taken it,
+marched on to Samarkand, taken it by the treachery of a woman, and was
+now there in undisputed possession. Babar felt that to attack the
+position overtly with his small force was madness. But what of a
+surprise? The Usbek horde were strangers. Babar himself had been
+beloved, during his short reign of a hundred days. If once he could
+find himself within the walls, the people of Samarkand might declare
+in his favour. At any rate they would not fight for the Usbek. _That_
+was certain.
+
+It was worth a trial. But those who were to attempt the forlorn hope
+must be picked men, and there must be no attacking force before the
+city. That would put the garrison on the alert.
+
+In the meantime he would go to the mountains; one thought clearer in
+high places.
+
+Summer was nigh on, ere preliminaries were settled, and Babar
+with his picked band, ready for swift attempt, stood on the heights of
+Yar-Ailak once more. Above him, unseen in the darkness of the moonless
+night was the flower-carpeted alp where Dearest-One's face watched the
+stars wheel. The _Heft-Aurang_, the seven thrones, showed in ordered
+array on the purple velvet of the night. Was one of them kept vacant
+for him, he wondered, or had Baisanghar's poor ghost found it? Babar's
+mind was ever full of such whimsical thoughts; they came to him,
+unasked, making his outlook on life many-facetted, many-hued, like the
+iridescent edge which had set a halo round all things in the Crystal
+Bowl.
+
+The future seemed thus glorified to him as he sat looking out over the
+unseen city in the valley beyond.
+
+His nobles, his comrades, were sitting round him, revelling over the
+camp fire; holding a sort of sacramental feast before the dangerous
+surprise.
+
+"Come!" cried Babar, turning, a light on his face brighter than the
+firelight; "let us have a bet on when we shall take Samarkand.
+To-night, to-morrow or never!"
+
+"To-night!" cried Nevian-Gokultash and the others followed suit.
+
+Half-an-hour afterwards they were in their saddles, low-bowed upon
+their peaks, light scaling ladders slung alongside, riding for all
+they were worth. Now or never! The time was ripe. Shaibani Khan
+himself, lulled in security, away on a marauding expedition, the
+garrison unalarmed, confident.
+
+It was midnight when they halted in the Pleasure-ground before the
+walls of Samarkand. Here Babar detached eighty of his best men. They
+were, if possible, to scale the wall noiselessly by the Lovers'
+Cave--most deserted portion of the fortifications,--make their way
+silently to the Turquoise Gate, overpower the guard and open the
+doors.
+
+Babar himself, with the remainder of his men was to ride up to the
+Gate and be ready to force their way in.
+
+How still the night was! The stars how bright! The Seven Thrones
+wheeling in their ordered array to the dawn. What had Fate ordered in
+his life? Babar, waiting, his hand gripped on his sword-hilt in the
+dark way of the Gate, listened eagerly for a sound. The horses' hoofs,
+deadened by enswathing felt, had made no sound, the very chink of
+steel on steel had not been heard. All was silent as the grave.
+
+What did Fate hold in store? Hark, a sentry's sleepy call: "What of
+the hour of the night?"
+
+What, indeed?
+
+Then in one second, tumult, uproar, a clashing of sword on sword.
+
+"The Gate! Open the Gate!" shouted Babar.
+
+A swift bombardment of dull blows--stones, anything on iron bolts and
+bars. A shiver, a sudden yielding, and the wide doors swung open.
+
+An instant after Babar was through the gateway, King of Samarkand. He
+knew it, even as he galloped on through the sleeping streets to the
+citadel. A drowsy shopkeeper or two, roused by the clatter, looked out
+from the shops apprehensively, then offered up prayers of
+thanksgiving. So, by ones and twos, the city woke to relief and
+gratitude. By dawn the hunted Usbeks had disappeared; dead or fled.
+And the chief people of the town, bringing such offerings of food
+ready dressed as they had at hand were flocking to the Great Arched
+Hall of the Palace, to do homage to their new King, and congratulate
+him on his success.'
+
+Babar received them with his usual frank, simple dignity. For nearly a
+hundred and forty years, he said, Samarkand had been the capital of
+his family. A foreign robber, none knew whence, had seized the kingdom
+unrighteously. But Almighty God had now restored it, and given him
+back his plundered and pillaged country which he would proceed to put
+in order.
+
+He did it to his heart's content! He was now nineteen, the birth of
+his son was nigh at hand, and all must be ready for the expected heir.
+
+So the next month or two passed in preparations and congratulations.
+Babar, who felt the strength of the pen as well as that of the sword,
+wrote endless letters to the neighbouring princes and chiefs, assuring
+them of his favour, and requesting like return from them. These he
+despatched duly accredited with rose-scent and gold-dust and brocaded
+bags; but not so many came back as went out.
+
+Moghulistan was slow to recognise the value of peaceful persuasion,
+and looked askance at the young general who could surprise so wily a
+foe as Shaibani Khan and yet think it worth while to write missives
+like a scrivener.
+
+But one letter came which brought the young King unmixed delight; for
+it was from the incomparable Ali-Shir at Khorasan; an incomparable
+letter without one word astray; a pure pleasure from start to finish.
+The young King answered it boldly: even daring so far as to write a
+Turkhi couplet of his own composing on the outside thereof; a Turkhi
+couplet that was not half-bad; for he was growing to be a man in mind
+as well as body.
+
+So all things went merry as a marriage bell. His grandmother, his
+mother, and the mother of his expected heir, arrived by slow marches
+from Andijan and were lodged in the Birthplace and Deathplace of
+Kings, the Green-Palace. And Dearest-One came too in the white
+robes of a sainted canoness, eager to take up her position of
+aunt-in-ordinary; a position of honour with the Chagatai family. Babar
+himself had half-a-dozen or so such Benificent-Ladies ready for all
+festivities, all condolences.
+
+So, one hot night, he found himself looking distractedly at the moon
+in a balcony of the women's apartments.
+
+Hurrying feet and whisperings had gone on, it seemed to him, for
+hours.
+
+But these feet did not hurry; they lagged.
+
+"A daughter! a miserable daughter!" said his mother's voice, full of
+tears. "Lo! I wonder Ayesha could think of such a thing ... It is
+unpardonable."
+
+"Let us say no more," put in Isan-daulet. "When a woman disgraces
+herself, the less said the better. We will get thee a more dutiful
+wife, sonling."
+
+Even Dearest-One's face was downcast utterly.
+
+"A daughter!" echoed Babar and paused. Then he said eagerly: "May I
+not see it, motherling?--'Tis my first child, anyhow."
+
+And they showed it him, a naked new-born baby wrapped in a cotton
+quilt.
+
+"It looks old; as if it had been born a long time," he said
+reflectively; then his fine, strong, young hand touched the tiny
+crumpled fingers tentatively. "Lo! they are like little worms," he
+said and laughed aloud suddenly, a gay young laugh. "She is not bad,
+my daughter. I will call her 'Glory of Women.'"
+
+And almost every day he would find time to go in to the women's
+apartments and look at her.
+
+But, after a month or forty days, the little Glory of Womanhood went
+to share the Mercy of God.
+
+She was his first child, and at the time he was just nineteen.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII
+
+       A Moment's Halt--a momentary taste
+       Of Being, from the Well amid the Waste,
+       And lo!--the phantom Caravan has reached
+       The Nothing it set out from.
+                                          _Omar Khayyam_.
+
+
+Fate had called a halt in Babar's life. A court had once more gathered
+round him, and, as King of Samarkand, a city of colleges and culture,
+this was of different stamp from that of Andijan. It occupied itself
+with other things than the edge of a sword-blade or the merits of a
+polo-ball.
+
+"Lo!" said Mulla Binai the poet, his voice lubricated with artificial
+adulation to extreme oiliness, "I have at last found fitting memorial
+for the magnificent victory of the King in these poor words:
+
+
+      "'Tell me, my soul, the conquering day
+       Fateh Babar Bahadur,' I say."
+
+
+The horrid doggerel, with its inlay of numerical letters giving the
+date of Babar's surprise of Samarkand, was allowed to pass muster in
+that crowd of flattering courtiers.
+
+Only Kasim Beg, bluff as he had been from the beginning, said,
+smartly:
+
+"Good enough, if so be 'tis accurate; but of that, thank God, I know
+naught; for whilst thou rememberest fine fights by dots and strokes, I
+keep them by the dents on my good sword."
+
+The old noble disliked Binai; he disliked all poets in general; but
+this one in particular. He knew nothing good of him but his _riposte_
+to Ali-Shir--who was worth ten of him since he had at least been born
+a Beg and who, before he was bitten by the mad craze for jingling
+words, had struck a good few shrewd blows for the right. Besides, he
+had been author and patron of many useful inventions, and it was not
+his fault if the gilded youth of Herat named every new fashion after
+him, and when he, in consequence of an earache, bound up his face with
+a kerchief, bound up theirs also and called it _a la mode_ Ali-Shir.
+Still Binai's _riposte_ to the sarcasms which had driven him from
+Herat was a good joke. To order a ridiculous pad for the ass he was to
+ride and call it the Ali-Shir pad! The recollection of it always made
+good old Kasim laugh broadly. The humour of it suited his sturdy
+outlook. An outlook that was disturbed by the jingle-jangle of words
+and wits that began to arise about his young master. It was all very
+well, and affairs were doubtless in a most prosperous state. All the
+same there was no counting on any continuance of fine weather with
+half-a-dozen claimants to the throne and Shaibani-Khan close at hand.
+The Usbek raider was no man to give in because of one reverse; his
+whole life was war.
+
+So Kasim frowned at culture, and as Prime-Minister looked to his
+weapons.
+
+It was not however for many months that his fear came true and
+Shaibani, reinforced, appeared again on the horizon of Babar's world.
+
+But when he did, the young King set aside everything else and buckled
+on his sword once more with zest. He had been studying military art in
+his great ancestor Timur's memoirs, and was eager for a pitched
+battle. No sooner, therefore, did Shaibani's hordes show themselves,
+than the young general marched to meet them, and, over-impatient,
+precipitated a collision before his own re-enforcements of over five
+thousand men had time to join him.
+
+But it was his first pitched battle, he was keen as mustard, and had
+planned it all out on paper beautifully on strategical lines.
+
+And the astronomers were to the fore with a lucky conjunction of
+stars.
+
+So the right and left wings marched out in orderly array, and wheeled
+admirably to meet the first attack of their flank. But somehow this
+separated Babar from his staff of veterans, who possibly did not
+believe in the virtue of disciplined movements; and though in person
+he led a dashing and impetuous charge of his centre on the foe, which
+drove the Usbeks back to the point of rout, Shaibani would not accept
+defeat. He stood firm, despite his officers' advice to withdraw while
+he could, and continued the wild desert tactics of repeated charges on
+the enemy's flank, repeated withdrawals to wheel and reform.
+
+And Babar's army, but half-disciplined, divided by conflicting ideals
+became hopelessly confused. His Moghul troops, refusing to obey
+orders, reverted to their old habit of killing and plundering, with
+the result of rout--complete absolute rout.
+
+That night the young leader, stern and calm, despite the ache at his
+heart for his own broken ideals as well as for the loss of the many
+Begs of the highest rank, the many admirable soldiers, the many
+devoted friends who had perished in the action, held a council of war
+in the citadel as to what had best be done under the circumstances.
+Capitulation on terms, or unconditional defence?
+
+Belief in their leader and the devotion of the Andijan nobles carried
+the day against the more lukewarm Samarkandis. It was resolved to hold
+the citadel to the death, to the very last drop of blood; and with
+vitality renewed by the need for immediate action Babar set to work
+strengthening the fortifications. Here at any rate he was master;
+bricks and earth could not disobey orders; they must remain where they
+were put.
+
+Yet most of the nobles sent away their wives and families secretly.
+Babar's mother and sister, however, refused to leave their beloved one
+whose fortunes they had followed for so long through thick and thin.
+Grandmother Isan-daulet, also, remained of course. Her brave old heart
+rather gloried in the thought of a siege, and with all the hatred of a
+desert-born Chagatai, she hated the Usbek raider who had dared to beat
+her grandson.
+
+Though on that point she and Babar had many words. He reviling her
+Moghul horde as the cause of his failure; she asserting it to be his
+cramping conditions which had prevented the success of the old methods
+of warfare that had served his fathers well enough.
+
+As for Ayesha Begum she had long since retired in a huff to her own
+relations, making as her excuse the plea of grief for the death of the
+little Glory of Womanhood. But Babar knew better. She had not cared at
+all. Her other plea that he did not love her was more to the purpose.
+Anyhow it was as well, thought the young husband grimly; she would
+only have wept and been uncomfortable.
+
+For discomfort was inevitable even from the very beginning of the
+siege; at any rate for the men. The nightly round of the ramparts
+alone entailed lack of proper sleep, since but a small portion of them
+was ridable, the rest had to be done on foot. And so long was the
+circuit that, starting at dusk, it was dawn before every place had
+been inspected. Still, even with the small force at his command, Babar
+kept the foe at bay, though, more than once he had a narrow squeak of
+it. Once when a feint attack of Shaibani's on the Iron-Gate covered a
+daring escalade at the Needle-makers Gate. An escalade that was all
+but successful. Four of the attacking party were actually over the
+wall, dozens of others were swarming up it, when one Kuch-Beg, noble
+by birth and by nature, caught a glimpse of someone where someone
+should not be. To draw his sword single-handed as he was, and spring
+to the attack was the work of an instant. It was an exploit for ever
+to be cited to his honour, though his ringing war-shout brought three
+more heroes to his aid. Even so, there were but four against dozens;
+but furious blows, daredevil recklessness do much, and almost before
+the nodding guards were roused, the danger was over, the escaladers
+driven back, to fall a confused heap of ladders and men leaving a dead
+body or two on the ramparts.
+
+Then Kasim Beg sallied out again and again to engage the enemy's
+pickets and returned, bringing heads to set on pikes upon the walls.
+
+For war was war in those days; there was no talk of Red-Crosses and
+ambulance-wagons.
+
+And yet two women went about inside the fortress, bandaging wounds and
+applying simples. For the Khanum, Babar's mother, could not bear to
+see pain, and though old Isan-daulet sniffed at new fangled ways,
+asserting that men could but die once and that it was waste of time to
+tend a common soldier as though he were a noble, she came of a
+fighting tribe and could give many an inherited recipe for the healing
+of cuts, the prevention of wound fever. Then Dearest-One despite her
+youth, had a claim, as one who had renounced the world to freedom for
+good works; so mother and daughter went about in their close white
+veils applying the simples which the old woman pounded and compounded,
+and doing all they could for the brave men who were helping the
+beloved of their eyes to keep his kingdom. They could do no less; they
+could do no more; so at least said the Khanum, as often in the dark
+nights the mother and daughter lay awake trembling in each other's
+arms, listening during an attack or a sally.
+
+Grandmother Isan-daulet would fall foul of them for their red eyes.
+
+"When a man comes in to his food," she would say, "reeling from blows
+at his head or sick at stomach with hunger, 'tis no comfort to him to
+see tears, or the signs of tears. Thou sayest, daughter, thou can'st
+do no more for thy son? Then I can. I can make him angry."
+
+And she did: so that Babar went from his breakfast with his soft heart
+hardened to disdain.
+
+Dearest-One used to admire her grandmother's pluck. Not to care if one
+hurt the beloved for his good! That was great. And she would wring her
+hands tight and say to herself: "I told him long ago that there was
+nothing I would not do for him; but there is nothing, nothing I can
+do."
+
+So the months dragged by. Harvest came and went without bringing fresh
+supplies to the beleaguered fortress, and Shaibani, cynical, somewhat
+afraid of his daring young antagonist, withdrew from actual collision,
+and contented himself with blockade. Starvation would do the work
+without his aid.
+
+The grain for the horses had already given out; however, while the
+leaves lasted the mulberry trees and the rose-wood trees in the
+fortified gardens were stripped and did for fodder. But the winter
+winds ended this supply, and the shift was made to keep some few
+horses alive with the rispings of wood moistened with water and
+sprinkled with salt. A sorry appearance was that of the poor steeds on
+such miserable fare; but Babar's charger did better, with a daily
+share of his master's bread; though the big-boned lad could ill
+spare it. For all alike were on short commons; and they grew shorter
+day by day. The dying horses were killed and eaten, the donkeys went
+next--then the cats and dogs. When matters came to this pass, however,
+night after night men--brave men--began to let themselves down over
+the wall and make their escape. The haggard young King never knew when
+he called a council of war, what trusted, what honoured face, might
+not be absent. Yet still he clung to that last drop of blood. The oath
+might have been foolish, since, as the ancients said, a fortress can
+only be maintained by the joint action of head, and feet, and hands;
+that is to say by generalship, two friendly forces on either side, and
+a good supply of water and stores as the starting point of all. Still
+he had made it, and he meant to stick to it. The others might go if
+they pleased.
+
+"If I could only secure thine and my mother's and my grandmother's
+safety," he said to Dearest-One--"the other few women also," he
+added--"though there is little fear for them, they count not enough
+for harm; and Shaibani hath his army well in hand. That is how he
+scored against me. Those accursed Moghuls of my grandmother's would
+not obey orders. If they killed a man they plundered him--and what is
+that, when a turning movement hath been ordered? Ah! it was devilish!
+devilish!" And the tall, thin, young figure would throw out its arms
+almost appealingly. For Babar was ever high-strung, and his nerves
+were going.
+
+He gave himself no rest either. Night and day he was always on the
+watch. So it did not matter so much to him as to others when Shaibani
+Khan, changing his tactics, commenced making the darkness hideous by
+beating large kettle drums and sounding the alarm. Yet the young King
+shook his fist over the battlements at his foe, who had now pitched
+his headquarters tent close to the Lovers' Cave, and said to
+Dearest-One, "It is not fair, and yet it is! I would do it in his
+place--and yet I don't know--I don't know!" He was very near the end
+of his tether, yet his grip was tight as ever and he would sit on the
+top of the gateway with a crossbow and shoot at everyone and
+everything living that showed itself.
+
+"I struck a palish white-coloured horse to-day," he said to his sister
+with a cruel exultant look in the eyes that had always been so tender
+for God's dumb creatures, "and it fell dead--would it had been a man!"
+
+And Dearest-One turned pale. This was worse than death; worse than
+anything--anything in the wide, wide world!
+
+She lay face downwards beside her mother that night and thought, and
+thought, and thought, until the grey dawn came. Then she sat up and
+looked at her mother sleeping beside her.
+
+Yes! it was best. The plan was worth the trying at any rate; and she
+would be the only one to suffer.
+
+She lay down again, and laid her head on that gentle, loving, sleeping
+breast. And the motherly arms, unconscious as they were, closed round
+her and held her fast until she, too, slept, outwearied. That morning
+she was closeted with her grandmother for hours, and at the midday
+meal the old woman's eyes showed red; but Dearest-One's were clear and
+bright; when the mind is made up there is no use in tears.
+
+The evening was stormy. The bitter east wind swept along the ramparts
+and drove the dust in blinding clouds into the eyes of all. The very
+foe ceased from their disturbing shouts of alarm, and on many a post
+the sentry slept awhile.
+
+Did one at the wicket gate by the Lovers' Cave sleep or did he not;
+and did the white-robed figure that slipped after dusk through the
+deserted streets pass out, unseen, to challenge fate in the Usbek
+leader's camp?
+
+Or did Dearest-One send a message only?
+
+Or was it only chance which the very next morning brought the
+ultimatum to the haggard young King? Who knows? Certain it is it came.
+
+There was no reason, Shaibani wrote, why those who had been brave foes
+should not be brave friends. None could deny the King of Samarkand's
+bravery; few would care to deny his own. Why then should they not be
+friends? A marriage was ever the best way of securing peace. Let Babar
+therefore give his sister Khanzada Begum in lawful marriage to his
+foe--who, be it said, was in strong enough position to take her--and
+so form a lasting alliance.
+
+"My sister!" burst out Babar in a fury. "Go back to the savage
+Usbek Shaibani, robber, raider, sir ambassador; and tell him that
+Zahir-ud-din Mahomed is not his peer--he is his master!"
+
+This was all very well in the saying; it sent the blood, growing a bit
+sluggish from sheer starvation, flooding to heart and brain; but
+afterwards when the envoy had gone, and the hungry anxious faces of
+the few who still remained to him showed bitter disappointment, he
+leant his head on his hands drearily in the quiet of the women's room,
+and tried to put himself in the place of those bearded Begs to whom a
+woman's honour or happiness or indeed affection, was, as a rule, of
+small account.
+
+He could not, of course, assent; and yet it seemed a pity that he
+could not.
+
+And while he sat crouched in upon himself, spent and weary,
+Dearest-One herself came and crouched beside him and laid her pretty
+head on his shoulder.
+
+"Brother!" she said, "I have heard. Come let us talk it over as in old
+days. So let me hold thy poor hand as we used to do; for we have ever
+been friends, Babar-ling--have we not?"
+
+Her voice was calm and steady despite the clamant note of tears that
+was in every word.
+
+"Talk not of it, sister! I will not have it," he muttered; and his
+voice was broken, husky. "By God and his prophet! I could strike him
+dead for the thought that I could be such a cur as even to think of
+it."
+
+She shrank just for a second. "Many men would think it naught," she
+said, "but it is because it means much to thee that thou must think."
+
+"I will not think," he cried passionately, "I will not be coerced. I
+will not be cozened. I, Babar, take the consequence."
+
+He left her, baffled, yet still determined, to return to the charge in
+a day or two; and in starvation times a day or two means much. So
+much, that she spoke sternly with finality.
+
+"Wilt thou kill thy mother by thy pride, Babar? Listen! Long years ago
+I said I would do aught for thee--"
+
+"And I answered I would never ask aught," interrupted her brother
+hotly; but she went on unheeding:
+
+"And now thou deniest me the right to save thee. I who have so few
+pleasures. Lo! as thou knowest, my heart is dead for love; and this
+man--this Shaibani--is not all bad--I--I know he is not. Brotherling!
+women have borne more for love than I shall have to bear maybe--for
+the man must be kind in a way--for--for if it ended, Babar--he could
+take me--without marriage--so grandmother says--"
+
+Babar started up with an oath. "So she also is against me!"
+
+Yet in his heart of hearts he knew that the old woman spoke truth. It
+was generous in Shaibani even to offer marriage.
+
+"I will not have it!" he cried. "I will not yield! I would sooner kill
+thee, myself."
+
+"Thou wilt kill--us all," she said calmly. Then she broke down and
+clung to him sobbing. "Let it be, brotherling, for my sake. There is
+so little I can do--let me do this."
+
+The quick tears of understanding ran down his cheeks, but he shook his
+head and left her.
+
+So, after a day or two, yet another proposition came from Shaibani to
+his brave foe. Babar might go with bare life, taking his womenkind
+with him if he chose, provided he capitulated utterly and acknowledged
+he was beaten.
+
+There were parleyings and parleyings and who knows what secret
+promisings beside, what innocent lies, what heart-broken yielding on
+Babar's part. At last, protesting vainly that had he had the slightest
+hope of relief, or had he had another week's stores remaining he would
+never have listened to either threats or entreaties, he agreed to
+capitulate for bare life to him and his. His mother, his sister, his
+grandmother, these three must share his freedom. The others must take
+their chance of horses, or remain, unharmed. Grandmother Isan-daulet,
+however, flatly refused to come. She was too old, she said, to be
+cocked up on a horse for days. She was not afraid. Thrice, already,
+when she was young and good-looking she had fallen into the enemies'
+hands and had been unmolested--save once and how that business ended
+Babar knew. So, being now wrinkled and undesirable she would just
+remain and mayhap give Shaibani a piece of her mind. So her horse had
+better go to Mingilek-Gokultash who was perchance over good-looking.
+It was ever best not to put temptation in men's way. Besides
+Dearest-One might like to have her foster-sister with her. It was
+convenient to have some woman one could trust beside one in dangerous
+times.
+
+As the old woman spoke, she held her granddaughter by the hand, and
+her old fingers tightened themselves on the young ones with a grip
+firm as steel, soft as a caress. And Dearest-One stooped and kissed
+the old face on the lips.
+
+So by midnight all was ready for the preconcerted escape. The few
+sorry horses left in the citadel were standing saddled, the enemy's
+pickets, it is to be presumed, were looking another way. Babar,
+fierce, miserable, helped his mother to her pad and settled the
+stirrups for her. He could scarcely see for the hot tears held back so
+angrily in his eyes. He could scarcely speak for the hard-held breath
+that seemed to choke him.
+
+Defeated, flying for his life--No! not for his own only; for theirs
+also!
+
+He gave a glance round at his party. "Is everyone there? Is everyone
+ready?"
+
+And from the midst of the little crowd clustering round the fugitives
+with sobs and tears a voice came clearly:
+
+"Yea! brother! I am ready."
+
+It was Dearest-One's voice. That must be she leaning from her horse to
+whisper a word to old Isan-daulet who stood waving farewells.
+
+"Then in God's name let us begone, and end the business," he shouted
+fiercely, leapt to his charger, dug spurs to its flanks and was off
+careless of disturbance. He had sold himself for the sake of those who
+loved him, man and woman alike; but the blackness as of death was
+before his eyes; he could not think; he could do nothing but dig spurs
+to his horse, and ride on recklessly.
+
+And the night itself was dark as death; he had to rein up amid the
+great branches of the Soyd Canal, and with difficulty rallied his
+party to the right road. Yet, still entangled in the intricacies of
+the irrigated fields, there was time for no other thought save that of
+getting as far from Samarkand as possible before the dawn. Since
+though the Usbek leader himself had given order for free pass, his
+followers, still less his allies, were not to be trusted.
+
+The sky was grey with coming day before they reached the comparative
+safety of a wild valley set amid encircling hills. Here Babar called a
+minute's halt to breathe the horses, and for the first time turned to
+take stock of those who followed him.
+
+His keen eye took in his mother's veiled form. But that bundle like a
+sack of corn, that crumpled heap like a withered rose leaf--neither of
+these were Dearest-One? _She_ rode! In a flash, a sense of pride at
+her upright carriage on her horse came to him, even as a suffocating
+leap of his heart made him speechless for a second. An awful fear
+seized him. He knew, and yet he would not know what had happened.
+
+"Khanzada Begum!" he muttered hoarsely. "Where--where is she?"
+
+No one spoke, and anger--hopeless, helpless anger and grief kept him
+silent. Then someone said almost fearfully:
+
+"Mayhap in the night time--in the darkness--"
+
+"It is a lie!" burst out Babar. "It is a lie!--I have been tricked!"
+Then something of the innate truth that was ever in his soul made him
+pause. He ought to have known--he ought to have guessed. Foes were not
+usually so generous, and he saw himself not altogether free from
+blame. "I have tricked myself--I ought to have known," he burst out.
+"I--oh! may God's curse light on everyone--everyone--"
+
+So he stood, his face turned towards the distant city for a moment,
+then with a reckless laugh he loosed the rein on his horse's neck and
+threw his arms above his head.
+
+"Come on!" he shouted as the horse bounded forward. "We are free! Let
+us ride to hell--to hell and damnation!" And his laughter echoed back,
+bringing terror to his mother's heart.
+
+"He is beside himself," she cried. "After him, Kasim--for God's sake
+keep him from harm."
+
+But Kasim and Kambar-Ali his squire, were already at the gallop, and
+the sound of their horses' feet followed Babar as he fled.
+
+From what?
+
+From everything in the wide world. From anger, love, remorse, helpless
+grief, even from resolve not to be beaten. His nerves were unstrung;
+for the moment his one thought was escape.
+
+But only for a moment. The sound of those galloping hoofs behind him
+brought immediate self-control, immediate grip on kingly dignity.
+
+He turned back on his saddle to cast a word that would re-instate him
+in sanity to those following fools.
+
+"A race!" he cried gaily. "Come on! A race let it be!--Ten
+_dinars_ ..."
+
+But even as he spoke, he overbalanced. Perhaps he felt giddy, perhaps
+the girths on his starving horse were all too slack. Anyhow the saddle
+turned with him and he fell; fell clear on his head.
+
+He was up again, however, ere they reached him, standing unsteadily
+with dazed eyes, passing his hand gently backwards and forwards over
+his brow.
+
+"What was it all about?" he murmured cheerfully. "I've clean forgotten
+it all." And he had.
+
+He mounted again after a minute and rode on; but the memory of that
+night had gone out of his mind for ever and aye.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX
+
+       Think, in this battered Caravanserai
+       Whose doorways are alternate Night and Day,
+       How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
+       Abode his Hour or two and went his way.
+                                          _Omar Khayyam_.
+
+
+Those first few days of despair were as a dream. The world and all
+that is in it showed to Babar's eyes like a phantasy of sleep. He lay
+and rested at a friendly village, passing from the extreme of famine
+to plenty; from an estate of danger and calamity to peace and ease.
+The nice fat flesh, the bread of fine flour well baked, the sweet
+melons and excellent grapes in great abundance, all these made him
+feel sensibly the pleasures of peace and plenty; for enjoyment after
+suffering, abundance after want, come with an increased relish and
+afford a more exquisite delight. It was the first time in his life
+that he had passed from the injuries of his enemies and the pressure
+of actual hunger to the ease of security, and he revelled in it like
+the wholesome-hearted, and, for the time, mindless creature that he
+was.
+
+But memory of a sort came back to him after a few days and he grew
+restless; so they marched on. And as he rode over the hills or walked,
+leading his mother's pony, discontent began once more to leaven his
+glad content. The world in these lower lying districts was beautiful
+in the early springtide, but there was something more in life than
+mere beauty. There was something else needed to make it splendid.
+
+"I will go back to where we were in the White Mountains," he said one
+day. "I was happy there and so was Dearest-One."
+
+It was the first time he had mentioned his sister's name, and his
+mother looked at him anxiously. But he said no more. Nature was
+dealing in kindly fashion with him and bringing memory back by slow
+degrees.
+
+But at Bishagher, where they halted a few days, it was like to have
+been otherwise, for there they came across an old duenna of Babar's
+mother who having been left behind in Samarkand because of the
+scarcity of horses, had, nothing daunted, trudged after her mistress
+on foot. The two women sobbed on each other's necks, while the one
+told and the other listened to the piteous tale of a marriage, which
+after all had not been so bad as it might have been, because of old
+Isan-daulet's masterful spirit. But they said nothing to the menfolk
+about it all. It was as well that their boy should hear as few details
+as possible.
+
+And here--the first possible place for news since those long months of
+siege--tidings came of family deaths at Tashkend. It was fourteen
+years since Babar's mother had been there and seen her people, and
+now, when they were hopeless, homeless, and when, moreover, she had
+her old governess to serve her once more, the time seemed fitting for
+a visit.
+
+So she went, and for the first time for many years Babar was left
+alone without any hostages to fortune.
+
+And one of the first things he did with his liberty was to climb a
+certain hill all set with flowers, which he and his sister had climbed
+one spring day in the past. The gentians were as blue, the primulas as
+pink as ever, and the mosaic of forget-me-nots and yellow crowsfoot
+lay almost inconceivably bright as ever. The blue sky, grazing ground
+for fleecy white flocks of clouds, stretched away beyond the hills to
+that faint bluer line of distant Samarkand.
+
+All was as it had been. And the green enamel frame set with jewels,
+like flowers, lay on the transparent ice where she had put it. He had
+not noticed that before; one could see through the slab--see green
+grass-blades, and a half opened flower bud that had been held in chill
+prison for years and years and years--It was quaint, utterly, when her
+face, her portrait had gone! The rain had washed it away. The vellum
+on which it had been painted lay white as snow.
+
+Yes! quaint utterly. The icy grip had kept its hold, the warm sunshine
+had let slip its prize. He sat down idly, his head resting in his
+hands.
+
+Yes! her face had gone! What matter now if there was place or grace
+beside it for another? Poor Baisanghar! and poor--infinitely poorer
+Dearest-One! For the first time the full meaning of what had happened
+came over him; he turned round passionately, hid his face among the
+flowers and cried like a child.
+
+_Ishk_ and _ashk!_ Love and tears. How little divided them. So the
+thought of his dead, crippled cousin came to him and the memory of
+that vivid, fate-defying face stood between him and despair. The
+Crystal Bowl! Yes! he would laugh as he quaffed: life had brought him
+strange adventures; let her bring more! He was ready for them--quite
+ready, in his manhood, to take what the years might hold. For boyhood
+had gone. That had capitulated with Samarkand.
+
+He did not formulate all this clearly; he simply felt it. Felt the
+keen joy in life come back to him as he sat up once more and looked
+out over God's beauties with still swimming eyes; and the tears were
+magnifying glasses!
+
+A quaint conceit that might be worked up into a couplet or perchance a
+quatrain. Baisanghar would have done it finely: he worked well on such
+finniken fancies. But he had been wrong in the verses he had written
+on the back of the enamel frame. Were they there still? Aye! they had
+been protected from the tears of rain.
+
+He read the lines over, feeling as he read them that there was
+something in them that lacked. So, as he felt, words came to him; for
+he was born with that artistic temperament which cannot help trading
+on its own most sacred emotions; perhaps because such natures see
+vaguely that individualism is a snare to the soul, that all things
+worth recording are part of a Greater Personality than their own. And
+the outcome of feeling and words ran thus:--
+
+
+      "Seven thrones, seven sins, seven stars,
+       But not one thing that bars
+       Life's love, Life's tears.
+       The crushed grape fills the bowl
+       With wine for the sad soul
+       Beyond these years."
+
+
+He jumped up feeling quite pleased with himself, for they were the
+first verses in that measure he had ever composed!
+
+After this when he was wandering barefoot over hill and dale, he would
+sit down when he found some pleasant spot and string rhymes together;
+for he was in a backwater, mentally and bodily. For twenty years he
+had battled with Fate over trivialities; since what, after all, were
+Ferghana and Samarkand and Hissar? Only tiny little bits of God's
+earth. He was beginning to be a trifle weary of it all, to long for a
+larger horizon. So he sent off on the pretext of getting news, the few
+followers who had remained with him while he, Nevian-Gokultash,
+and another wandered farther and farther, higher and higher up the
+White Mountains until they reached the Roof-of-the-World. And there
+they lodged awhile in the felt tents of a shepherd and lived on
+sheeps'-milk, cheese and buckwheat-cakes. Their host was a man of some
+eighty years; but his mother was still alive, and of extreme age,
+being at this time no less than one hundred and eleven years old, and
+in full possession of her faculties. Indeed, the circumstances of the
+great Timur's invasion of India remained fresh in her memory owing,
+doubtless, to her having been in her youth greatly interested in one
+who had been in his army.
+
+She was a hale old woman, smoke-dried yet apple-cheeked, who loved to
+hear herself talk, especially when the tall good-looking young
+stranger sat at her feet, fixing his hazel eyes that were at once so
+sad and so merry on her whirling pirn as she twisted the brown wool
+for the blankets.
+
+How it whirled, and leaped, and spun, as the withered old hand jerked
+the thread! So the Hand of Fate jerked men's lives, setting them
+spinning like tops into the shadows, out into the firelight again;
+always, always spinning!
+
+"So the Great Khan was feeding his dogs, being in those days infidel,
+when Shaikh Jumal-ud-din the divine came to him. 'Am I better than
+this dog?' quoth Timur, 'or is he better than I?' And the Shaikh
+smiled. 'If the King has faith he is better than his dog; but if he
+has no faith, then is his dog better than he, since the dog believes
+in a master.' So the Great Khan said the Creed immediately."
+
+"Wah!" murmured the circle of shepherds; but Babar would press for
+tales of the Great Invasion. And sometimes the old lady would begin at
+the very beginning, and tell how Timur's soldiers, imitating their
+leader, would make their left arms straight as the letter "I" and
+their right arms crooked as a "K" and so write death in the blood of
+their enemies. How they let fly their arrows as the moon lets fly
+shooting stars so that the blood-sodden hillsides showed like a drift
+of red tulips. Or she would drone on--it was a long story--over the
+"Battle of the Mire," where the enemy not having strength to fight,
+sought help from the magic rain-stone, so that though the sun was in
+the Warrior, a host of dark clouds suddenly filled the sky. The
+thunder resounded, the lightnings flashed, the water descended from
+the eyes of the stars until the voice of Noah was heard praying a
+second time for deliverance from the Deluge. Then the beasts of the
+field swam like fishes, the skin of the horses' bellies adhered to the
+crust of the earth. The feathers of the arrows damped off, their
+notches came out, neither men nor horses could move by reason of the
+rain ...
+
+So she would maunder on until Babar would say impatiently:
+
+"Get on to India, mother! I would fain be there myself."
+
+And he would hardly listen as she, once more beginning at the very
+beginning, would detail the eight-hundred-thousand men, provided with
+rations for seven years and each accompanied with two milch-kine and
+ten milch-goats, so that when stores were exhausted they might live on
+milk, and when milk dried up they could convert the animals themselves
+into provisions.
+
+It was all doubtless very wise of Timur--God rest his soul!--who was
+ever great on the commissariat; but he, Babar, preferred the laconic
+remark in his great ancestor's autobiography, "The princes of India
+were at variance with one another. Resolved to make myself master of
+the Indian empire. Did so."
+
+It was however the more intimate personal experiences which the old
+woman held by virtue of that dead "interest" of hers, which fired
+Babar's imagination; but these fragments of a half-forgotten past were
+not always to be got at. The long years of common round and daily task
+had overlaid them; it needed a subtle touch upon the instrument to
+make it vibrate once more. But Babar found a key. There was a certain
+Turkhoman ballad called "The Maid-of-the-Spring," which invariably
+unlocked the old woman's memory. So, often, as they sat over the camp
+fire at night, Babar, smiling to himself, would say, "A song, a song!
+Let us sing 'The Maid-of-the-Spring' together once more, grandmother!
+There is none sings it as thou dost."
+
+Which was true! Still the toneless treble of the old voice whining
+away like the fine whing of a mosquito did not sound so bad against
+the rich baritone. And the youngest maiden could not have nodded and
+becked more, or looked more arch. And perhaps the old heart beat as
+quickly as a young one; such things do not go by age.
+
+And this is what they sang in somewhat monotonous antiphon:
+
+
+   He.
+       Maid of the Spring! I'm thirsty! I pray
+       A drop of water! I must away.
+       God bless you, my girl! And don't be slow!
+       Give me a drink and let me go.
+
+   She.
+       I don't give drinks to strange young men
+       Who come a-swaggering down the glen;
+       Naught you'll get from my pitcher to-day,
+       Drink for yourself and go your way.
+
+   He.
+       Maid of the Spring! I cannot alight,
+       I'm far too tired! I'm wearied quite!
+       I haven't time! God bless you, my dear!
+       Give me a drink--I _can't_ stay here.
+
+   She.
+       The birds sing sweet in the spring, they say,
+       It's sweeter still when _I_ tune my lay,
+       But tired man should sleep in his bed--
+       Farewell! God's blessing be on your head.
+
+   He.
+       Give me some water, you pretty dear!
+       If I'd only time, you need not fear.
+       My darling! a drink from that stoup of thine,
+       Be it water or be it wine.
+
+   She.
+       Many men travel along this way,
+       All are thirsty but none can stay.
+       Take my pitcher and drink if you will,
+       A thirsty man must have his fill.
+
+   He.
+       Your brows are arched by a pen, I swear,
+       Your teeth are pearls--I will treat you fair,
+       Get down from my horse and wait an hour.
+       Give me your lips, my sweet, my flower.
+
+   She.
+       Roses and violets grow our groves,
+       No one may pluck them but he who loves.
+       My brother has slaves, and sticks a-main;
+       Drink and be off--it soon will rain!
+
+   He.
+       Darlingest dear! let it storm or rain,
+       My wide felt cloak shall shelter us twain.
+       Pitcher and all, leap up and ride,
+       We'll find a kiss at the water's side.
+
+   She.
+       My love! my love! have you come at last?
+       Drop the pitcher and hold me fast!
+       There are my lips before we fly
+       Out to a new world--you and I.
+
+
+"And now for India!" Babar would cry when the applause was over. "I
+want to hear about the size of it, and the fruit and flowers of it,
+and all about it. See you, grandmother, begin and tell me of the young
+woman thy man met at Lahore--then thou wilt remember to a nicety!"
+
+So the summer passed, until old Isan-daulet arriving from Samarkand
+with news of Dearest-One, set Babar's mind a-jogging once more over
+his enemy Shaibani. But there was nothing to be done in winter time:
+such a bitter cold winter, too. More than one man died of it, and even
+Babar himself admitted that, after diving sixteen times in swift
+succession into a river that was only unfrozen in the middle by reason
+of its swift current, the extreme chilliness of the water quite
+penetrated his bones; as well it might.
+
+Then early spring brought a great grief which gave pause to energy.
+Nevian-Gokultash was done to death, by a scoundrel who was jealous of
+Babar's affection for him, and who had the temerity to say that
+faithful creature had fallen over a precipice when he was drunk.
+Nevian, who adhered so strictly to the law of Islam! Nevian, who had
+always sided for sobriety, who had been to the full as urgent as old
+Kasim Beg against a King giving himself up to wine. Babar, helpless to
+follow the murderer, felt deeply the death of his playmate in
+childhood, the companion of his boyhood. There were few persons for
+whose loss he would have grieved so much or so long. For a week or ten
+days, he thought of nothing else and the unbidden tears were ever in
+his eyes.
+
+After this, a great restlessness set in, fostered by old Isan-daulet,
+whose whole life had been one long succession of battles and murders
+and sudden deaths, and whose belief in Moghul troops never wavered.
+Why, she suggested, not go to his uncles the Khans at Tashkend? His
+mother had been ill; she would like to see him once more. And if his
+tongue was sufficiently careful amongst his thirty-two teeth, he might
+get substantial help.
+
+"For what?" gloomed Babar--"to get back Akshi and lose Andijan or get
+Andijan and lose Akshi? 'Tis all one in the end."
+
+"Not the fine fighting, child!" replied the old lady craftily. "That
+is the same, be it in _Gehannum_ or _Bihisht_." (Hell or Heaven.)
+
+That was undoubtedly true; and there was no good to be gained by
+rambling from hill to hill as he had been doing.
+
+So, once more, the young adventurer gathered together a very scanty
+band of followers; for old Kasim Beg, who till then had never left
+him, had come to words with Isan-daulet over these same Moghuls, and
+refused to accompany him.
+
+"I say not, sire," remonstrated the wise old soldier, "that these men
+are bad soldiers for me; but they are for the Most Exalted, who has
+ideas of discipline. Besides, I care not to risk my own neck for a
+chance. In obedience to the Most Exalted's commands I beheaded quite a
+number of these men in the last campaign, for marauding. Wherefore,
+therefore, should I go amongst their mourning relatives? I will come
+if there be fighting. Then there is no leisure and little desire for
+private revenge; blood can be let anywhere and one corpse is as good
+as another."
+
+So Kasim went with his immediate adherents towards Hissar; and Babar
+set off to Tashkend with rather a heavy heart. In a somewhat didactic
+mood also, for resting for a day or two beside a spring in the lower
+hills, he caused a verse to be inscribed on a stone slab which formed
+one side of the well where the water gushed in from the hill above, to
+disappear into the earth when it had run through a masonry trough.
+
+
+      "Many a man has rested and has drunk
+       Thy water, and like thee, O spring, has sunk
+       Swift to a grave where he lies all forgot,
+       Conqueror or vanquished, libertine or monk."
+
+
+He was not, however, at home in the _rubai_, as he had not, at that
+time, studied with much attention the style and phraseology of poetry.
+
+Indeed, one of his first actions on reaching Tashkend was to submit
+some of his compositions to the Khan who had pretensions to taste, and
+who, moreover, wrote verses himself; though his odes, to be sure, were
+rather deficient in manner and substance. The younger poetaster,
+however, did not get either explicit or satisfactory criticism, and
+came to the conclusion that his uncle had no great skill in poetic
+diction. He did not know, for instance, that in the Turkhi language it
+was allowable, by poetic licence, to interchange certain letters for
+the sake of the rhyme.
+
+"He will think thee a nincompoop," stormed Isan-daulet. "Why did'st
+not show him thy sword play?"
+
+"He may see that ere long," quoth Babar, grimly, and went straight
+away to write the first _ghazel_ of six Couplets he ever composed.
+
+
+      "I have found no faithful friend
+       In the world save my own sad soul.
+       Dear heart! thou must give and spend
+       On thyself thy confidence whole.
+       Nightingale sings to the rose,
+       Roses give scent to the bird,
+       Dreams one of the thorny foes?
+       The other of passion deferred?
+       The exile must live apart,
+       To his coffers none give or lend.
+       The banished one holds his heart
+       To his soul as lover and friend."
+
+
+He was quite pleased with this effusion and sang it at a festive party
+soon after with great gusto; but the next morning he found that the
+golden clasp of his girdle had been stolen by one of the appreciative
+audience!
+
+Moghuls again!
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER X
+
+      "A blow or two and then the Fighting ends,
+       The Sword seeks Scabbard, and the Warrior wends
+       Through Death's wide Door. Were it not wiser then
+       To sleep until Retreat its message sends?"
+
+
+So, vaguely thought Babar as life went on dully with the family party
+at Tashkend. Most of his servants had left from absolute want; one, or
+at most two attendants were all that he could muster when he went to
+pay his compliments to the Khan, his uncle. Once, indeed, he
+accompanied the latter on a foray; but it was a useless sort of
+expedition. He, the Khan, took no part, beat no enemy; he simply went
+out and came back again.
+
+The young man spent much of his time with his mother who was
+convalescing but slowly; and she naturally, after so many years of
+absence, saw much of her sisters and cousins; most of them elderly
+women, inclined to make much of the handsome young King-errant whose
+melancholy never could withstand the faintest joke.
+
+For all that Babar, at the bottom of his heart, was utterly
+dissatisfied with himself and his world. Never since the debacle at
+Samarkand had he found himself again, the light-hearted, intensely
+vital person, who, taking things as they came, could yet turn them to
+his own uses. He began to tell himself privately that, rather than
+pass his life as he was now doing, homeless and purposeless, it would
+be better to retire into some corner where he might live unknown and
+undistinguished; that, rather than exist in distress and abasement far
+better were it to flee away from the sight of man, so far as his feet
+could carry him. In his infancy he remembered he had always had a
+strong desire to see China, but had never been able to accomplish his
+wish because of being a King and having a duty towards his relations
+and connections.
+
+Now he no longer had a throne. Now, his mother--the only tie left, for
+Ayesha his wife had never returned to him--was safe with her mother
+and her brother.
+
+Now, therefore, was the time. His mother, however, he knew well would
+not support the proposition; besides he had still a few followers who,
+having attached themselves to him with very different hopes, would be
+bitterly disappointed at his project. He could not bear to hurt
+anyone's feelings, so he devised a plan in order to get away quietly.
+He had never seen his other uncle, the younger Khan of Outer
+Moghulistan. Why should he not go, in this slack time, and pay him a
+visit?
+
+There seemed, indeed, no reason against this; and Babar was on the
+very point of starting when a messenger arrived hot haste, to say that
+the younger Khan himself was on his way to see his nephew and his
+nephew's mother!
+
+It was a blow; Babar's plan was utterly disconcerted, but being, like
+all his race, full of family affection, he set off with ever so many
+elderly Khanums with beautiful high-sounding names to meet his uncle.
+Such a meeting as it was; so many embracings and kneelings and yet
+more embracings; some ceremonious, others quite without form or
+decorum. After which the great circle of cousins and aunts, and uncles
+and nephews, sat down and continued talking about past occurrences and
+old stories till after midnight.
+
+His younger uncle had, according to the custom of his tribe, brought
+Babar a complete dress of state. A cap embroidered with gold thread, a
+long frock of China satin ornamented with flowered needle-work. A
+cuirass of fine chain-mail, Chinese fashion, with a whetstone and a
+purse-pocket from which were suspended a lot of little trinkets such
+as women wear, including a bag of perfumed earth. He looked very smart
+in it indeed, and when he returned to his own, tricked out in all this
+finery, they declared it was only by his voice they recognised him;
+that they had thought he was some grand young Sultan!
+
+Life at any rate did not seem quite so empty; since the two Khans,
+having got together, began to propose a joint expedition to recover
+Andijan--_for Babar_, being an understood corollary so long as they
+remained under the influence of stern old Isan-daulet, who ruled her
+sons in matriarchal fashion.
+
+So they set off with flaunting pennons and kettledrums, after the
+manner of Moghul armies, and at their first halt held a muster of
+the troops, also in the Moghul fashion. In groups of three, three
+horse-tail standards were erected, and from the centre staff of each a
+long strip of white cloth was fastened, on the loose end of which
+stood the foot of the leader of that division. All around, in a huge
+circle, the troops were drawn up. Then with many ceremonials and
+sprinklings of mares'-milk spirit, each leader estimated the total
+number of the force. The final verdict being received with a wild
+war-shout; and then, at full speed, the whole army galloped
+centre-wards, the foremost troopers drawing bridle within a foot or
+two of the standards. On this occasion Babar looked with a certain
+awe, yet some misgiving, at no less than thirty thousand wild horsemen
+of the desert.
+
+But he had more certain aid than this. He found that he was not all
+forgot in the little valley at the extreme limit of the habitable
+world; and the country people welcomed his return with acclaim. So as
+soon as he could, with that curious distrust of Moghul blood, which
+makes the name given to the dynasty he founded in India so quaintly
+ironical, he parted company with his uncle's forces, and pushing on
+with such of his own people as had come together, sought for fine
+fighting.
+
+And he got it. Still reckless, almost without definite aim, he
+followed swift on every opportunity for a skirmish. When he saw a body
+of the enemy, he advanced at full gallop without minding order or
+array; and in nine cases out of ten the sheer daredevil clash
+succeeded. The enemy could not stand the charge and fled without
+exchanging blows. But sometimes his ill-luck with the Moghuls pursued
+him. Once when he, with his staff, was waiting outside Andijan for the
+return of a messenger. It was about the third watch of the night, and
+some of them were nodding, others fast asleep on their horses, when
+all at once the saddle-drums struck up with martial noise and hubbub.
+The few men who were with Babar were seized with a panic and took to
+flight; except three, all the rest ran off to a man. In vain these
+four galloped after the fugitives; in vain they horsewhipped some of
+them.
+
+All their exertions were ineffectual to make them stand.
+
+There was nothing for it but to try and check the pursuers themselves
+as best they could. So the four turned, stood and discharged flights
+of arrows, until the enemy was almost within sword thrust; then,
+wheeling swiftly, they galloped on to take up a fresh position of
+offence.
+
+In this way they covered and protected the retreat, until by good
+fortune they fell in with a patrol party of their own. Then, of
+course, came immediate charge, to discover that the pursuers were
+Moghuls from his uncle's force, who were out on a pillaging expedition
+of their own! In this manner, by a false alarm, the plan which Babar
+had conceived came to nothing, and he had to return after a fruitless
+journey.
+
+Truly, if the young man had wished to throw away his life, he could
+scarcely have dared Fate more recklessly. More than once he found
+himself almost alone facing stupendous odds. Once, when surprised at
+night in negligent security without advanced guard and without
+_videttes_, he had to gallop out almost unarmed to meet a large body
+of the enemy and found himself in the midst of them with but three
+supporters. Even so Fate was against him. He drew out of his quiver by
+mistake a green-tipped finger guard instead of an arrow, and being
+unwilling to throw it away because his uncle the Khan had given it to
+him, lost as much time in returning it to its place as would have
+sufficed for the despatch of two arrows, and, ere he was ready, his
+companions had been swept back by the onslaught and he was alone. To
+draw up to his ear and let the foremost foe have it for all he was
+worth was easy, but at the same instant an arrow struck him on the
+right thigh unsteadying his aim, and the next moment that foremost foe
+was on him and smote him such a blow on the head with a sword, that,
+despite his steel cap he was nigh stunned. And then, through his
+having neglected to clean his sword after swimming a river, it had
+rusted a little in the scabbard and he lost time in drawing it. Still,
+he won through that time, and, despite continual anxiety and
+irritation because of the behaviour of the Moghul troops which his
+uncles detached to help him, and who _would_ insist on plundering and
+were with difficulty restrained from putting honourable prisoners to
+death, he was fairly successful, until a final act of treachery threw
+him on his beam ends, and he was forced to retreat, fairly beaten.
+
+He was invited to a parley by the enemy and the Moghuls urged him to
+accept the invitation, and by hook or by crook, to seize or murder the
+leaders. Babar was indignant. Such artifice and underhand dealing
+were, he said, totally abhorrent to his habits and disposition. If he
+made an agreement for peaceful interview, he would not violate it.
+
+Nor did he. But whether from perversity or sheer stupidity, his orders
+were disobeyed, and he found himself committed to battle in the very
+heart of the opponents' defences, and without a sufficient force to
+secure success. Even then he challenged Fate, by waiting for personal
+retreat a full hour or more, unwilling, as he thought, to leave some
+of his friends in danger. Finally news came that having been beaten,
+at the other side of the city in about as much time as milk takes to
+boil, they, and half Babar's men, had escaped long before by another
+gate!
+
+Only about twenty men were left to the young King. It was no longer
+season to tarry; they set off, a great band of the enemy's troops in
+full pursuit.
+
+And then commenced a memorable ride for life. Man after man dropped
+out, maimed by the flights of following arrows.
+
+"Help! Help!" cried a well known voice behind him and Babar instantly
+turned bridle to aid a dear friend. But those who rode on either side
+the young King would not have it; this was no time to defy Death. It
+was the time to keep hold on Life. So, with strong hands upon his
+reins, Babar had no choice but to ride on. There were but eight of
+them left now; a wearied, hurried band of hunted men struggling
+through broken glens remote from the beaten road. The enemy behind was
+now out of sight, but, as at sunset the fugitives passed into more
+level ground, a shadow darker than the shadows of evening should be,
+showed on the plain.
+
+Placing his men under cover, Babar dismounted, and on foot, ascended
+an eminence to see what this might be. When suddenly from behind, a
+number of horsemen showed coming towards them. It was too dark to see
+their number but, doubtless, it must be a detachment in pursuit, and
+the only hope flight.
+
+"There is no use, sire," said a noble, "going on thus. They will
+outweary and take us all. Better by far, that you and Kali-Gokultash
+choose two extra horses from amongst us, your devoted servants; so by
+keeping the four horses at full speed you may escape--it is a last
+chance."
+
+But Babar shook his head. To leave anyone dismounted in the midst of
+the enemy was beyond him; so he set his teeth and rode on.
+
+"The Most High is heavier than I am," urged an entreating voice at his
+elbow, "and it is my lord they want, not this slave whose horse is
+fairly fresh."
+
+Babar set his teeth again; but he felt the truth of the words and
+exchanged horses. Jan-Kali could slip aside down some ravine. They
+would not follow him. It was he, Zahir-ud-din Mohamed Babar, that was
+wanted.
+
+Again came the plea--"My horse is fresher than the Most High's."
+
+And yet again Babar exchanged steeds.
+
+On and on, the horses flagging, followers dropping out, until but two
+remained--the King and his foster-brother Kali-Gokultash.
+
+"Sire!--you had best go on!" muttered the latter as his horse stumbled
+and almost fell.
+
+"Whither?" called back the King bitterly. "Come on! be it Life or
+Death, let us meet it together."
+
+And ever and ever, as they went on blindly, he paused to look back, to
+wait ...
+
+And once, when he looked back there was no one near at hand. Only in
+the far distance, coming closer and closer, dark figures--were there
+two or more?
+
+But now, alone, hopeless, the worst seemed over. Babar dug spurs into
+his horse, weary but willing, and was off with renewed vigour in his
+veins. It was himself against the world once more! He would fight it
+out to the end--the bitter end!
+
+It was now dark and before him lay a hill. If he could reach it, and
+dismount, he might trust to his own nimbleness in climbing. But his
+horse was dropping, and two of the pursuers were within bowshot, ere
+he could fling himself from his steed on rising ground and dash up a
+glen to the right. He did not pause to shoot, though he had arrows in
+his quiver. A few of these he had stuck in his belt as he flung off
+his accoutrements piece-meal; they were for use at the last--the very
+last!
+
+But voices followed him; eager, protesting voices. They were no
+enemies; neither were they friends. But they could not leave a King in
+such a desolate situation Let him confide in them and he might yet
+find safety.
+
+It was a desperate chance; still it was a chance. And there were but
+two of them. One brave man could surely keep them in check--or kill
+them before he died. Babar pulled up, went back to his horse and faced
+Fate. So, all that night, they rode together, and when dawn came, one
+of the troopers commandeered some loaves of bread. All that day they
+lay watchfully in hiding, and when night came they passed on to a
+half-ruined house on the outskirts of a town. Here the troopers
+brought Babar an old fur coat; which was welcome, for the nights were
+bitterly cold. They also brought him a mess of boiled millet-flour
+pottage, which he ate and found wonderfully comfortable.
+
+So comfortable, that having lit a fire, Babar actually fell asleep
+beside it, despite his imminent danger, despite his distrust of his
+comrades who were for ever whispering amongst themselves. But he was
+outwearied after three nights' riding, and two days of watchful
+hiding. Indeed when they roused him at dawn on the pretext that there
+were spies about, and that a change was imperative, he was so spent
+and outdone that he felt inclined to bid them do their worst, or leave
+him to his fate. Yet he followed them dully, to a garden on the
+outskirts of the town--as well die there as elsewhere.
+
+But it was a primrose dawn, with a promise of brilliant sunshine, and
+the garden, partially walled, held a few flowers, a few birds.
+
+It needed no more to re-arouse vitality, and Babar, with fresh vigour
+in his veins after his few hours of sleep, began to emerge from the
+slough of despondency in which he had passed the last three days.
+These would-be guides of his were doubtless traitors; could he escape
+them?
+
+The day passed on to noon. Babar, in a corner of the garden, performed
+his religious ablutions and recited his prayers, adding to them the
+consolations of poetry by repeating the couplet:
+
+
+      "Long or short be your tenancy past
+       You must quit the Palace-of-Life at last."
+
+
+That was a self-evident proposition, and as such gave his simple,
+clear-sighted soul much comfort. So much so, that he fell asleep under
+the trees, and dreamt a dream of victory and triumph.
+
+From which he awoke to find three men standing over him, to hear
+whispers of how best to seize and throttle him.
+
+To spring to his feet and face them did not take long.
+
+"Ill-begotten, treacherous hounds!" he cried, ablaze with anger. "So
+canst thou dare when Babar sleeps--let us see who will lay hands on
+him awake!"
+
+The villains fell back; but at that moment the tramp of horsemen was
+heard beyond the garden wall, and one of the trio laughed.
+
+"Crow away, cockerel!" he cried. "Mayhap, hadst thou trusted us at
+first we might have let thee escape according to our oath. But now is
+the work of death taken out of our hands; for yonder comes a troop to
+seize thee and save our promise unbroken."
+
+He turned as he spoke to welcome the newcomers, then started. For the
+horsemen hurrying in to the garden were not Babar's foes, but his
+friends!
+
+"Kutluk! Babai!" cried the young King, recognising two of his most
+devoted adherents. They flung themselves from their horses.
+
+"The King! Long live the King!" they shouted, as bending the knee at a
+respectful distance they rushed forward to fall at the feet of their
+dear leader.
+
+It had been a wonderful ride for life; yet in a way a needless one, as
+Babar told his uncles when he rejoined them. Since, had he but known,
+as he afterwards discovered, that the following party was not a whole
+detachment, but only a band of twenty troopers, he and his seven would
+of course, have made a stand and engaged them with every hope of
+success.
+
+Not that it would have made much difference; for both the elder Khan
+and the younger one had become weary of their expedition, and on news
+of the Great Usbek raider Shaibani's appearance in their country, had
+retired in hot haste to their dominions.
+
+So Babar once more was at the end of his tether. The Moghuls he told
+his grandmother, to her great dudgeon, were no good as conquerors.
+Nature had made them pillagers, and an inch of plunder was worth more
+than an ell of honour.
+
+"He is out of joint with life," said his mother, weeping.
+
+Old Isan-daulet sniffed. "Try him with a pretty girl," she suggested.
+
+The Khanum shook her head. "He is not that sort--he will not even
+marry and that is nigh shameless--since he is one and twenty, yet
+without a child. 'Tis hard indeed on a woman of my age to have no
+grandchild."
+
+"Except Dearest-One's boy," said the old woman, her stern face
+softening. "Lo! perfidious barbarian though the father be, I should
+like to see the child. It should have the makings in it of a man--from
+its mother." And she was silent for awhile; perhaps she was thinking
+of that night in Samarkand when a girl had waited patiently for worse
+than death. Then she spoke:
+
+"See you, daughter! Your boy is not all King, no more than he is all
+my grandson. He hath material for half-a-dozen different persons in
+him and he hath not yet made choice of which to take. Lo!--mayhap--I
+have had too big a hand in the pease-porridge. Let be a bit. Let him
+do as he likes for a while and if that be to leave us for the time--so
+be it. Hurry not God's work."
+
+It was wise advice. None wiser. So for two whole years, the King was
+King-errant indeed. Even whither he went none know. Most likely he
+fulfilled his boyhood's desire to see China; but this much is certain.
+He and a few intimate friends, not half-a-dozen at most, wandered for
+months and months. Over the White Mountains likely, amid eternal
+snows, across the high lying steppes to Kashgar, and so onwards.
+
+Or perhaps from Tashkend he may have wandered over high plateaux and
+past wide lakes to the Great Tian-Shan mountains. But either way, from
+some high peak, he must have caught one glimpse at least of a sight
+never to be forgotten. The sight of the wide plain of Eastern
+Turkhestan lying like a lake of pale amber beneath an encircling rim
+of snowy pearls, that change to rubies in the sunset. Marvellous
+indeed! All around the everlasting hills contemptuous of man and his
+finite work, glittering icily on that ever-present haze of dust, which
+effaced alike, the sand of the central desert, and the faint fringe of
+cultivation on the skirts of the hills. Over a thousand feet of golden
+dust-pall covering the corpses of the six sand-buried cities of
+Khotan!
+
+Buried when, and how? And wherefore, in God's name, did humanity found
+its houses on the Moving Sands?
+
+Fine stimulation here, for the imagination of a poet born.
+
+Babar must have sat and looked, sat and learnt from the slow
+invincible march of the sand waves piled by the desert winds,
+something of the strength of patience. Slow and sure. Under the gentle
+call of a summer breeze, mayhap, one sand atom shifting place; then
+another and another. But in the end, a high-piled wave, ready to fall
+over and engulf what lay beyond, when the whistle of the winter winds
+rang over the wastes, rousing the hidden devil in those harmless sand
+grains, to whirls of death.
+
+Shifting, shifting; never still for a second. Unearthing there,
+burying here.
+
+With what end?
+
+And doubtless Babar heard the oft told tale of the Muazzim of Kar, and
+of the minaret of the mosque which the sand can never hide for long;
+which even in these later days the dry biting winds of the desert lay
+bare, ever and anon, until the golden final of its blue dome shines
+bright as ever over the wide plain.
+
+Perhaps,--being a poet born--he may have tried to put the legend into
+verse with better success than the following:
+
+
+       The Preacher preached; his words were austere
+       So was his Life. "Oh! sinners, hear!
+       I oft have warned you--oft and amain,
+       Gentle and stern; yet all in vain.
+       From off my feet by order of God
+       Shake I the dust in which I've trod.
+       I rend my garments, go on my way.
+       Not for my soul His Judgment Day.
+       No more I preach, no more will I warn;
+       Wait till the resurrection morn!"
+       He left the pulpit; garments he rent;
+       Forth from the Lord's own House he went.
+
+      "Thou com'st with me," he said as he strode
+       Past the Muazzim. "Thine the road
+       Of Mercy too." The singer bowed,
+       Bit at his lips, then said aloud:
+      "The Grace of God I cannot gainsay,
+       Fain would I go, fain would I stay,
+       Once more I'd waken sinners to prayer."
+       Frowning the Priest said "Fool! beware
+       Our God is Fire! He burns and He rends,
+       Message of Peace, once only sends."
+       The singer shivered. "So be it, yet
+       Prayers must be called from the minaret.
+       Yet once again singing must rise
+       Out of the night to dawning skies."
+       The Preacher spat. "It lies on thy head."
+       Gripped at his purse; smiled as he fled.
+
+                   *   *   *   *   *
+
+       The minaret was slender and high,
+       Blue was its dome; blue like the sky,
+       Its gilded finial shone like a star
+       Over the sinful town of Kar.
+       The singer climbed its narrowing stair,
+       Stood in his place, then breathed a prayer:
+      "O God, most great, no atom of sand
+       Slips through Thy Fingers' grip; Thy Hand
+       Heeds not man's worth. Thou fillest his need.
+       Wake those who sleep, Dear God I plead!"
+
+                   *   *   *   *   *
+
+       No star, no moon, the gloom of the night
+       Making the snow peaks rim with light
+       The purpling sky, the darkening world.
+       Was it a sand grain sharp that whirled
+       To touch the watcher keen on his cheek?
+       Waiting so patient until a streak
+       Of cold grey dawn should come to the sky
+       Bringing the time for clamant cry
+      "_Ul-sul-lah-to-khair-un-mun-nun-nu!_
+       _Sleepers! awake! Prayer time has come to you!_
+       _Awake! Far better Prayer than Sleep to you!_
+       _Ul-sul-lah-to-khair-un-mun-nun-nu!_"
+
+                   *   *   *   *   *
+
+       The night was silent: that was a gust
+       Wind hot as fire, laden with dust.
+       The singer wiped salt tears from his eyes--
+       God! if the sand-storm should arise,
+       The storm of sand that comes like a pall
+       Gliding soft as snow flakes to fall
+       On good, on bad. "Oh! sleepers awake!
+       Waken and fly!" His voice could make
+       Small sound against the sound of the storm
+       Whistling the sand grains, "Rise and form
+       In serried order! carry the town!
+       Bury each fool, knave, sinner, clown,
+       Who sleeps unheeding God's gracious grace,
+       Mercy is tired. Go! leave no trace
+       Of saint or sinner within this place."
+
+                   *   *   *   *   *
+
+       The singer fought for breath as he prayed.
+      "Lord! give me one more chance," he said.
+       And lo! the sand-storm faltered away;
+       Still as the grave the city lay.
+       The singer he sang as never before,
+       Piercing through gateway, wall and door
+       The clamant cry. "Oh! sleepers rise!
+       Better is prayer than sleep! Be wise!"
+       Awakened all; they saw and they fled
+       Forth from the town, bewildered
+       Forth from the town, bewildered
+       To seek for refuge far from the sands
+       Out of the wind. But still he stands
+       And still he sings. Perchance there be one
+       Soul in the town who might be won!
+       The storm fresh-gathered swept on its task,
+       Covered all things with deadly mask
+       Of sand high-piled like waves of the sea
+       Till there was naught save sand to see.
+       No soul was left; no need for him more!
+       Downwards he crept. He found the door
+       Was blocked by sand waves! Merciful Heav'n!
+       Not for his soul was ransom given!
+       So back he went to the minaret
+       --Stood in the wind, the sandy fret--
+       Giving the call. It echoes yet
+       O'er wastes of sand when the sun has set.
+       When shifting winds in gusts and in whirls
+       Part of the dead town's shroud unfurls,
+       When dimly blue the minaret shows
+       Dim as a lamp its finial glows,
+       And soft and low and faint as a sigh
+       Comes to the ear that clamant cry,
+      "_Ul-sul-lah-to-khair-un-mun-nun-nu!_
+       _Awake! Awake! Prayer time has come to you!_
+       _Awake! Better Prayer than Sleep to you!_
+       _Ul-sul-lah-to-khair-un-mun-nun-nu!_"
+
+
+
+
+
+                               BOOK II
+                             BLOSSOM TIME
+                             1504 TO 1511
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+      "Youth asked the lark,
+      'Why dost thou sing
+       When clouds are darkling?'
+       Replied the lark,
+      'Behind the dark
+       The light is sparkling.'
+
+       Youth begged the Hours
+       Death not to bring
+       Though clouds were lowering.
+       Replied the Hours,
+      'In Heaven's bowers
+       Roses are flowering.'"
+
+
+"To-day I will shave," said Babar with conviction; and his long, fine
+fingers felt his rather ragged young beard reflectively.
+
+He was altogether a bit ragged after his long wanderings. But he had
+come back from them wiser, steadier in mind, still stronger in body.
+The record of years of clean, hard living showed in his bright hazel
+eyes, and the general alertness of his lithe young body.
+
+But he _was_ ragged! The brilliant June sunshine poured down on the
+sorry encampment set out on the summer pasturage of the high alps of
+Ilak, and revealed the rents and patches of the two tents which were
+all that Babar possessed; his own, terribly tattered in its royalty,
+reserved for his mother's use; a common felt tilt, flexible in its
+cross-poles, for his own.
+
+And then his followers! Some two hundred in all; mostly on foot with
+brogues to them: blanket frocks over their shoulders; clubs in their
+hands. A miserable court, indeed, for a Prince of the Blood Royal!
+
+Yet the sense of Kingship rose stronger than ever in the young mind.
+
+"Yea! I will be shaven!" he said, magisterially, and summoned the
+court barber. He came running barefoot with a tin basin.
+
+"There should be ceremonials and entertainments," said the Khanum, his
+mother, plaintively. "Even at my brothers' first shavings there were
+ever illuminations and feastings, and thou art King; but what will
+you, here in the wilderness?"
+
+Babar laughed. "One King is as like another King as split peas, when
+there is lather to his face, motherling; so quick, barber, image me to
+Sulaiman-the-Wise, or Haroun-ul-Raschid. Lo! I could be Emperor as
+well as they, were fate but kind."
+
+So, out in the June sunshine, the young man sat while the white lather
+foamed up into his eyes and made them smart.
+
+"Have a care! slave," he said sharply. "Lo! I shall see things
+cloudy--and I would fain see clear."
+
+See clear! Aye! that was what he wanted. The past was leaving
+him--with his beard! He had made up his mind to that. Never again
+would he quarrel possession of that sweet valley on the extreme limits
+of the habitable world. He would go farther afield; how far
+depended--On what? On himself chiefly. So for the present he was on
+his way to Khorasan, the centre of civilisation.
+
+Ay! Bare feet and blanket frocks were well enough in boyhood; but when
+a man came to his own there were other Kingships to be fought for
+besides those which involved a temporal throne. There was Kingship in
+thought, Kingship in Art; a dozen or more Kingships ready to be
+gripped.
+
+The razor sweeping backwards and forwards, seemed to be shaving away
+all the disappointments of his past life; he leapt to his feet when
+the business was over and stretched his strong young arms out as if to
+embrace the whole world.
+
+"Lo! I feel a new man. I am ready for anything--for everything!"
+
+So, as he stood there, the memory--never very far distant from his
+mind in his moments of exaltation--of the Crystal Bowl of Life came
+back to him and he sang the last verse, his full voice rolling away
+among the hills:
+
+
+      "Clear Crystal Bowl, I laugh as I quaff.
+       Bring me Life's whole! I won't take the half!
+       Crystal Bowl, I bid thee bring to me
+           Joy, Grief, Life, Death."
+
+
+"Where didst learn that song, sonling?" said his mother, fondly. "And
+how well thou singest now! Thou hast learnt much of late, Babar."
+
+"I learnt it," replied her son, his face sobering, "from my cousin
+Gharib. Dost know, motherling," he added swiftly, the light coming
+back to his eyes, "I learnt more of him than I wist at the time.
+Sometimes I think I owe all to him."
+
+"All?" echoed the Khanum, hurt. "Dost owe nothing to me--or at least
+to thy grandmother?"
+
+Babar's face showed whimsically reverent. "Oh, yea! Oh, yea!" he
+assented readily; "I owe much to my revered grandparent; yet at this
+present it shows but little."
+
+And he pointed to the two ragged tents, the two hundred
+tatterdemalions. "I would I were a tulip at times," he added
+irrelevantly, as he flung himself down on the grass that was all
+starred with the blood-red blossoms. "Think of it, motherling! To lie
+cosy all winter at your own heart, and when the sun has warmed the
+world to unfurl your banner and flaunt it independent--disobedient, if
+you choose!"--he rolled over on his stomach to look clear into one
+ruby cup--"Yea! little one!" he said patronisingly. "Rightly art thou
+called '_na farman_.'[2] Thou holdest thine own treasure secure,
+caring for none--yet will I touch it with my hand," and the tip of his
+long finger dived into the chalice to touch the stiff stamens, and
+come out all covered with pale, yellow pollen. "An augury!" he said
+gravely, as he smeared his forehead with the powder of life. "Lo! I am
+marked like a Hindu--I shall conquer Hind yet."
+
+
+---------------------
+
+[Footnote 2: Contempt.]
+
+---------------------
+
+
+"God forgive thee, child," exclaimed his mother hastily. "Say not such
+things--they tempt Providence. Even not thyself to an idolater."
+
+Babar looked contrite. "Yet if I conquer Hind, I cannot kill all my
+subjects," he replied thoughtfully. "There is a puzzle for thee,
+motherling--how to be true Mussulman and yet not a fool?"
+
+His mother looked at him and shook her head. Dear son as he was,
+always loving, always affectionate, he had a bad habit of getting away
+from her ken mentally and bodily. It all came of leading such a
+wandering life. If only he would marry and settle down. But there
+seemed no chance of either.
+
+Yet Fate held the latter to close quarters. It almost seemed as if
+that shaving of his beard, that setting aside once and for all of his
+boyish aspirations had had a magical effect on Babar's environments;
+for within two months, seated at his ease in a splendid tent, he was
+writing in his diary:
+
+"The Lord is wonderful in His might! That a man, master of twenty or
+thirty thousand retainers, should, in the space of half-a-day, without
+battle, without contest, be reduced to give up all to a needy fugitive
+like myself, who had only two hundred tatterdemalions at his back (and
+they, all in the greatest want); that he should no longer have any
+power over his own servants, nor over his own wealth, nor even his own
+life, was a wonderful disposition of the Omnipotent!"
+
+Undoubtedly! And as the enemy who was thus discomfited was no less a
+person that Khosrau-Shah, the man who had so treacherously caused
+Prince Baisanghar to be strangled, it is certain that his lack of
+power over his own life was a sore temptation to Babar. The man
+undoubtedly deserved death: it was indeed conformable to every law,
+human and divine, that such should meet with condign punishment. But
+an agreement had been entered into, so he must be left free and
+unmolested, and allowed to carry off as much of his personal property
+as he could.
+
+For Babar was no promise-breaker. Perhaps also the memory of poor,
+miserable Khosrau's appearance when this pompous man (who for years
+had wanted nothing of royalty save that he had not actually proclaimed
+himself King) presented himself for audience and bent himself
+twenty-five or twenty-six times successively, and went and came back,
+and went and came back, till he was so tired that he nearly fell
+forward in his last genuflection, may have weighed with the keen young
+observer. The man was getting old; let him go with his sins upon his
+head.
+
+So he went. And Babar with the thirty thousand retainers at _his_ back
+set out promptly for Kabul.
+
+His paternal uncle, its King, had died leaving a young son. A
+perfidious minister had ousted this boy from the throne, but had
+himself been assassinated at a grand festival. Thereinafter all was
+disorder and tumult. Fitting opportunity then for a _coup d'etat_.
+
+So, over the peaks and passes, Babar at the head of a movable column
+passed swiftly. Still more swiftly--since surprise is the essence of
+success--when news came that the usurper for the time being had left
+Kabul at the head of his army to intercept another adversary. The
+instant this information was received, the young leader gave his
+orders; within an hour the force was on the march. A hill pass lay
+before them; it must be mastered ere dawn; they must go up and up all
+the night through, the laden mules stumbling over the stones,
+dismounted troopers hauling their horses up rock ladders. A troublous
+time, indeed; but at last the crest of the hill was reached, and
+there, bright to the South, showed a star.
+
+The young leader's heart leapt to his mouth--Could it--could it be
+Canopus?--the lucky star of the conqueror? The star of which he had
+read--the star he had never seen before ...
+
+"That--that cannot be _Soheil_," he said almost timorously.
+
+"It is _Soheil_, Most High," replied Baki Cheghaniani in a courtier's
+voice; then repeated pompously the well known verse:
+
+
+      "How far dost thou shine, _Soheil?_
+       And where dost thou rise?
+       Who knows? But this cannot fail:
+       Thy light brings luck to the eyes
+       Who see it and cry, 'All hail!
+                                         _Soheil!_'"
+
+
+"Gentlemen!" rang out Babar's jubilant young voice, cutting the
+clear night air like a knife. "Let us give it all we can...! All
+hail!--_Soheil!_"
+
+"All hail! _Soheil!_" The cry clamoured round the rocks and surged up
+from the ravines where men were still striving upwards; while on that
+downward path to the pleasant valleys below where spear points were
+already beginning to cluster, the troopers paused to echo and re-echo:
+
+"All hail! _Soheil!_"
+
+And Babar's star was veritably in the ascendant. Within a month--yet
+once more without battle, without contest--he had gained complete
+possession of Kabul and Ghazni with the countries and provinces
+dependent thereon.
+
+It had been almost unbelievable success ever since that day when on
+the uplands of Ilak, he had shaved off his beard and set aside, once
+and for all, his childish hopes and aims!
+
+_Really_, it was rather quaint! The thought of it, with its hint of
+imagination, its something beyond the dull routine of the inevitable,
+added zest to the young King's almost rapturous appreciation of his
+new dominions.
+
+To begin with Kabul was in the very midst of the habitable world. That
+was a great point in its favour. Then it was in the fourth climate;
+and so of course its gardens were perfection. Its warm and its cold
+districts were close together; in a single day you could go to a place
+where snow never falls, and in the space of two astronomical hours you
+might reach a spot where snow lay always (except now and then when the
+summer happened to be peculiarly hot).
+
+Then the fruits! Grapes, pomegranates, apricots, peaches, pears,
+apples, quinces, jujubes, damsons, walnuts, almonds, to say nothing of
+oranges and citrons! The wines, also, were strong and intoxicating;
+indeed, that produced on the skirts of one mountain was celebrated for
+its potency. This, however, was only a matter of hearsay since Babar
+was still a tee-totaler; and as the verse says:
+
+
+      "The drinker knows the virtue of wine
+       Which those who are sober can't divine."
+
+
+Then the honey was delicious, the number of beehives extraordinary,
+and the climate itself was so extremely delightful that in this
+respect there was no other such place in the known world.
+
+But it was the gardens, after all, which made Kabul what it was, a
+place that filled the imagination with joy. Years and years afterwards
+the mere thought of them was to make Babar homesick almost to tears;
+now every moment of time he could spare was spent on the skirts of the
+Shah-Kabul hill where terraces rise one above the other to touch the
+Summer Palace of the New Year. It was early October; the plane trees
+were dropping their golden leaves, the peaches were crimson and pale
+red, the vines vied with each other in vivid colouring. It was all so
+much pure joy to the young King, and he passed on his content to all.
+His dearest mother was housed as she never had been before. And when
+old Isan-daulet came, just to have a peep at her grandson's success,
+he lodged her in the New Year's palace where the old lady could have
+her fill of the garden. Since, quaintly enough, it was from the
+ancient desert-born dame that Babar inherited his keen delight in
+flowers. Kasim-Beg was back too, and so was Dost-Ali, his oldest
+friend amongst the nobles of Andijan; but Kambar-Ali had left; he was
+a thoughtless and rude talker and the more polished courtiers of Kabul
+could not put up with his manners. Not that he was a great loss, for
+besides talking idly--and those who talk persistently cannot avoid at
+times saying foolish things--his wits were but skin deep, and he had a
+muddy brain.
+
+There was but one fly in the honey, and that was the desire of all
+Babar's female relations that he should marry. There was justice, he
+felt, in his mother's claim for grandchildren. Undoubtedly it was his
+duty; but ...
+
+He was too good-natured, however, to resist making everyone as happy
+as he was himself, especially after old Isan-daulet arrived with a
+bride in her pocket; so, before he quite realised the magnitude of the
+affair, he was duly wedded to yet another cousin, a half-sister of
+dead Prince Baisanghar. She was some years older than her groom and
+very, very beautiful.
+
+But Babar came out from the bridal-chamber with a stern, set mouth and
+went straight to his mother.
+
+"Tell her to say no more of Dearest-One," he said briefly; "or there
+will be trouble. And 'twere as well if she left Baisanghar in peace
+also. She loved him, doubtless--but--but so did I." His voice softened
+over the last words.
+
+Trouble, however, was not to be avoided. Babar made no more
+complaints; possibly because he gave few opportunities for fresh
+injury.
+
+His mother wept and scolded in vain. That hurt him; but for his
+cousin-wife he cared not at all. He was proud; he could not understand
+a woman's petty spite, especially when shown to _him_, a good-looking
+young King in the zenith of success.
+
+"We do not agree," he said gloomily. "Lo! it is true what Saadi saith:
+
+
+      'In a good man's house a cross-grained wife
+       Makes hell upon earth with ill-tempered strife.'
+
+
+Mayhap if we part we may come together again in better fashion; and
+sure I pray God that such a thing as a shrew be not left in the
+world."
+
+He would not acknowledge any fault on his side. Perhaps there was
+none. Anyhow he was determined this year of good fortune should not be
+marred by silly domestic squabbles. So, with affectionate farewells to
+his mother, whom he left determined to bring her choice to reason, he
+set off in light-hearted fashion to make that irruption into Hindustan
+which he had threatened when he had marked his forehead with pollen
+dust. He was not strong enough as yet, his army was not yet
+sufficiently disciplined for any attempt at real conquest; but he
+meant at least to cross the river Sind and set foot on Indian soil.
+The expedition, however, fizzled out into a mere plundering raid along
+the western bank of the Indus. But Babar at least saw India, getting
+his first glimpse of it across the wide waters and sandbanks of that
+great stream. He was deeply impressed by the sight. At some places the
+water seemed to join the sky; at others the farther bank lay reflected
+in inverted fashion like a _mirage_. And he saw other strange and
+beautiful things also. Once between this water and the heavens
+something of a red appearance like a crepuscule cloud was seen, which
+by and by vanished, and so continued shifting till he came near.
+
+And then with a whirr of thousands--nay! not ten thousand nor twenty
+thousand wings, but of wings absolutely beyond computation and
+innumerable--an immense flock of flamingoes rose into the air, and as
+they flew, sometimes their red plumes showed and sometimes they were
+hidden.
+
+So, with his mind stocked with endless new ideas, for he had been
+struck by astonishment--and indeed there was room for wonder in this
+new world where the grass was different, the trees different, the wild
+animals of a different sort, the birds of a different plumage, the
+very manners of the men different--he returned in early summer to
+Kabul.
+
+But here he once more found trouble. There was an epidemic of measles
+in the town and one of the first victims was his cousin-wife. He was
+vaguely distressed; mostly it is to be feared because of his mother
+who had nursed her daughter-in-law devotedly. Partly also from a
+remembrance of his own parting wish. Yes! it was distinctly wrong to
+say such ill-advised things, for if anything did happen one always
+regretted one's own words. And yet one had meant nothing.
+
+"I will marry again, motherling! I will indeed; but this time let me
+choose for myself," he said consolingly as the fond woman clung to him
+in mingled joy at seeing him again, and grief at the failure of her
+schemes. Not that they would have come to much, likely, even had the
+cousin-wife not died; for she had been a handful doubtless, all those
+months.
+
+"Lo! motherling," said her son once more, "let us forget the mistake
+for a time. Thy hands are hot, thou art outwearied. Lie so among the
+cushions, and I will sing to thee."
+
+She loved to hear him sing, and even in the old Turkhoman ballads, she
+did not--like old Isan-daulet--claim to have them fairly bawled. This
+new soft fashion was utterly sweet. So was her son's close-shaven
+chin. He had gone far from the wild Turkhoman tents; far ahead of her;
+God only knew how much farther he was to go.
+
+"Motherling! Thou art not so well to-night," he said with solicitude
+as he noticed how fever-bright were her kind, worn eyes. "I will bid
+the Court physician send for him of Khorasan. He will likely know all
+methods; for I cannot have thee ill, my motherling."
+
+The Khanum held him fast with her hot hands. "I care not, sonling,"
+she sobbed suddenly; "so long as thou art here to the last--the
+best--the bravest son--
+
+"But I?" he said in tender raillery, though a sudden fear gripped at
+his heart. "Whom have I in the wide world but thee, mother? Lo! thou
+art the one thing feminine left to me after all these years." And his
+eyes grew stern as he thought of that dearest Dearest-One away in far
+Samarkand. Thank God she had a child.
+
+"Have I not always said so?" wailed his mother. "Have I not bid thee
+have children? Ah, Babar! if I live, promise thou wilt marry."
+
+"I will marry either way, motherling," he said. "Lo! I promise that;
+so cease thy tears and try to sleep. Thou wilt be better by morn."
+
+But morning found the palace hushed with the hush of mortal sickness.
+There was no longer any doubt that the Khanum had contracted measles
+in its worst repressed form, and regret, vague almost unreasonable
+regret, seized on Babar. He was responsible. It was his fault. His
+mother had nursed his wife. The Khorasan physician came and ordered
+water-melons; he of Kabul let blood. And Babar sat dry-eyed beside his
+mother, holding her hot hand. She did not know him. Those words of
+hers, begging him to marry had been her last to him. His to her his
+promise that he would marry. Even amid his dazed grief he remembered
+this; remembered it keenly as, when the end came in quiet
+unconsciousness, he bent over her to give the last caress before Death
+claimed the body and it lay soulless, impure. But she? She was
+received into the Mercy of God.
+
+He said that over and over again to himself as, on the Sunday morning,
+he put his strong shoulder under the light bier and carried it to the
+Garden of the New Year. It was summer-time now, the roses were
+beginning to blow, the tulips were nigh over, but the wild pansies
+were in full blossom. They had dug a grave under the plane trees and
+here, after the committal prayers had been said and flowers strewn,
+Babar, holding the head and Kasim, his foster brother, the feet, laid
+the light, muslin-swathed, tinsel-bound corpse in the long, low niche,
+cut coffin-wise in the side. His voice scarcely trembled at all as he
+laid a handful of earth upon the breast with the solemn words of
+admonition and hope.
+
+"Out of the dust I made you, and to dust I return you, to raise you
+yet once more out of the dust upon the Day of Resurrection."
+
+But his eyes brimmed with tears as, with lavish hand, he scattered
+pansy blossoms till the white shroud was hidden by them.
+
+Then without one word he drew himself up from the grave, and taking a
+shovel worked his hardest to fill in the earth.
+
+Afterwards he sat down and looked out over the valley.
+
+When his time came, he, also, would lie here. One could not desire a
+more peaceful, a more beautiful spot. But he would have no tomb built
+over him to blot out the blue sky. No! He and his mother should rest
+together till the Resurrection morn out in the open, among the birds
+and flowers.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II
+
+       I set Death's Door wide open for thee, Friend,
+       That thou might'st go.
+       I did not weep; I did not even send
+       One sign of woe
+       To follow, lest the way thou had'st to wend
+       The harder show.
+       But thou? Thou shut'st the Door upon my face,
+       Thou hid'st from me
+       One tiny gleam of glory from the place
+       Where thou would'st be;
+       In this world or the next there is no trace
+       No trace of thee!
+
+
+With the swift family affection of their clan, relatives gathered
+round Babar in his bereavement. His paternal aunts came from Khorasan,
+and ere the forty days of mourning were over, a small cavalcade
+arrived from Tashkend. But it brought an aggravation of grief; for old
+Isan-daulet had predeceased her daughter by a few days. Babar's uncle,
+the little Khan, had also died; but beyond the fact that this deepened
+the Shadow-of-Death which seemed to have fallen over his young life,
+it brought no sorrow to the King. It was different with his
+grandmother. With her passing he had veritably no feminine thing left
+to whom he owed affection and duty, to whom he could go for comfort
+and counsel.
+
+There were his paternal aunts, of course; good creatures every one of
+them, especially Ak Begum, though the others always flouted her
+because she had not married. Which was very unkind, since anyone
+with half-an-eye could see it was because she had devoted her life to
+her fat, half-witted lame sister. Poor Badul-jamal-Begum! What an
+irony of fate it was that she had been called that! The "Lady of
+Astonishing-Beauty." But feminine names were beyond reason. Even Ak
+Begum--the "Fair Princess." What a name for that little bird-like,
+dark creature who twittered and preened herself at every word.
+
+Yet she was the only one of them who understood, who gave the young
+man's sore heart any comfort at all.
+
+She came to him, looking as if no pin were out of place, so natty,
+with her scanty hair still braided in virginal fashion on her wrinkled
+forehead, and said in her high piping voice:
+
+"Lo, nephew! here are violets. A man brought them from the snows. Are
+they not sweet? Sniff them! Thy mother was ever so fond of them."
+
+And Babar sniffed at them and afterwards took them to his mother's
+grave. Yes! The Fair Princess was certainly his grandfather's
+daughter; of the same blood as he was.
+
+Still, grief must have its way, and here it was unbounded. Regret and
+remorse were mixed with it; and, yet once again, Babar gave way before
+the mental strain.
+
+He tried to resume his ordinary life and actually started to lead his
+army afield, but was struck down with a sort of sleeping sickness. For
+days no matter what efforts they made to rouse him, his eyes
+constantly fell back to sleep. Yet after a time he pulled himself
+together again and started once more, but this time with no definite
+plan. Nor did he quite recover his normal health all that winter,
+which was spent in half-hearted attacks, and whole-hearted forgiveness
+of all and sundry of his enemies; for it was not his wish to treat
+anyone harshly. The snow lay very deep that winter in the high glens
+and passes. At one place off the road it reached up to the horses'
+cruppers and the pickets appointed for the night-watch round the camp
+had to remain on their horses, from sheer inability to dismount.
+
+Half the army suffered, and Babar himself had to be carried back to
+Kabul, helpless with lumbago. Mental unhappiness always seemed to
+affect his bodily health. But spring comes early in Kabul and the
+pulse of renewed life began to beat once more in Babar's veins. By
+March, when the red tulips he had planted there were in full bloom
+about his mother's grave in the garden of the New Year, he was once
+more looking out from that high ground at the world beneath his feet,
+and straining his bright eyes over new horizons.
+
+One thing he must do. He must marry. But this time he would choose for
+himself. This time he would give himself a chance of finding that new
+world he had seen when he was a boy in Dearest-One's eyes. Poor
+Dearest-One! He had had letters from her concerning their mother's
+death, and their pitifulness had almost broken his heart. Yet he could
+do nothing, nothing! She was as one dead; only not at peace like his
+mother.
+
+But she also had urged marriage. Yes! he must marry, and no one should
+have a finger in the matrimonial pie but himself; least of all his
+paternal aunts. If needs be he would marry privately. The idea
+attracted him; he pondered over it. The question arose, in that case,
+whom he was to choose. Amongst the well born, those who lived in the
+circle of distinction as the phrase ran, it would be impossible.
+Without a _confidante_ the mere broaching of marriage was out of the
+question.
+
+And yet the very idea of one low born was distasteful to him.
+
+So, as he pondered vaguely over possibilities, an idea came to him.
+
+What of the frightened girl? Why not?
+
+She could not be more than a year or two his senior; if that, for
+she had been much younger than his Cousin Gharib. And her father was
+dead. And she lived in a House-of-Rest. That is to say if she still
+lived--or if she was not married.
+
+Bah!--he was a fool to let his fancy run so far. Still he could
+enquire when he went to Khorasan as he meant to do some time that
+summer. Meanwhile a feeling of content came to him; partly because his
+imagination endorsed the idea as delightfully sentimental; mostly
+because it postponed necessity for immediate action.
+
+And yet, when a day or two after a missive arrived from his uncle,
+Sultan Hussain, begging for his assistance at Khorasan against the
+arch enemy and raider Shaibani-Khan who threatened an inroad, Babar
+felt pleased at what seemed an order from Fate; especially as the
+missive came by the hands of rather a quaint ambassador; namely by the
+son of his uncle's professional Dreamer-of-Dreams. To be sure Cousin
+Gharib had made fun of the man's pretensions; but there was more in
+that sort of thing than could be accounted for by reason. Anyhow, it
+was a clear duty to set off at once. If Shaibani was the enemy, then,
+if other princes went to the attack on their feet it was incumbent on
+him to go if necessary on his head! and if they went against him with
+swords, it was his business to go, were it only with stones!
+
+"The Most High must have a care of Kabul nathless," said wary old
+Kasim. "Look you the saying runs:
+
+
+       Ten dervishes in one rug
+       Lie comfy, and warm, and snug,
+       But two Kings upon one throne--
+       Such a thing never was known.
+
+
+The most High's brother--and his cousin--"
+
+But Babar cut him short. He never would listen to suspicions of his
+own relations.
+
+"I have done nothing," he said, with just that little touch of
+conscious virtue that in him was so translucent, so simple, though in
+one less artless it might have been offensive, "to provoke either of
+them to hostility; neither have they given me ground for
+dissatisfaction."
+
+Kasim shrugged his shoulders and muttered under his breath that it
+would need the Day of Judgment to make some folk believe in sin, and
+applied himself to seeing that the garrison left was sufficient to
+keep order.
+
+Babar himself was full of spirits. Apart from other considerations the
+prospect of, at last, seeing Herat, the most civilised city in Central
+Asia, filled him with keen interest. It was full, he knew, of poets,
+painters, philosophers, and its luxuries were things to speak of with
+bated breath. In addition, he had a pleasant remembrance of his Uncle
+Hussain. It was more than ten years since he had seen him over in the
+camp which had struck him, the hardy barbarian, with awe. Did the old
+man--old now with a vengeance since he had reigned a good fifty
+years--still keep butting rams and amuse himself with cock fighting?
+Above all, did he still on festival days put on that small turban tied
+in three folds, broad and showy, and having placed a plume nodding
+over it in that style go to prayers? Babar wrote in his own hand--in
+the Babari writing which he had just invented and of which he was
+vastly proud--a letter to the kindly old man, telling him that he had
+set out from Kabul and hoped to be with him shortly. This he entrusted
+to an ambassador who with the Dreamer-of-Dreams started express for
+Herat; he himself having a small job on hand by the way, in the
+punishment of some wandering tribes to the west.
+
+It was not much of a task; but summer quarters in the hills had a
+fascination for Babar, and he remained on the top of one of the many
+ranges he had to cross; despatching Kasim-Beg meanwhile with a body of
+troops to scour the countryside for rebels.
+
+There was a sense of freedom about the wide upland stretches of sweet
+grass, where flocks and herds grazed placidly, where flowers blossomed
+by the million, and the tall fir forests edged the downward slopes.
+The whole world of blue waving hills touched the blue sky. One might
+be adrift on a huge raft in the River of Life. Babar would doff shoes
+and wander barefoot for hours, content with a chance shot after an
+escaping deer, or a chance following of his own vagrant thoughts. And
+these often fled in the direction of a House-of-Rest wherein dwelt a
+frightened girl. He could not help it. He was made sentimental to his
+heart's core. Remove the pressure of fine fighting, of ardent
+ambition, and there he was, ready to be touched by pity, love,
+admiration. And the thought of the woman to come was a perpetual
+stimulus to his imagination. The mere fact that he did not know her
+name was delightful; it took from the idea all trace of earth. And
+Babar, though the very reverse of ascetic in his tastes and pleasures,
+had ever been repulsed by sensuality. His was the Epicurean enjoyment
+of the spirit, as distinct from that of the mind, or that of the body.
+So in his thoughts he called the woman he intended should be his wife
+"My moon," which is the eastern equivalent of "My queen"; and, in easy
+dilettante fashion wrote more than one ode to that luminary. Most of
+them were in Persian and contained exactly the proper number of feet,
+and rang the appointed interchanges of meaning and words with
+faultless accuracy. He was quite proud of them, and thought better of
+them than of the one in Turkhi; which, however, he set to music and
+sang, for his innate good taste was for ever breaking loose from
+scholastic tradition. He twanged the tune on a _cithara_ as he sat on
+a rock in the moonlight and felt quite light-hearted over his own
+unworthiness; it fitted so neatly into the rhyming fall ...
+
+
+       Moon of still night!
+         Whence the bright light
+           that enfolds
+       In its pure smile
+         Earth's untold guile;
+           that upholds
+       Silver in glow,
+         whiter than snow,
+           this my hand
+       Tuning thy praise?
+         Whence come thy rays?
+           From what land
+       Bringest thou peace,
+         thus to release,
+           from its sin
+       Stricken sad heart,
+         wailing its part
+           in Life's din?
+       Lo! from God's sun
+         must thou have won
+           thy kind light.
+       Though I am clay,
+         watch me alway
+           through the night.
+       I am of earth;
+         thine is the birth-
+           right divine.
+       Moon of my soul,
+         thine is this whole
+           heart of mine.
+
+
+The distance from Kabul to Khorasan was over eight hundred miles; so
+with even every-day marching the journey would have taken some time,
+and Babar was in no particular hurry. Less so than ever when news came
+to him with the return of his ambassador, that Sultan Hussain had
+suddenly died from an apoplectic seizure. At first Babar felt inclined
+to turn back. His uncle, he knew, had left his kingdom, in unheard of
+fashion, to his three legitimate sons, in defiance of the old saw
+about the ten dervishes, and Babar had too much experience to believe
+that such an arrangement could work satisfactorily. However he had
+other motives for advancing, and therefore he continued his route,
+and, passing over the last range of high hills, found himself in the
+country where the advanced detachments of the Usbek force were already
+raiding. This in itself was an attraction, bringing as it did a chance
+of fine fighting. He found his cousins, the new Kings, encamped, ready
+to meet the advancing foe on the Murghab river; or rather he found two
+of them. The third, from private motives of pique had refused to join
+the confederacy. This appeared to Babar to be inexpressibly mean, when
+everyone else had united and were sparing no efforts to oppose an
+enemy so formidable as Shaibani. He could not understand how any
+reasonable man could pursue a line of conduct which must after his
+death, stain his fair fame. Surely everyone with the commonest grace
+would push forwards his career, so that, even if closed, it would
+conduct him to renown and glory, since fame is truly a second
+existence?
+
+These sentiments, however, fine as they were, did not make much mark
+on the luxurious camp on the banks of the Murghab. His cousins
+received Babar fairly well, though their manners required some
+polishing up by old Kasim-Beg's inflexible rules of etiquette. Of
+course, the fact that two of the younger and illegitimate princes did
+not come out as far as they ought to have done to welcome their Kingly
+cousin was objectionable; but that might be put down to delay in
+starting due to an over-night debauch, rather than to intentional
+slight. But when it came to the State reception in the Audience Tent,
+Kasim had to pluck at his young master's girdle and remind him with
+this jog, that he was to go no further, but to await his eldest
+cousin's advance. Which he did obediently, knowing that old Kasim held
+his King's honour as his own, and was keenly alive to his consequence.
+
+But he, himself, was always forgetting these _convenances_, where he
+was concerned. If you really felt affectionate it was a nuisance
+having to wait, and bow, and scrape.
+
+The State reception, however, went off very well and it was followed
+by a sort of entertainment at which wine was served in goblets of
+silver and gold, that were put down by the meat!
+
+Fateful innovation which sent old Kasim back to his own camp hungry,
+in the highest of dudgeons.
+
+"Had it been a drinking party, sire," he protested, "'twould have been
+my own fault for being there. But at an official dinner, 'twas
+scandalous. No faithful Mussulman could touch a morsel of food so
+defiled."
+
+Babar, somewhat regretful at a rather abrupt departure, murmured an
+excuse to the effect briefly, of "_autres tempes, autres moeurs_";
+whereat Kasim-Beg, a purist for the old ways, broke out hotly:
+
+"Lo! sire! the Institutions of Ghengis Khan have brought your
+Highness' family well through much trouble. Sacredly have they
+observed them in their parties, their courts, their festivals, their
+entertainments, their down sittings, their risings up, and it would
+ill become their descendant to flout them."
+
+Babar flushed up; in his heart of hearts, he was not quite such an
+admirer of the old Turk. "Lo! the Institutes are good enough," he
+said; "a man may well follow them; yet are they not of Divine
+authority, so that one be damned for disobeying them. Besides, see
+you, what hope would there be for the world if folk made no change? If
+a father has done wrong why should not a son change it to what is
+right?"
+
+Old Kasim, munching away at the dry bread and pickles which was all
+his servants could produce, snorted. "'Tis the other way round most
+times; and see you, sire, I give those Kings your cousins one year,
+one little year, to hold Herat! Then the Kingdom of their father--God
+rest his soul since he had gleams of grace and once let one of his
+God-forgetting sons go before the magistrate--held--despite wine
+bibbing--for nigh fifty years, will have gone for ever."
+
+"Aye," replied Barbar, thoughtfully. "I have noticed that myself. Some
+men drink with impunity. I wonder if 'twould hurt me?"
+
+"God forbid! your Majesty!" said old Kasim with a tremble in his
+voice. "Shall all our care, mine and the saintly Kwaja who held you as
+a boy in his guardian care, be wasted? God forbid, say I."
+
+But Babar said nothing; he knew that in his inmost heart he had had
+for years a great longing just to see what it was like to be drunk! It
+could scarcely hurt for once, and the land of inebriety could hardly
+be the arid desert it had been painted for him, or so many folk would
+not wander in it.
+
+He was always open to reason on all points. Nevertheless he gave out
+solemnly that he drank no wine, and his cousins, being good hosts,
+refrained from pressing him to do so.
+
+Badia-zaman, the elder of the three, doubtless thought little of him
+for the abstinence. To be young, good-looking, able to enjoy yourself
+in every way and yet not to take the best of Life, seemed to him sheer
+foolishness; and he showed his estimate in his manner, so that Babar
+came home from his second interview in a fume of anger.
+
+"This shall not be!" he said hotly. "Kasim! send proper
+representations that young as I am, I am of high extraction. Twice
+have I by force regained my paternal Kingdom, Samarkand. To show want
+of respect to one who has done so much for his family by repelling the
+foreign invader is not commendable."
+
+For a marvel the young King was on his dignity, much to old Kasim's
+joy. And with good result; for nothing more could have been desired at
+the next audience which Babar attended with his full retinue. And a
+fine figure he looked, dressed in the very latest fashion with a gold
+brocade coat, a flowered undershirt and white silk baggy trousers all
+lined with gold thread. His hair, too, was scented and curled and his
+turban tied with a difference. A very different person this from the
+ragged, out-at-elbow fugitive, or even the stern young soldier in his
+tarnished coat of mail, fighting for life against overwhelming odds.
+
+He rather liked the change. It was a new experience to ruffle with
+gilded youth, and he ruffled fairly until his boon companions began to
+play indecent and scurvy tricks, when he left, disgusted for the time
+being. But the entertainments were wonderfully elegant. There was
+every sort of delicacy on the comestible trays, and _kababs_ of fowl
+and goose; indeed dishes of every sort and kind. The Prince-Kings vied
+with each other in the refinement of their luxuries, and certainly
+Badia-zaman's parties deserved to be celebrated; they were so fine, so
+easy, so unconstrained. On the other hand Mozuffar's entertainments
+were more amusing, especially when the wine began to take effect.
+There was a man who danced excessively well; a dance of his own
+invention.
+
+"Dance or no dance," grumbled old Kasim, "the Princes thy cousins have
+taken four months to reach this place. And now news comes that a
+plundering party of Usbeks is well within touch not more than forty
+miles off--and they dance! 'Twill be to another tune ere long."
+
+"Mayhap they would let me go," said Babar eagerly, "'twould be a
+diversion."
+
+So he was off to lay his proposition before his Cousins; but they,
+afraid of their own reputations, would not suffer him to move. The
+fact was, as he admitted to old Kasim privately, the Princes, though
+very accomplished at the social board or in the arrangements for a
+party of pleasure, and though they had a pleasing talent for
+conversation and society, yet possessed no knowledge whatever of the
+conduct of a campaign, and were perfect strangers to the arrangements
+for a battle, or the danger and spirit of a soldier's life.
+
+This left nothing more to be said; especially as his hearer agreed
+with every word.
+
+Early autumn, however, had passed, and Shaibani, being a careful
+general, prepared to withdraw his forces against the winter's
+cold. This being so, there was no longer any reason--there had been
+but little before--for remaining in camp at the Murghab, and the
+Prince-Kings proposed a return to Herat and invited Babar to accompany
+them.
+
+"Were I your Highness," said old Kasim sturdily, "I would not go. So
+far God in His mercy has kept virtue on the lips of the King, and kept
+wine away from them. But in that God-forsaken city of Herat who knows
+what might happen? They tell me even the women there are castaway, and
+that your uncle the late King's widow drinks like a fish--may God
+reward her!"
+
+"I have never seen a woman drink wine," said Babar quite thoughtfully.
+"Have you?"
+
+Kasim looked at his young master critically.
+
+"New things are not always good things, sire," he replied drily, "and,
+as was mentioned ere we set out from Kabul, God only knows what may
+happen there if we delay our return too long. Already have five months
+passed and 'tis a fifty days' march homewards."
+
+"Not if we take the high road," said Babar.
+
+"The high road," echoed the old general; "that may be covered with
+snow any moment now."
+
+"Yet will I chance my luck," returned Babar gaily. "See you, old
+friend, I have my reasons! I must see Herat--in the whole habitable
+world they say there is not such a city; besides ..."
+
+He paused, for his was a truthful soul even to itself; and he knew
+that the past six weeks of jollity and convivial male merry-making had
+considerably dimmed his desire to do his duty and marry. Still he had
+promised himself he would try and seek out his Cousin Gharib's
+betrothed--for she had never been his wife--and he meant to do it.
+Between whiles of course. For he must make the most of his time in
+Herat. Yes! it would be a pity to miss the chance of his life. To be
+in the most refined of cities which possessed every means of
+heightening pleasure and gaiety; in which all the incentives to, and
+apparatus for, enjoyment were combined into one vast invitation to
+indulgence, and _not_ to indulge, would be foolish. If he did not
+seize the present moment, even to the point of tasting wine, he was
+not likely to have such another.
+
+And, certainly, wine seemed to raise the level of a man's mind. His
+cousins were but dullards out of their cups. And there was no need to
+exceed. To be dead-drunk was no pleasure to anyone.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III
+
+       The Load of Love, nor Earth nor Heav'n can bear,
+       Yet thou, Improvident! wouldst lightly wear
+       The lovers' yoke, give up the flaming sword,
+       Fool! Love only can bear love! Beware! Beware!
+                                            _Ebd-ul-Homid_.
+
+
+Herat was entered. It was his!
+
+Babar, his eyes wide with curiosity and appreciation had ridden
+through what were to him interminable streets. He had seen towers and
+pleasure houses and palaces rising on all sides, had noted the crowds
+which surged out from every side alley to see one who was already
+renowned in the songs of half Central Asia, as the embodiment of
+youthful valour. And all had been simply inconceivable in its beauty,
+its size.
+
+Yusuf-Ali who had been appointed his guide, rode at his right hand,
+and supplied him with endless information. Close on a million of
+people in the town and suburbs. Over a hundred and seventy thousand
+occupied houses. Nigh on four hundred public schools.
+
+Shops! Why there must be at least fifteen thousand of them!
+
+The statistics went in at one ear and out at another. It was the sheer
+beauty of the place which held Babar's mind. The wide valley, the
+surrounding hills just touched with snow. The white buildings
+following the blue curves of the river. The marble colonnades
+terracing the slopes, the marble palaces crowning the heights; and,
+dense-packed between high carven houses, the multi-coloured crowd all
+intent on pleasure. Roars of laughter rising from it at every passing
+jest, a chorus of "Victory, young champion!" following him as he rode
+along.
+
+By God and his prophet! Life was a splendid thing to live!
+
+Had he had Prince Fortunatus' purse in his pocket he would have flung
+gold pieces along every inch of the way.
+
+Even in the mausoleum of his lately deceased uncle, where, in
+accordance with etiquette he had, before even taking up his quarters
+in the palace assigned to him, to pay his respects to the female
+members of his uncle's family, his ceremonial condolences were
+somewhat marred by the _joie de vivre_ which simply exhaled from
+him. Yet he was none the less sympathetically impressed by the dim
+Dome-of-Kings all lit up darkly by swinging lamps, by tall funereal
+tapers throwing flickering shadows on the purple-crimson pall fringed
+with gold that covered the catafalque.
+
+Dim blue clouds of incense filled the air; their scent mixed with the
+perfume-sodden rustle of the silks and satins beneath the circle of
+ivory-tinted mourning veils that enshrouded the crouching figures of
+the female mourners. The low guttural chant of canons appointed to
+sing prayers for the repose of the dead, rose monotonously, a fitting
+background to the little conventional sobs and cries, as each lady in
+turn stood up to embrace the newly arrived member of the family.
+
+There were so many aunts to embrace; but Babar went through them
+decorously; with a little real emotion when he hugged Aunt Fair, and
+some rather obvious impatience when fat, silly, Astonishing
+Beauty--who loved young men--hugged him.
+
+They did not, however, keep up the "_marsiah_" for long; the
+ladies--who after the expiry of five months had got over the first
+flush of grief--being anxious to have their handsome relative's budget
+of news.
+
+So they all repaired to Khadijah-Begum's house and had a repast. It
+was very refined and--rather to Babar's disappointment, for he was
+curious to see a woman drink wine--strictly teetotal; doubtless
+because Payanda-Begum, the late King's chief wife and--as his father's
+sister--Babar's real aunt, was present. And she was naturally of the
+highest circle of distinction and of the most correct behaviour.
+
+Khadijah-Begum on the other hand, whom Babar now saw for the first
+time, showed her low birth despite the fact that as favourite wife she
+had managed the court for years. Even the knowledge that she was
+Cousin Gharib's mother could not prevent Babar's putting her down at
+once as a vulgar talkative woman who posed for being a person of
+profound sense.
+
+There was another Begum of the late King's present, however, on whom
+the young observer, seeing her for the first time, passed a very
+different opinion. This was one Lady Apak, a delicate fair woman who
+spent her childless life in nursing other people's children, and who
+Babar felt deserved all the respect and kindness it was in his power
+to give.
+
+He was not sorry however, when, various other visits paid, he
+found himself in the house assigned to him. And sure, no better
+place could have been discovered in the whole habitable world! For it
+was the garden palace which the great Master-of-all-Arts, Messer
+Ali-Shir--dead this while back, God rest his soul!--had designed and
+built for himself. Babar spent hours wandering through its cool
+corridors, sitting awhile in cunning alcoves whence the enchanting
+view, framed in gilt filigree arch, showed like a picture indeed. He
+sampled the rose-water baths, all mosaicked like a garden with buds,
+and leaves, and blossoms; he sat stroking the soft silk pile of
+carpets, green and set with flowers as thick as Andijan meadows in
+spring. And there was one, deeply darkly verdant and almost covered
+with the softest, fleeciest white furry blobs, on which he could have
+lain down and cried, so keenly did it bring back the mantle of clover
+lambskin into which he had poured the first grief that had come to his
+young life.
+
+He read round the walls of the central marble hall, veined and
+mosaicked with precious stones, the boast that in after years one of
+his descendants was to use in the Court-of-Private-Audience at Delhi.
+
+"If Earth holds a Paradise--it is this, it is this, it is this."
+
+Yes! it was true! Not only in the hall, but in every niche and
+corner--in the ivory carven bedstead, in the crystal goblets inlaid
+with coral, in the curiously beaten metal-work, in the very shading of
+the coloured tiles, here was perfection of Beauty. Even with their
+shoes doffed in respectful Oriental fashion, Babar could hardly endure
+to see servants, whose minds he knew were not attuned to that high
+level, passing backwards and forwards in what he felt to be a Shrine.
+He dismissed them all and sat, pillowed by the softest down, looking
+out from the colonnade which gave on the garden. It, also, must be
+beautiful beyond compare. He would see that to-morrow. To-night it was
+sufficient to revel in the burnished dusk of the orange trees, seen in
+the soft moonlight, to watch the glittering radiance of the fountain
+drops against that background of distant hills--purple--aye!
+positively purple even in this light. Lo! it was beauty concentrated
+almost to pain. Beauty, unearthly, beyond the senses. Something not to
+be seen, or heard, or tasted, or touched, or even felt. Beauty that
+brought an utter abnegation of Self.
+
+"This slave has a letter for the Most High," came a clear sweet
+voice. "It is from his Cousin Gharib. It was to be given--if occasion
+came--in private, and in person if possible. So I have brought it."
+
+Babar turned quickly. At first to see nothing. Then several paces away
+faintly outlined against one of the square white pilasters he caught
+the silhouette of a white, curiously shadowless figure. A woman's
+figure surely; slim, elegant, despite the enshrouding veil.
+
+He rose swiftly; his heart beating. His dead cousin! Could it be--No!
+Impossible--And yet--
+
+"With deepest reverence--mother," he said almost mechanically, as the
+figure remaining quiescent he stepped forward to take what it held
+out. He could see the hand--a marble hand in the moonlight--beyond the
+line of the pilaster.
+
+A pretty hand too, with fingers pointed and delicate.
+
+"May God reward you," came his mechanical thanks, as instinctively he
+stepped back again.
+
+The figure remained quiescent, silent. In the moonlight he could see
+clearly the sweeping black curves of the writing. The letter was very
+brief.
+
+
+"_Shouldst thou, cousin, ever come to Khorasan, I have counselled her,
+who was my wife in name, to give you this. I make no claim, I express
+no wish save this--I should like her to be happy, for I have loved
+her--and thou also, O Babar. Farewell! May the Crystal Bowl give Love,
+not Tears_."
+
+
+For an instant Babar stood confounded, irresolute: it was so
+unconventional: so almost impossible. Yet it fitted strangely with the
+place; with his vague feeling that had been beyond even Time and
+Space.
+
+
+[Illustration: "'THIS SLAVE HAS A LETTER FOR THE MOST HIGH'"]
+
+
+There was a ruby jewelled lamp swinging from the arch between them. It
+scarce gave light, but it sent a patterned shimmering rose upon the
+white marble floor. A gentle breeze swayed the lamp; the rose
+flickered between them backwards and forwards. His eyes were on it as
+he stood holding the letter, the moonlight catching at the signet ring
+he wore, dallying with the gold embroidery of his light silken coat.
+
+"Is it possible," he said at last, fluttering a bit like a girl, "that
+she who stands before me--"
+
+"Yea, I am she," came the composed reply.
+
+It settled the young man by bringing conviction of his own confusion.
+
+"But how--" he began, a certain blame in his surprise; and once again
+the answer was ready, grave, sufficient.
+
+"My lord's slave comes every Friday after the custom of her
+family--she is of the blood of the divine Jami as doubtless my lord
+knows--to place flowers on the tomb of the now sainted Messer
+Ali-Shir--may his ashes rest in peace--who is interred by his own wish
+in this garden, and who was her distant relative. But in life he was
+ever kind to this dust-like one, teaching her, and allowing her to be
+his disciple. So her litter comes hither often. It awaits her return
+yonder at the grave. Thus the letter was easy to deliver in person,
+and it is delivered. May God keep the King."
+
+Faintly the figure moved as if to go; but Babar stepped a step
+forward. His head was in a whirl, his heart curiously steady.
+
+"And has the cupola of chastity no word to say of herself?" he asked.
+
+"What word is there to say, my lord?" came the quick reply. "I have
+performed my duty. The rest lies with my lord."
+
+There was just a suspicion of raillery in the voice which spurred
+Babar to hardihood.
+
+"Then I would fain know if--if she who thus deigns to honour me is
+satisfied with--with what she sees?"
+
+"But yea! my lord, quite satisfied! And this is not the first time she
+has seen my lord. She was at the window when he made his entry to the
+town."
+
+"Then the lady has doubly the advantage," said Babar with an
+irrepressible laugh. "Yet will I not ask her to make us equal and
+unveil. That were not meet at such a time and place."
+
+There was just that faint suspicion of conscious virtue about the
+remark, but it was met promptly, coolly.
+
+"Nor is there need. My lord would not be frightened at what he saw, as
+I, poor foolish child, was frightened. But I lived to be wiser. I
+lived to know that deformity of body is as naught before deformity of
+mind. But my lord has neither. Nor has this dust-like one. She is
+counted beautiful, and though she catalogues not her own charms, she
+hath two eyes, somewhat large, that look straight, a passable nose,
+thirty-two sound teeth, even and white, and a mouth that can say kind
+things harshly, and--an' it please my lord--harsh things kindly. Shall
+the recital proceed further, my lord?"
+
+"By God and the prophets no!" cried Babar catching fire at last.
+"There is but one more thing between us. Lady, wilt thou take me for
+husband?"
+
+"Of a surety; therefore came I here." So far the reply was as ever,
+cool, collected, without shadow of emotion; now the sweet, polished
+voice broke faintly. "There is but one matter of which I would remind
+my lord. I am older than he by three years. And I am not quite like
+other women. Messer Ali-Shir taught me much. If my lord would rather
+someone else--"
+
+The rose light on the pavement flickered between them backwards and
+forwards.
+
+"Lady," said Babar, and involuntarily he drew himself up to his full
+height, "in my childhood they married me to one for whom I cared
+little. She left me, saying truly, I did not love her. Awhile back my
+mother--God rest her soul for she was very dear to me--married me to
+yet another wife whom, mercifully, God took; since we were as cat and
+dog. But I have never loved a woman. I do not now; perhaps I never
+shall. 'Tis well to be prepared."
+
+Was it a faint sigh, or only another breath of wind that set the
+swinging lamp swaying.
+
+"I am prepared. And God may send the father's love to the mother of
+his son."
+
+There was silence. The splash of the glistening fountain made itself
+heard faintly; the soft coo of a dove in the orange trees seemed a
+lullaby to the whole wide world.
+
+"Lady," said Babar when he spoke at last, "I have sworn to myself that
+none should know of my marriage till it was accomplished. Till I could
+place my wife before them and say 'See her whom I have chosen.' I stay
+but a week or two in Herat. My kingdom calls me back. Is it possible
+that ere I go the formulas may be said privately, so that when good
+fortune enables me to send to Herat it may be for my wedded wife that
+I send?"
+
+There was a pause Then the cool, quiet voice replied, "Wherefore not,
+my lord? I have said I am ready."
+
+"But when?" Babar spoke anxiously, almost appealingly. He felt himself
+as wax in a woman's hand--a woman he had never seen.
+
+"Next Friday, my lord, when I come again to lay the flowers at the
+shrine. If my lord makes preparation, and if he changeth not his mind,
+his servant will be there."
+
+"Unless she also changeth her mind," interrupted Babar with forced
+lightness.
+
+"That might be," came the answer. "Yet is it not so likely as the
+other. The caged bird does not choose its song. And now farewell. God
+have you in his keeping."
+
+The figure stooped to gather its flowing robes together, and something
+in the supple elegance of the movement sent Babar's blood to his heart
+and head.
+
+"Not so, my moon," he cried, every atom of him vibrant with emotion.
+"Not so do we part." And with two swinging strides he was across the
+flickering rose light on the marble floor, took the hand held out to
+him unflinchingly, and stooped to kiss it.
+
+"Wife and mother, guardian and friend, so shalt thou be to me, so help
+me God."
+
+The next instant he was alone staring into the night, wondering if he
+had fallen asleep and dreamt it all.
+
+No! It was a reality. His signet ring was gone. He must have put it on
+that firm delicate hand, the memory of whose touch thrilled him
+through and through.
+
+And he had called her his moon. Yet his heart was beating tranquilly.
+
+When he lay down on the carven bed he did not toss and turn. He did
+not even feel inclined to indite a sonnet to his mistress's eyebrow or
+compare her to anything in heaven above or the earth beneath.
+
+He was simply content, and fell into a dreamless sleep. It was not
+till the next morning that he recollected that he did not know the
+lady's name, nor where she lived.
+
+Not that either ignorance mattered. He would find out next Friday.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV
+
+       Noisy the Tavern where Life's wine has sped
+       From variant cup to fuddle variant Head;
+       Love peeps through crannied Door; each Drinker straight
+       Flings cup aside to follow Her instead.
+                                                 _Ebd-ul-Hamid_.
+
+
+There was not much time for thought in Herat. Early in the morning
+Babar was astir to ride out with Yusuf to some of the sights, and find
+the first collation of the day spread in some suitable place.
+
+Then on his return there was the State visit to the Court, where with
+pomp and circumstance he took his place as King of Kabul.
+
+After that, each day had its entertainment at some new palace of
+delight, and sometimes after dinner had been served, the party would
+be carried off by one of the guests to a further and more intimate
+circle of amusement.
+
+Once this was done by no less a person than Khadijah-Begum herself.
+She took a few of the young princes to the King's Pleasure House, a
+delightful little edifice of two storeys high which stood in the midst
+of a still more delightful garden. The upper storey was simply
+perfect! Four little apartments at the four corners, each with a wide
+balcony, and between them and enclosed by them, one large central
+arched Hall. Every portion of this upper storey was covered with
+frescoes representing the battles of Babar's grandfather Sultan
+Abusa'id.
+
+And it was all so charmingly arranged. Carpets and hangings
+everywhere; especially in the balcony where the party assembled and
+where Babar as the guest of the evening was placed above his hosts.
+These little attentions always flattered Babar and he never failed to
+notice them. So the entertainment began with a cup of welcome which
+was charged and drunk by the host in chief. Then the cupbearers began
+to fill up the cup of the others with pure wine which everyone,
+including Khadijah-Begum, quaffed as if it had been the water of life!
+Only the tall good-looking young King refused, even when, the party
+waxing warm, and the spirit mounting to their heads, they took a fancy
+to make the young abstainer drink also.
+
+The night was fine, the moonlight streamed in upon fruit and flowers.
+Jelal the flute player fluted to perfection, and Bechab on the harp
+might have wiled doves from their nests. Then Hafiz sang well in the
+Herati style, low, delicate, equable. Everything tempted to pleasure
+and Babar sat with a half-frown on his kindly face watching the others
+get lordily drunk.
+
+Then mercifully a false note was struck by one of his own following.
+Jahangir Mirza, who was far gone, insisted that his favourite singer
+of Samarkand should delight the company. And the man sang (as he
+always did) in a loud harsh voice and out of tune; altogether a
+dreadful, disagreeable performance. So disagreeable that the Khorasan
+Princes, though far too polite to stop it out of respect to Babar, had
+to yawn and furtively protect their ears. This, and the reflection
+that if he was to yield and taste wine it would be more courteous to
+do so when he was the guest of the eldest of the Princes, and not of
+the younger, decided him not to give way; at that party at any rate.
+
+But he was no wet blanket; for after a time, having had enough of the
+Pleasure-House, they repaired to the new Winter-Palace, where Yusuf,
+being by this time extremely drunk, rose and, for a marvel, danced
+remarkably well; possibly because he was a musical man. Here they all
+got very merry and friendly. Babar was presented more or less
+ceremoniously with a corselet, a sword, a belt, and a whitish Tipchak
+horse, and someone sang a Turkhi song well. On the other hand while
+the party was hot with wine two slaves again performed indecent scurvy
+tricks. But this time Babar did not leave. He remained to the bitter
+end when the party broke up at such an untimely hour that Babar
+thought it best to stay where he was; the others doubtless, being too
+drunk to move.
+
+Perhaps it was this experience, coming in such close contrast to the
+marvellous peace of that moonlight night when, as if in a dream, he
+had handfasted a nameless woman, that made Babar listen to old Kasim's
+horror-struck remonstrances concerning his young master's failing
+adherence to orthodoxy in the matter of wine.
+
+The rigid old Mahomedan was fairly scandalised, and made such a fuss
+that the Khorasan Prime-Minister intervened, and took _his_ young
+masters to task so severely that they wholly laid aside any idea of
+urging their cousin further to drink.
+
+Rather perhaps to that cousin's private regret. It seemed a thousand
+pities to leave Herat without having tasted all Life's pleasures; all,
+that is, that were not indecent or scurvy. And a man could be drunk
+and yet remain a gentleman.
+
+Still, when the elder prince did give the promised party, at which
+Babar had promised himself he would for once drink wine, he still
+refrained, though he fretted because his nobles thought it necessary
+only to drink by stealth, hiding their goblets and taking draughts in
+great dread. It was so foolish; when they knew he was never one to
+object to the following of common usage, if so be the follower could
+reconcile it to his own conscience.
+
+He was altogether a trifle hoity-toity at this supper party; for a
+whole goose, after Herati fashion, being set down before him, he did
+not touch it; and, on his host's asking if he did not like it, said
+frankly, that being accustomed to the unrefined habit of having his
+food served in gobbets, he did not know how to carve it.
+
+Whereupon his host obligingly sent for the goose, cut it up, and
+placed it himself before his guest. Badia-zaman was, of course,
+unequalled in such attentions, and life was very delightful; yet still
+Babar's thoughts began to turn to the next Friday, and after that to
+Kabul. His future life seemed more settled than it had ever been
+before.
+
+But Fate had a surprise in store for him, as he found out one
+afternoon, when, after his usual kindly custom, he had gone to pay a
+duty visit to his paternal aunts. Running down the narrow stairs which
+led to Payanda-Begum's upper storey, he came full tilt on two veiled
+women coming up. The stair was but shoulder wide; no room to pass,
+even had the first figure not been so appallingly stout. Impossible to
+pass, rude to turn one's back on those who were evidently of the
+circle of distinction--
+
+Nor could he, King of Kabul, retreat step by step like a lackey. He
+stood for a second gracious, debonnair; then with a merry "Your
+pardon, mother," wedged his arms tight between those narrow walls, so
+swung himself back. And there, in two such bounds, he was up the six
+steps and at the top of the stair.
+
+"Have a care, nephew," shrieked a fat, familiar voice from the first
+bundle. "Thou wilt fall and crush thy Yenkam!"
+
+"My bridesmaid!" cried Babar joyously, repeating the pet nickname.
+"Say not so! When didst thou come?" And he was down the stairs again
+to embrace a favourite aunt he had not seen for years, and help her
+mount the remaining steps.
+
+So, still panting, the elderly matron unwound her veil and stood
+revealed; fat indeed.
+
+"Lo! Yenkam," said Babar, his eyes twinkling. "Had I fallen, I should
+have fallen--soft."
+
+"Fie on thee, scapegrace! God send thee not a skinny old age,"
+retorted Habee-ba-Begum good humouredly. "But what of thy cousin
+Ma'asuma here? Ma'asuma that is like the fairy princess, weighing but
+five flowers--have a care of thy veil, child!"
+
+The tiny little figure, slim and graceful, which now stood beside the
+fat one, apparently made a court salutation beneath her thick veil,
+and a bird-like voice said, with a laugh in every tone, "My cousin
+Babar, never having seen my smallness, Mother, cannot gauge it."
+
+The young King returned the salute in his best manner. "If the
+gracious lady would allow me to judge," he began, when his Yenkam cut
+short his hardihood.
+
+"Fie! no nonsense, children! Ma'asuma! Follow me. Thou must be
+presented at once to thy eldest aunt. I shall see thee, scapegrace!
+doubtless, later on."
+
+So, with a nod to Babar, bundled propriety moved off down the
+corridor.
+
+Was it chance?--Was it really a trip over a tiresome veil...?
+
+Anyhow Habee-ba-Begum had rounded a corner, and those two young things
+stood staring at each other as if they had never seen anything in the
+wide world before.
+
+It was a real case of love at first sight.
+
+As for him, he did not even realise what she was like. He only knew
+that she was beautiful exceedingly. And she knew he was a Prince
+indeed.
+
+The mirth in their eyes died down. Then hers grew startled, his caught
+fire. So they stood; till suddenly hers flamed back into his, and with
+a low cry she huddled her draperies round her, turned, and fled after
+her mother.
+
+Babar stood still as a stone. What had happened to him? He felt
+confused, lost, yet utterly, entirely, absurdly happy.
+
+After a time he walked soberly downstairs feeling vaguely that the
+world was a new world, and that he must go and find himself.
+
+Once in the street he went on walking blindly, on and on, till he
+found himself in desert places outside the town. Then, aimlessly, he
+turned back and walked as he had come, wandering through the city as
+though in search of mansions and gardens.
+
+Yet all the while he felt as if he could neither sit nor go, neither
+stand nor walk.
+
+He was literally obsessed by a passion, pure in its very intensity; a
+passion which at one and the same time made him long to be with its
+object, yet covered him with shame and confusion at the mere thought
+of her beauty.
+
+He returned after long hours to Ali-Shir's palace, worn out in body,
+but yet more restless in mind. He had decided that this must be
+love--love at long last. In that case he must write verses, and began
+to catalogue the beauty of the face he had seen.
+
+He remembered, now, that they were unusual; for little Cousin Ma'asuma
+had the rare distinction of fairish hair and blue eyes. A little
+flowerful face, merry, sparkling; rebellious curling hair flecked with
+red gold--a tint of rose and creamy _champak_--
+
+All this he remembered dreamily as he laboured to fit together the
+fine mosaic of a Persian love ode.
+
+
+      "Impassioned loved one! fairest of the fair,
+       The waving tendrils of thy bronze gold hair
+       Spread round thy face each one a separate snare;
+       Thine eyes are vi'lets, centred by black bees
+       Who seek to drain their sweetness to the lees;
+       Thine eyebrows arch--"
+
+
+He got so far as this, then threw away his pen in disgust.
+
+Anyone could write that sort of stuff. He had read pages of it in
+books: had sung such rhymes by the score. But that sort of thing had
+nothing to do with his great love for Ma'asuma and hers for him.
+
+For she had loved him, of course. The reverse was incredible, absurd.
+
+He turned round and buried his face in the downy cushions that had, as
+usual, been spread for him in his favourite corner of the colonnade.
+
+He had had no dinner. He did not want any. He had refused his cousin's
+invitations with some excuse. He forgot what--it did not matter.
+Nothing in the wide world mattered but his love for Ma'asuma and hers
+for him.
+
+The moon was still bright. Not quite so bright as it had been that
+night, five days ago, when he had promised to marry someone else.
+
+Babar sat up, leant his head on his hand and began to consider how
+matters stood. Oriental in mind, marriage was to him by no means
+synonymous with love. He could legitimately have four wives at a time.
+If he liked. But honestly he felt he would rather not. Still--as
+nothing possibly could prevent his making Ma'asuma his wife--if the
+other nameless lady wanted to be his wife also, he would acquiesce. He
+would not go back from his promise. Only--what a pity he had called
+her his "Moon"! That name belonged to his love by right.
+
+So, as he sat dreaming, a voice said with the nasal twang of the
+common folk--
+
+"A letter for the Presence."
+
+The coincidence of time and place startled him. He looked up
+half-expectant of that tall, slim, female figure. But this was a lad
+in the uniform of the Palace servants. A message mayhap from one of
+the Begums. He took it carelessly from an awkward brown hand and
+opened its seal.
+
+A scent of fresh violets came to him as he did so.
+
+And the letter?
+
+It was written in the finest Babari hand--the hand he had
+invented!--with a delicacy, an accuracy at which even the inventor of
+it marvelled, and it contained but a quatrain; but such a quatrain!
+Babar's scholastic appreciation of the form forced its way through his
+emotional delight at the words. Ali-Shir himself could not have
+written anything neater, more absolutely correct in prosody. And in
+such difficult metre too, with its enlay of rhymes.
+
+
+      "My heart has part in this thy smart.
+       Dear heart! have part in this my smart!
+       Our sighs do rise twin to the skies;
+       Thy heart, my heart, are not apart."
+
+
+And it was signed:
+
+
+      "Thy true friend Ma'asuma."
+
+
+Yea! That was worth writing! That told the tale. Babar sprang to his
+feet. The whole world seemed filled with radiance. He and Ma'asuma
+were the only people in it.
+
+But what should he answer? What should he write? Nothing but the
+truth--God's truth.
+
+"I love thee. I love thee, Ma'asuma. I love thee."
+
+In his haste, his brimming emotion, the words fell from his lips, as
+seizing pen and paper he set them down and signed them.
+
+"Is that the answer?" asked the waiting lad as Babar held out the
+missive impatiently. "Am I to take that to my mistress?" A faint
+hesitancy over the latter words made the young man look at the boy--a
+dull, rather sullen face, but not ill-looking.
+
+"Yes!" he replied joyously. "Take it to thy mistress. It is my answer,
+now and always!"
+
+The lad _salaamed_ and went, leaving Babar in a heaven of perfect
+content.
+
+Two days later, on Friday evening, however, he was waiting to fulfil
+his promise in Ali-Shir's tomb. Absolutely Oriental as his outlook
+was, so far as marriage was concerned, he yet wondered, vaguely, if he
+were fool or knave in acting as he did. For the path of true love,
+never very rough when Kings are concerned, had been made very smooth,
+indeed, for the two young people. Babar had sent his Akam to see his
+Yenkam and the whole affair had been settled in five minutes with
+enthusiasm. Even the preliminaries had been arranged. It being nigh
+December, Babar should return to Kabul and make preparations there,
+while Yenkam would complete hers at Herat, and with the first blink of
+returning spring, the marriage should take place at some intermediate
+place. Meanwhile the young people, after Chagatai fashion, had been
+allowed to see each other and were in the seventh heaven of delight.
+The betrothals were to be made public in a few days; though already
+Babar's conduct was suspicious. For he refrained from his cousin's
+convivial parties and mooned about in the gardens composing "Sonnets
+of the Heart," as he was pleased to call them, in his native Turkhi
+which gave him much more freedom than the severely technical Persian
+odes.
+
+These he sent as written to his dearest dear, and they invariably
+brought back the most beautiful replies, more correct, if not
+quite as genuine in feeling, as his own effusions. He felt he was,
+indeed, in luck to find so peerless a maid, perfect in beauty and in
+intelligence. One of these compositions--the last--lay in his
+waist-wallet, as he waited in Ali-Shir's tomb. The moon had not yet
+risen, and all was dark. Yet he got up once or twice from the parapet
+rail on which he sat, and paced aimlessly up and down.
+
+In truth he was restless; vaguely dissatisfied with himself. He was
+going to explain, of course--oh, yes! he would explain; but it might
+have been better to write. Yet how could he, knowing neither her name
+nor where she lived? He could have found out of course; but that might
+have been to put his paternal aunts on the scent. They were dear
+creatures, but dreadful scandalmongers. Besides he had so much to say.
+A personal explanation would be easier; less abrupt, kinder. Not that
+he meant to back out--far from it. He was ready to be a good, just,
+generous husband; unless of course, the nameless one preferred not to
+take second place, as she must do. There was no helping that. It was
+not his fault. Love had come ...
+
+He paced quicker as he remembered the words which had so touched
+him-- "And God the Father may send a father's love to the mother of
+his son." Well! God send He might; though that would be a different
+sort of love altogether from this absorbing passion. Anyhow he could
+do no more. A Kazi, able if necessary to perform the marriage
+ceremony, was within call. He, himself, was ready. All that was
+wanting was the lady. Surely she was late in coming.
+
+A rustle made him start and listen; but it was only the doves in the
+orange trees.
+
+No one! No one!
+
+The moon rose after a time over the garden and flooded the terraces
+with such silvern brilliance that the very pebbles on the path showed
+distinct.
+
+But no one came--no one!
+
+Could she have heard?
+
+Impossible; it was still a Court secret, and she was a religious
+recluse--so far as he knew.
+
+Besides; even if she had changed her mind, she might have come--or
+sent a message.
+
+So, at last, in rather an ill humour he went back to the Palace and
+dismissed the waiting Kazi with a handsome fee.
+
+There was one more Friday ere he left Herat; and, feeling ill-used,
+sore, yet in a way mightily relieved, he waited in Ali-Shir's tomb for
+another hour or so. No one should say _he_ had failed in his part of
+the bargain! He was quite ready. Besides he had told the woman plainly
+that he was not in love with her; so she had no right to feel
+aggrieved. If she did.
+
+But that could scarcely be. Every good Mussulman knew she had no claim
+to a whole man--though little Ma'asuma had every bit of him. Yea!
+every bit. So it was as well, doubtless, that no one came.
+
+And as he went back to the palace his only regret was that he should
+have called the nameless one "My moon."
+
+The title belonged to his love, of right; but she would, she could
+never bear it because of the nameless one who had changed her
+mind--apparently; but she had not sent back his ring!
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V
+
+       Forward and onward! do not ask the task,
+       Fortune importune! Is not strife true life?
+
+
+Kasim-beg was in a fever to leave Herat. Marriage, he said, was good,
+and it was proper to choose a cousin, who was doubtless charming;
+though for his part he believed the rather in choice by outsiders; for
+if the result was not happy there was no self blame, and self blame
+was the devil for destroying decent calm. But Kingship was more
+important still, and as the Most High had not been so very secure on
+his new throne before he had started, he simply could not afford to be
+away more than six months.
+
+And Babar could not but admit his faithful old minister was right. So
+he said farewell reluctantly to little Ma'asuma and started at the
+head of his small army for Kabul. And as he rode up the last slope
+whence he could see the gilded city of Herat, he told himself he could
+not have done it better. He had seen everything--he ran over the list
+of the sights in his mind, and found eighty-two of them! In fact the
+only one worthy of notice which he had omitted was a certain convent.
+He flushed a little at the remembrance, and set the thought aside with
+self-complacence that he had come through the temptations of the most
+luxurious town in the world quite unscathed. He had not played any
+indecent or scurvy tricks, he had not touched wine. He had altogether
+been quite a virtuous prince. So, with characteristic buoyancy,
+despite the fact that he had said good-bye to his first and only love,
+he settled himself in the saddle, and his face for home.
+
+Here difficulties arose at once. It began to snow the very day they
+left Herat, and Babar was for taking the low road for safety's sake.
+It was the longer of course, but the hill road was at all times
+difficult and dangerous; in snow practically impassable.
+
+But Kasim-Beg, who had been in a fuss for days, behaved very
+perversely, so that in the end Babar gave way and they started for the
+passes, taking one Binai, an old mountaineer, as their guide. Now
+whether it was from old age, or from his heart failing him at the
+unusual depth of the drifts, is uncertain; but this is sure--having
+once lost the path he never could find it again so as to point out the
+way!
+
+However, as Kasim-Beg and his sons were anxious to preserve their
+reputation as route-choosers, they dismounted, beat down the snow and
+discovered something like a road along which the party--much reduced
+by defections due to the delights of Herat--managed to advance for a
+day, when it was brought to a complete stand by the depth of the snow,
+which was such that the horses' feet did not touch the ground. Seeing
+no other remedy, Babar ordered a retreat to a ravine where there was
+abundance of firewood, and thence despatched sixty or seventy chosen
+men, to return by the road they had come, and, retracing their
+footsteps, to find on the lower ground any Huzaras or other people who
+might be wintering there, and to bring a guide who was able to point
+out the way. This done they halted in the ravine for three or four
+days awaiting the return of the men who had been sent out. These did,
+indeed, come back, but without having been able to find a guide.
+
+What was to be done? Nothing but place reliance on God and push
+forward. So said Babar, a light in his clear eyes as he recognised
+that he was in a tight place, that before him and his lay such
+hardships and sufferings as even he had scarcely undergone at any
+other period of his life. But then at no other period of his life had
+Love been waiting, her rosy wings fluttering, for him to win through.
+
+"Warm yourselves to the marrow this night," he said to all. "Eat your
+fill and carry firewood in place of the victuals. We shall need every
+atom of strength we can save and spend."
+
+But he himself spent a wakeful night and wrote a Turkhi verse to
+console himself. It ran thus and was rather poor; though nothing else
+was to be expected under such circumstances:
+
+
+      "Fate from my very birth has marked me down,
+       There is no injury I have not known,
+       Not one! So what care I what fortune bring?
+       No harm unknown can come to me, the King."
+
+
+They were up betimes, a long straggling party doing their best to
+struggle on by beating down the snow and so forming a road along which
+the laden mules could go. It was luckily a fine day and by evening
+they could count on an advance of three miles. What was more, as no
+snow had fallen, they were able to send back along the beaten track
+for more firewood. So it went on for two or three days. Then the men
+began to be discouraged, and Babar set his teeth. With Love awaiting
+him at the other side, he meant to get over the Pass.
+
+He only had about fifteen volunteers from his immediate staff, but
+those fifteen, headed by vitality incarnate, worked wonders. Every
+step taken was up to the middle or the breast in soft, fresh-fallen
+snow; but still it was a step, and he who followed did not sink so
+far. Thus they laboured. As the vigour of the person who went first
+was generally expended after he had gone a few paces, another advanced
+and took his place.
+
+"Lo! gentlemen, 'tis as good as leap-frog," cried the young leader
+joyously, and thereinafter they strove for steps. And as ever Babar
+came out first. "See you," he said gravely, in explanation of his own
+prowess, "'tis I brought you hither; and if we do not beat hard we
+shall be beaten."
+
+At which mild joke Kasim laughed profusely, though he felt as if he
+could have killed himself for having thus jeopardised his young hero's
+life.
+
+The fifteen or so who worked in trampling down the snow, next
+succeeded in dragging on a riderless horse. This generally sank to the
+stirrups and after ten or fifteen paces was worn out. The next fared
+better and the next, and the next. And after all the led horses had
+thus been brought forward, came a sorry sight. The rest of the troops,
+even the best men and many who bore the title of "Noble" advancing
+(not even dismounted!) along the road that had been beaten down for
+them by their King! Some of them, certainly, had the grace to hang
+their heads. But this was no time, Babar felt, for reproach or even
+for authority. Every man who possessed spirit or emulation must have
+hastened to the front without orders; and those without spirits were
+worse than useless at such a time.
+
+"We must do without them, Kasim," said the young King, when his
+minister would have spoken his mind. "'Twill not mend matters with
+cowards to tell them they be such. Could any tongue circle the lie I
+would praise them for their bravery, but with Death staring us in the
+face I stick to Truth."
+
+And to work also. The life and soul of the fifteen, he kept them going
+by jokes and quips and the singing of songs. Aye! even when storm and
+snow came with blinding force and they all expected to meet death
+together. Then it was that, ahead of all, Babar's full mellow voice
+rang out in such ballads as:
+
+
+                        THE HAND OF THE THIEF
+
+       The bog was black outside Kazan,
+       now it is red!
+       Last night there came a rich car-wan,
+       Blood has been shed!
+
+       Now Adham-Khan was over-lord,
+       Judging the right
+       Of quarr'l betwixt the Black-Sheep-Horde
+       And they of the White.
+
+      "Oh! Adham-Khan avenge the wrong,
+       Thou art the head."
+      "My hand holds fast the skirt that's long,"
+       Smiling he said.
+
+       Then rose in wrath young Zulfikar,
+       Girt on his sword.
+      "Now show I him in full durbar
+       Right is the Lord."
+
+       He saddled steed and rode away
+       Over the sand,
+       His hauberk rattling roundelay,
+       God at his hand.
+
+       And Adham-Khan, he sat in state
+       Holding his court.
+      "Now who is he who comes so late
+       What has he brought?"
+
+      "I bring a gift from the Black-Horde-chief,
+       Thy honour's friend,
+       And lay the hand of a common thief
+       On thy skirt's end."
+
+       The stiff dead hand skimmed through the air,
+       Lay like a stone.
+       Of all the court not one did dare
+       Right to disown.
+
+      "Oh! warrior hear! Against the right
+       Keep thou from strife;
+       But if the wrong is _done_ then fight
+       Fight for thy life."
+
+
+They were, in truth, fighting for dear life. And there was a chance of
+it ahead of them; for, nigh the top of the great Zerrin pass, lay a
+cave wherein shelter might be found. At least so said Binai the guide.
+But the snow fell in such quantities, the wind was so dreadful, so
+terribly violent, it needed all Babar's courage not to give in.
+
+But the rosy fluttering wings of Love would not let him yield. He
+could not lose little cousin Ma'asuma. The very thought of her warmed
+him; the scent of her hair came to him with the snow.
+
+The drifts deepened, the possibility of path narrowed in the steep
+defile, the days were at the shortest, with difficulty could the
+horses be kept on the trampled road, yet all around was certain death
+in unfathomed snow-depths.
+
+Babar's face was stern. He was nigh his end, and he knew it.
+
+And then, suddenly, a shout from keen-eyed Tengari, old Kasim's son.
+"The cave! The cave! Yonder is the cave."
+
+And it was; but to all appearance disappointingly small. Not large
+enough to hold one-half of those seeking shelter, though the
+surrounding cliffs in some measure tempered the bitter fierceness of
+the wind.
+
+"The Most High had better go in," said Kasim, as Babar set to work
+arranging what best he could for his troopers. "I will see to the
+men."
+
+But Babar shook his head and went on. He felt that for him to be in
+warmth and comfort while his men were in snow and drift, for him to be
+enjoying sleep and ease while his followers were in trouble and
+distress would be inconsistent from what he owed them and a deviation
+from that society in suffering that was their due.
+
+"'Death in the company of friends is a feast.' At any rate, so runs
+the proverb," he remarked lightly. "And indeed, Kasim, having brought
+these poor souls to this pass, it is but right that whatever their
+sufferings and difficulties, whatever they may have to undergo, I
+should be equal sharer in all."
+
+So when he had done what he could and shown others what to do, he took
+a hoe and dug down in the snow as deep as his breast without reaching
+the ground, then crouched down in it. The day was darkening, evening
+prayer time had passed, and still belated troopers came dropping in.
+The snow was now falling so fast that the men in the dug-out shelter
+ran some chance of being smothered as they slept from sheer fatigue.
+Babar himself found four inches of snow above him as he scrambled out
+of his hole when a last party straggled in, bringing Binai the guide,
+with the welcome news that the cave was far larger than hasty
+observation would expect, and that a narrow passage led to quite a
+spacious cavern within where there was ample room for all.
+
+Joyful news indeed! Sending out to call in all his men, Babar soon
+found himself, by one of his own extraordinary changes of luck, in a
+wonderfully warm, safe, and comfortable place. For there proved to be
+firewood within the cave, and such as had any eatables, stewed meat,
+preserved flesh, or anything else they might have, produced them for a
+common meal. Thus all escaped, as by a miracle, from the terrible
+cold, the snow, the bitter, bitter wind.
+
+And the rosy wings of Love fluttered gaily, as Babar laid himself down
+to sleep--the first sleep he had had for days.
+
+It was the turning point; though there was still distress and misery
+to come.
+
+The snow, however, had ceased to fall by the morning, the wind had
+died down. Moving with the first blink of dawn they still had to tread
+down the snow in the old way: but it was with more hope. The cave in
+which they had rested was, as they were aware, close to the beginning
+of the last steep ascent to the Great Pass. This, the shortest way,
+they knew to be impassable, and even Kasim and his sons, warned by
+experience, did not advise its attempt. Bad enough was a lower valley
+road of which old Binai the guide had vaguely heard. Yet it was their
+only chance, so they took it. But evening found them still in the
+defile; and such was its precipitate nature, that there was nothing
+for it but for every man to halt where he found himself, dismount,
+scrape a hole in the snow for himself and his horse if possible, and
+so await the tardy dawn to bring sufficient light for safe advance. It
+was an awful night. The retreat of the storm had brought frost; icy,
+keen, piercing; and though none of the hardy troopers actually lost
+their lives, many lost hands and feet from frostbite. Babar himself
+kept his blood warm by pacing up and down, singing at the top of his
+voice with that curious instinct of shouting which comes always to
+humanity with the grip of cold. Mayhap it cheered the others to hear
+the mellow melodious chants echoing so blithely over the snow.
+
+He sang many things, but his favourite was the
+
+
+                     SONG OF THE SMILING SHEPHERD
+
+       From Sunset until Dawn-of-Day,
+       My forehead frozen with the Frost,
+       I shut mine eyes like Wolf-at-Bay
+       And sing to find the Sheep I've lost.
+
+       When Angels walk at Break-of-Day
+       Among pale wormwood on the lea,
+       Upon the Night-of-Power, they say,
+       My smiling soul came unto me.
+
+       It had a palace of pure gold
+       In Paradise and yet it chose
+       To leave the Heat-of-Heaven for Cold
+       And help me find the Sheep I love.
+
+       So in the Dark and in the Snow
+       We twain make up one Perfect-Whole
+       And sing glad songs the while we go
+       A Smiling-Shepherd, Smiling-Soul.
+
+
+Dawn came at last and they moved down the glen. It was not the usual
+road,--that was more circuitous--but with the snow filling up the
+valley and obliterating precipices, ravines, crevasses, there seemed a
+chance of being able to manage a shorter route, and time meant so much
+to those exhausted men.
+
+Yet Babar himself halted for awhile, and so did a few of his immediate
+followers when his horse stumbled, fell, could not rise.
+
+"Take mine, my liege," said half-a-dozen voices. But the young man's
+face set.
+
+"I will not leave the beast," he said resolutely. "It hath done me
+good service and may do it again. See you! bring some of the men's
+lances and their halter ropes. Samur and I live together, or die
+together," and he laid his young cheek to the horse's soft muzzle
+affectionately.
+
+Then starting up, he set the men to work to form a criss-cross raft or
+sledge of lances on to which Samur was pulled by main force.
+
+"'Tis all down hill now," said he when it was finished, and seizing a
+rope strained at it.
+
+"Nay! Sire!" remarked old Kasim drily--"If the Most Excellent choose
+to risk lives for the sake of a dumb brute, let them be the lives of
+dumb brutes, not Kings. Troopers! Six horses to save one!"
+
+Babar hung his head, but held to the rope.
+
+"Doubtless I am a brute also," he murmured half to himself, "so let me
+be dumb; save for this--God made me so!"
+
+The staunch old warrior heard the words and shook his head. Yet in his
+heart of hearts he would not have altered one jot or one tittle in his
+idol. Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar was for him the first gentleman in
+the world.
+
+"Truly," said the latter with pious cheerfulness after a time, during
+which the sledge slipped easily down the steep slopes of snow, "it is
+well said
+
+
+      'Looked at wisely with clear eyes
+       Ills are blessings in disguise.'
+
+
+But for this extreme depth of snow which till now hath seemed our
+worst enemy, we should all be tumbling down precipices and being lost
+in crevasses."
+
+This was obvious; but it cheered the party, until in the far distance
+something more tangible showed to bring sudden alacrity to outwearied
+steps.
+
+A hut surely!
+
+And that figure on the lessening snow slopes--was it a man?
+
+Still it was nigh bed-time prayers before they extricated themselves
+from the mouth of the valley and the villagers of Yaka-Aulang came out
+to meet the forlorn party, to help, and even to carry, some of them
+into warm houses, and thereinafter to slaughter fat sheep for them,
+bring a superfluity of hay and grass for their horses, and abundance
+of wood to kindle their fires.
+
+Once again Babar felt that to pass from the cold and snow into such a
+village with its warm houses, and to escape from want and suffering to
+find such plenty of good bread and fat sheep as they did, was an
+enjoyment that can only be conceived by such as have suffered similar
+hardships, or endured such heavy distress.
+
+But better by far to him than this material satisfaction, was the glow
+at his heart when an old white-headed patriarch nodding by the
+fireside, mumbled--
+
+"Never has it been done before, never since the memory of man hath
+Zerrin been passed in such snow. Never hath any man ever conceived
+even the idea of passing it at such season--Never! Never!"
+
+It was something to have done! After this, marching was easy. But the
+strain had told upon the courage of the rank and file, and once when
+the little party came upon a clan of Hazaras who disputed passage in a
+narrow defile, there was near disaster. The young King, who was in the
+rear, galloped up to find his force retreating before a deadly flight
+of arrows.
+
+"Stand!" he shouted. "Stand!" But the men would not be rallied.
+"Fools!" he cried, rising in his stirrups, a fine young figure,
+unarmoured, without sword or lance, without helmet or aught but his
+bow and quiver--for the attack was entirely unforeseen and he had
+been, for the time, off-duty--"Call ye yourselves servants to stand
+still while the master works? Lo! He who hires a servant hires him for
+his need; not to stand still like a slipped camel!"
+
+So with a wild _huroosh!_ he set his horse spurring forward. The
+reckless bravery did its work. The men roused by it turned to follow.
+The ambuscade was reached, the hill beyond climbed after the enemy,
+who, seeing the troopers were in real earnest, fled like deer. So the
+danger passed; but Babar wondered vaguely that night if it was to be
+ever so; if the great mass of humanity ever needed a flaming match ere
+they would catch fire.
+
+But there was more trouble to come, as, with such haste as was
+possible--for the snow which was very heavy that winter, hindered them
+even in the valleys--they pushed on towards Kabul.
+
+It was one day at noon when, being almost perished with the frost,
+they had alighted to kindle fires and warm themselves ere going on,
+that a messenger on horseback arrived with ill news. The Moghuls left
+behind in Kabul had risen, and, aided by outsiders and some of the
+immediate relations of the King, had declared for Babar's young cousin
+Weis-Khan, on whose behalf they were now besieging the Fort, which in
+capable and loyal hands was still holding out for the rightful King.
+
+"Said I not so, sire?" remarked old Kasim drily. "The devil is in it
+when women are left alone too long."
+
+Babar flushed. "The devil is in a Moghul thou meanest."
+
+Kasim sniffed. "The Most High's step-grandmother Shah-Begum is of pure
+Moghul descent, I grant, if that is what my liege means. I stake my
+word she is in it. Did I not beg the Most High to send her packing
+back to Tashkend? Aye! and the boy and his mother too. Also the other
+aunt of my liege's who married the commoner Doghlat; wherefore, God
+knows, since some of us had better right to royal wives than he. But
+if 'tis a question of aunts! the Most High is soft as buffalo butter."
+
+Babar bit his lip. He felt that old Kasim had right on his side; but
+what could one do? They were women, and he was undoubtedly the head of
+the family. But this was serious; the more so because the messenger
+said that reports had been diligently circulated to the effect that
+he, Babar, had been imprisoned in Herat by his cousins; and would
+never return.
+
+"They must know that I shall return," said the young leader grimly,
+and forthwith wrote despatches to be conveyed to known loyalists in
+the town, advising them of his immediate appearance, of which,
+however, they were to say nothing. A blazing fire on the last hill-top
+would herald his approach; this was to be answered by a flare on the
+top of the citadel, showing that it was ready for a combined
+surprise-attack on the besieging force.
+
+With these orders given stringently, Babar set out at nightfall. By
+dawn Kabul lay before them and a glow of light from the citadel
+answered their signal fire. All therefore was in readiness, so they
+crept on to Syed Kasim's bridge. Here Babar detailed his force,
+sending Shirim-Taghai with the right wing to another bridge; he
+himself with the centre and left, making for the town. Here, instantly
+all was uproar and alarm. The alleys were narrow; the assailants and
+defenders crowded into them could scarce move their horses.
+
+"Dismount! cut your way through!" rang out the order and it was
+obeyed. A few minutes later Babar was in the Four-corner Garden where
+he knew the young aspirant was quartered, but he had fled. Babar
+followed in his track. At the gate he met an old friend, the
+Chief-Constable of the town, who made at him with a drawn sword.
+Babar, after his usual fashion, had despised either plate-mail or
+helmet, and when, whether from confusion of ideas arising from the
+battle of fight, or from the snow and cold affecting his eyesight, the
+swordsman failing to recognise his King or heed his cry of "Friend,
+Friend," hit a shrewd blow, Babar was like to have his arm shorn off.
+But the grace of God was conspicuous. Not even a hair was hurt.
+
+So, as quick as he could to the palace of Doghlat-commoner, where he
+found Kasim already on the track of the traitor; but the latter had
+escaped! Here a Moghul who had been in Babar's service deliberately
+fitted an arrow to his bow, aimed at the King and let go. But the
+uproar raised around him, the cries and shouts "That is the King! That
+is the King!" must have disconcerted his aim, for he failed of his
+mark. And here also one of the chief rebels was brought in
+ignominiously, a rope round his neck. He fell at the young King's
+feet.
+
+"Sire," he whined, "what fault is mine?"
+
+The young face was stern indeed. "Is there greater crime," came the
+clear, cold answer, "than for a man of worth and family as thou art,
+to conspire and associate with revolutionaries?" Then the contemptuous
+order came sharp, "But remove that rope and let him go hang himself.
+He is of my family, no harm shall happen to him through me."
+
+So on again through the town (where the rabble had taken to clubs and
+were making a riot) in order to station parties here and there to
+disperse the crowds and prevent plunder.
+
+Thus, growing cooler, more dignified as stress ceased, to the
+Paradise-Gardens where the Begums lived. No time like the present to
+show his mettle, to let these foolish women know that he did not
+consider their intrigues worth a man's consideration. He found
+the chief-conspirator Shah-Begum huddled up, out of all measure
+alarmed, confounded, dismayed, ashamed. All the more so when that
+brilliant young figure paused at the door to make its accustomed and
+reverential salutation. He looked well, did Babar, with the fire of
+fight still in his eyes, a certain quizzical affection about his
+mouth. "I salute thee, O revered step-grandmother," he said
+cheerfully, good-humouredly.
+
+So crossing, he went down on his knees in filial fashion and embraced
+the old lady cordially.
+
+Whereupon, of course, she began to whimper. Babar sat back and looked
+at her kindly.
+
+"Wherefore, revered one? Lo! I am not vexed. What right has a child to
+be so because his mother's bounty descends upon another? The mother's
+authority over her children is in all respects absolute, save that
+this grandson, and not the other is King of Kabul!" Then he laughed:
+"Lo!" he added, "I am so sleepy. I have not slept all night. Let me
+rest my hand on thy bosom, grandmother, as I used to rest it on my
+mother's."
+
+The whimper changed into a storm of sobs.
+
+And afterwards when the young aspirant and the Doghlat-commoner had
+been caught and brought up for condign punishment by Kasim, he forgave
+them both.
+
+"But the traitor deserves death, sire," stuttered the stern old
+martinet. "He hath been guilty of mutiny, rebellion. He is criminal,
+guilty; and the younger one is devil's spawn."
+
+"You mistake, old friend," said the young King quietly; "they are of
+my family."
+
+Poor old Kasim had to content himself by assenting loudly in whatever
+company he found himself that however much the King might try to wear
+away the rust of shame with the polish of mildness and humanity he was
+unable to wipe out the dimness of ignominy which had covered the
+mirror of those miscreants' lives.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI
+
+       Yes! Love triumphant came, engrossing all
+       The fond luxuriant thoughts of youth and mind;
+       Then in soft converse did they pass the hours,
+       Their passion like the season fresh and fair.
+                                                 _Nizami_.
+
+
+The Judas trees were in full blossom. But a day or two before they had
+been dry branches, brown, wrinkled, to all appearances dead. Now, with
+a swiftness nigh miraculous they had flushed, every inch of finest
+twig, to rosy red under their mantle of sweet-scented bloom. The
+ground underneath them was already carpeted with fallen flowers, their
+five-petalled cups, like those of a regal geranium, still perfect
+utterly.
+
+"'Tis like the blossoming of love in the heart, is it not, little
+one?" said Babar idly, as, lying amid the spent blossoms he raised one
+to perch it coquettishly on the goldy-brown curls that rested on his
+breast.
+
+He had been married five months to little Cousin Ma'asuma but it
+seemed to him like five days. Aye! though happenings stern and sad had
+filled the interval, Kasim had been right. Herat had been plundered by
+the arch-enemy Shaibani. His cousins had fled, leaving wives and
+children to fall into the hands of the conquerors.
+
+At another time Babar's hot anger might have led him to attempt
+reprisals, though he knew it would be but an attempt. But in these
+first months of marriage he could not find it in his heart to leave
+little Ma'asuma for any time--if, indeed she would have allowed him to
+do so. For small, young, delicate as she was, those violet eyes of
+hers could set hard as sapphires. Aye! and have a gleam in them too,
+like any gem.
+
+The first time Babar saw it, he caught her in his arms and half
+smothered her with kisses until she bade him peremptorily put her
+down. And then they had both laughed, and Babar had vowed in his
+heart, that never had lover been so fortunate as he. His mistress
+was--what was she not? Briefly, she was all things to him. He had
+never been in love with a woman before, and his self-surrender was
+complete.
+
+Small wonder, indeed, if it were; for there was something almost
+uncanny in the beauty of the face which looked up at him, love in its
+eyes.
+
+"Put it on thine own rough head, man," she said superbly, "thou
+needest ornament more than I."
+
+And it was true. From the tiny silvern and golden slipper she had
+kicked off, to the light, gold-spangled veil which just touched her
+curly head, she was ornament personified. The dainty heart-shaped
+opening of the violet-tinted gauze bodice she wore over a pale green
+corselet was all set with seed-pearls and turquoises, hung on cunning
+little silvern tendrils. And the corselet itself! all veined with
+golden threads and pale moonstones. So with the flimsy, full, almost
+transparent muslin petticoat, pale pale green, that lay in shrouding
+folds over the violet-tinted under garment. All edged and embroidered,
+all scent-sodden with the perfume of violets--his favourite flower
+then; to be his favourite flower till his death. Truly a marvellous
+small person from head to foot!
+
+"Have a care, man," she said sternly, as he crushed her closer to him,
+"or we shall quarrel; and 'tis not good for me to quarrel--now."
+
+He released her quickly, yet cautiously; gentle as he was, he was
+always forgetting, he told himself, that she was doubly precious to
+him--now.
+
+"Lo! dear heart!" he said penitently, "we have not quarrelled these
+five days."
+
+"Not since I was angry because the tire-woman overdyed my hands with
+henna," she replied mischievously. "And thou didst tell me there were
+worse evils for tears. As if I cared; so long as my hands were not
+pretty ... for thee." She held them up for him to admire. And they
+were pretty. Delicate, and curved, and pink, like rose-petals. He
+kissed them dutifully; so much he knew was expected of him, and he
+loved the task.
+
+"And as penance for rudeness, man," she went on, her face all dimples,
+"thou wert to write me a love ode on the subject. Hast done it,
+sirrah?"
+
+"That have I," assented her lover husband gladly. "Dost know, little
+one, I string more pearls now than ever; but thou--thou hast not
+written one line since we were married; yet thou hadst the prettiest
+art."
+
+Ma'asuma lay back on her resting-place and laughed softly. "Someday,
+stupid, I will tell thee why. But now for thy verses."
+
+Babar caught up his lute and sat tuning it, his eyes wandering away to
+the girdle of snows that clipped the blue hill-horizon. They were in
+the garden of the New Year; alone, save for that dear grave yonder
+where the jasmine flowers were drooping their scented waxen stars.
+
+Dear mother! How glad she would have been to see Ma'asuma, to think of
+the grandson who was so soon to make life absolutely perfect. Yes! the
+cup of life, the Crystal Bowl could hold no more. He lost himself in
+dreams, to be roused by an impatient, "Well! I listen."
+
+Then he turned and smiled at her as he began with exaggerated
+expression.
+
+
+      "Oh, fair impassioned, whom God hath fashioned
+       My love to be,
+       Thy hands so tender, thy fingers slender
+       Rosy I see.
+       Be they flower-tinted or blood-imprinted
+       From my poor heart?
+       Torn by thy smiling, tears and beguiling
+       Feminine art.
+       Yet, sweet calamity! dwell we in amity
+       Each perfect day.
+       Yea! in the bright time. Yea! in the night time,
+       Lovers alway."
+
+
+"Sweet calamity!" she echoed, pouting her lips and trying hard to
+frown, as the song finished. "Couldst find no other title for thy
+lawful wife? And yet--" here smiles overcame her--"Lo! Babar! 'tis a
+beautiful name and I am thy sweet calamity alway, alway!" Then
+suddenly, to his dismay, she began to cry softly, the big tears
+running down her pretty cheeks in easy childish fashion. "Nay!" she
+went on, half-smiles again at his solicitude, "I am not ill,--there is
+naught wrong. 'Tis only that I am lonely when thou art doing King's
+work, which must be done. If only foster-sister would come, I should
+not be so frightened."
+
+"But my Yenkam, thy mother, will be here--" protested Babar.
+
+Ma'asuma shook her head. "It is _now_, dear heart! And foster-sister
+will not come unless thou askest her. She said so. Couldst not write
+to her, Babar?"
+
+"But I know not foster-sister, nor aught of her, save that she was
+good to my Ma'asuma, for which, may Heaven reward her!"
+
+Ma'asuma sat up, her charming face happy in thought. "Oh! so good, my
+lord! Not a real foster-sister, either; but we sat under one veil and
+drank milk out of one cup. That was when we first came to Khorasan,
+thy Yenkam and I. And since then she--Babar!--Be not angry but I will
+tell thee--I meant to have told thee--I should have told thee
+before--"
+
+The violet eyes showed trouble once more and Babar kissed them
+deliberately. "What, sweetheart?" he asked carelessly. He knew the
+gentle kindly heart too well to fear any revelation.
+
+"Only it was she, not I, who wrote the verses--the verses I sent--I
+was too stupid. And she is clever--oh! so clever!"
+
+Despite his certitude the young man looked startled. "So," he said at
+last, "Fortune hath not given me the grace of a poetess to wife. So be
+it. But who is this paragon?"
+
+Ma'asuma, however, was too delighted at having got over her confession
+so happily to refrain from autocratic dignity.
+
+"That I have said. She is foster-sister and of the circle of
+distinction. Thy Yenkam can tell thee of genealogies; they tire my
+head. So write! Dost hear?"
+
+Babar laughed. He loved to take orders from those sweet lips; besides
+a certain zest came with the idea of writing to an unknown poetess.
+
+"Yea! I will write," he said meekly, "but I will have to regard _zals_
+and _zes_; for more elegant _nastalik_ saw I never than hers."
+
+So the letter was written and despatched express to the care of his
+Yenkam at Khorasan, and six weeks later little Ma'asuma sat beside her
+foster-sister in the summer house of the new Garden of Fidelity which
+Babar was laying out at Adinahpore, and whither he had taken his young
+wife whose daily increasing delicacy filled him with concern. Of all
+the gardens that Babar planted and watered, this was the one nearest
+his heart. In a most romantic situation, on the south side of, and
+overlooking the river, its groves of oranges and citrons grew
+untouched by hard winter frosts, while every flower, every tree of his
+beloved hill country flourished side by side with those of warm
+climates. Above it towered the White-Mountain and the Almond-Spring
+Pass, below it the valley debouched into wide fertility.
+
+And Babar was hard at work, delving away himself like any Adam; making
+a four-square cross of marble reservoirs, through which the clear,
+hill stream might run, planting new flowers from here, there,
+everywhere. The tan of his sunburnt face and hands contrasted sadly
+with the sallowing skin of the girl-wife, who, despite his care, was
+sinking under her task of son-bearing.
+
+"Then he knows not who I am," said the tall, slender woman on whose
+knee Ma'asuma was resting her pretty, weary head. "I deemed thou hadst
+told him, as we agreed." She spoke gravely and her level black brows
+were faintly knit. The rest of the face was richly beautiful in strong
+sweeping curves, but those level brows and the dark, thoughtful eyes
+beneath them held the attention. "Not that it matters," she added
+quickly, seeing tears ready to brim over the violets upturned to her.
+"After all, 'tis nothing to thy lord--or to any other man--whether I
+be widow to Mirza Gharib Beg or no, so long as I be honourable woman.
+Therefore tell him not, now that I am here." And Babar coming in to
+see his wife found the veiled new-comer courteous in speech, charming
+in manner. Found also such favourable change in his darling's spirits,
+that a glow of comradeship for his _aide_ rose up in his soft heart at
+once.
+
+So they were very happy together, those three, and by degrees
+foster-sister's thick enshrouding veil was changed for a more filmy
+one and Babar could get a glimpse of those glorious eyes and see the
+little satirical smile about the strong curves of the mouth.
+
+They reminded him vaguely, why he knew not, of his dead Cousin Gharib;
+but he never spoke of this to Ma'asuma. With her burden of coming life
+it would be unlucky to speak of the dead. Thus a week or two went by,
+and all insensibly the man learnt to rely on the woman who shared with
+him the charge of the girl.
+
+"The Most-Benevolent one is very good to my wife," he said suddenly
+one day, "and my gratitude can only lie in words."
+
+The Most-Benevolent bowed gravely. "Thanks are not needed.
+Ma'asuma-Begum came into this dust-like one's life, when it was
+unhappy. She hath been God's best boon to me."
+
+"And to me also," answered the young husband sadly. Do what he would
+he could not escape from fear, the shadow of impending evil seemed to
+darken his life. He had to brisk and hearken himself up to face the
+future; for perilous times were at hand. The fateful seventh month, so
+much dreaded by Indian midwives was beginning; but his Yenkam would be
+with her daughter in a day or two, they would together take Ma'asuma
+back in her litter to Kabul by easy stages, and all would, all _must_,
+go well.
+
+It was one glorious morning in early August when this feeling of ill
+to come, made him catch up his lute to chase away thought by song. He
+had carried little Ma'asuma himself down to the tank half surrounded
+by burnished orange trees which was the very eye of the beauty of the
+garden. They had dismissed all attendants, bidding them leave behind
+them their trays of sherbet and sweetmeats. But not even the perfect
+loveliness of hill, and sky, and garden, not even the faint flush, as
+of returning health, on the invalid's face could charm the splendour
+of Life into Babar's soul. The Crystal Bowl seemed dull, opaque.
+
+This must not be.
+
+He set the strings of his lute a-twanging and began--
+
+
+            "Clear crystal bowl. Thy wine bubbles laugh--"
+
+
+The figure seated by the tank side, its reflection in the water, rose
+suddenly as if startled, gathered its draperies round it, so, with
+face averted, strolled off into the garden.
+
+"There!" came Ma'asuma's reproachful voice, "thou hast driven her
+away, stupid!"
+
+The young man arrested in his song looked hurt. "But wherefore? 'Tis a
+good song."
+
+"Good mayhap," came the thoughtless answer, "but, see you! It reminds
+her of Gharib-Beg who wrote it."
+
+"And wherefore not?" asked Babar swiftly.
+
+Little Ma'asuma looked scared. "Lo! There I have told thee! and I said
+I would hold my tongue! Because, see you, Gharib-Beg married and left
+her in the old days; whether rightly as some say, or foolishly, as
+others, I know not; but 'twas so. She was religious for long years and
+when I went to the school to learn the Holy Book, we became friends.
+And oh! Babar, thou wilt never know how good she was to me when I fell
+in love with my lord--and he with me." The roguish face, looking more
+like itself than he had seen it for months, nestled on to his
+shoulder.
+
+He put his arm round the slender figure and drew it to him
+mechanically, grateful that her words had given him time to pull
+himself together.
+
+Gharib-Beg's wife! The woman he had called "Maham--his moon!"
+
+"So." he said with an effort, "she was my cousin's wife; but wherefore
+... was I not told?"
+
+Ma'asuma pouted. "Because I did not at first. And then when she came,
+she would not have it--why I know not--save that mayhap, before the
+son was coming, I wanted thy praise for--for such things as verses.
+And now, my lord must say naught. Promise me he will not, or she will
+be vexed."
+
+"I will not vex her," he said diplomatically, and changed the subject
+adroitly by picking up a tiny red-silk cap half embroidered with seed
+pearls on which his wife had been working, and which had fallen on the
+path.
+
+"Lo!" he laughed, "is that the way to treat my son's head-dress!" And
+he held the ridiculous little object out on his forefinger and twirled
+it round. So the question passed. But he was of too frank a nature to
+palliate concealment and that night when the moon had risen, he found
+himself once more confronting a tall, slender figure that stood,
+aggressively this time, against a marble pillar. But there was no
+swinging lamp to cast a rose reflection between them.
+
+"Yea! Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar," said the proud voice. "It is even
+as my lord hath divined. I knew. I was the lad who brought my lord his
+mistress's message--which _I_ had written. It was to me that my lord
+gave his 'I love thee, ever, ever!' This being so, what else was there
+left to do, save what was done?"
+
+The finality of her words struck Babar like a blow. He never minced
+matters even with himself.
+
+"Naught," he said gloomily. "Naught." Then he added, "But now?"
+
+The veiled figure caught him up quickly. "Now? She must not know; she
+must never know."
+
+Babar stood still and leaning his head on his arm against the
+pilaster, looked out into the garden. It lay silvern, peaceful, a
+thing of perfect beauty, a place wherein no sinful man should walk or
+set foot. "Lo!" came the sweet voice. "I have kept--I will keep my
+lord's ring. It was not he who broke faith, but I."
+
+"The Most-Noble is very good," he said simply and left her. There was
+no more to say.
+
+Had there been more, there would have been little time for it.
+
+A hasty twinkling light showed ere long adown the palace colonnade.
+Voices came in excited whispers. Her Highness, the Begum, was not
+well. God send it might be nothing; but 'twas the fateful month.
+
+Fateful, indeed! All that night long Babar waited in a fever of
+anxiety, listening to the fitful wails, the thousand and one slight
+sounds of sudden, direful sickness. What were they doing to his
+Ma'asuma? his little Ma'asuma, his love, his heart's darling, his
+little one? Would he ever see her again?
+
+The dawn came, and still he watched, still he waited. The birds in the
+bushes began to sing--to sing forsooth! while she lay in the shadow of
+death! Heartless! cruel! For she must die! so small, so slender, how
+could she stand out against those long hours of agony. Noon passed and
+still he waited, every nerve in his strong young body wearied by
+imagined pain.
+
+It was not till sun-setting that a voice roused him as he sat crouched
+in on himself:
+
+"My lord has a daughter."
+
+He was on his feet in a second, setting the idea aside as trivial.
+What was son or daughter to him beside his dearest dear?
+
+"She?" he asked breathlessly.
+
+"My lord had best come and see," replied the kind, sympathetic voice;
+he recognised it faintly, but it made no impression on him.
+
+The small room was hot and close; full of smoke also from a useless
+fire hastily lit up. And Ma'asuma lay covered by endless quilts. But
+it was Ma'asuma herself who lay there peaceful as if already dead; but
+her face was alight with feeble smiles. Only for a moment, however;
+then the curly, goldy-brown head turned restlessly on the pillow.
+
+"I am sorry--" she murmured, "I--I wanted it to be a son, but--but--"
+the voice trailed away into weaker sobbing.
+
+"Hush! silly one!" said Babar gently, his heart in his mouth as he
+noted her looks. "What God gives is best. If she is like thee she will
+be all I need."
+
+A small trembling hand fluttered out to a corner of the coverlet.
+"Like me. I know not. Babar! What wilt thou call her, when I am gone?"
+
+The words cut him like a knife, because he knew they were true; there
+was something which told him that the dearest thing on earth to him
+was fast slipping from his grasp. Yet the simplicity of his nature
+kept him calm.
+
+"I will give her her mother's name," he said quietly.
+
+Ma'asuma sighed with content and was silent for a space. Then after a
+while her voice, weaker than ever, rose again, a low, monotonous voice
+that told of ebbing strength.
+
+"Babar! who will nurse my child? Give her not to strange women. Lo! I
+never loved strangers; nor dost thou, thou, dear heart. Foster-sister
+where art thou? Send the strangers away and the slaves, and come
+close. I want thee."
+
+One wave of Babar's hand cleared the little room, and once more came
+that faint sigh of content.
+
+"That is nice. Only thou, and I, and she, and little Ma'asuma--all the
+folk I love in the world. That is right." For a moment she seemed to
+sleep, and when she opened her eyes there were dreams in them.
+
+"Set the window wide. I would see the sunset," she said in quite a
+strong voice and when the red light flooded into the little dark room
+she lay in it peacefully.
+
+"Will it not mayhap hurt?" whispered the tall figure in white.
+
+"She is past hurt," whispered Babar back. His heart was as a stone. He
+could not have wept, he could not even feel grief.
+
+"Thy hand, my heart," came the voice feeble again, "and thine,
+sister--how warm they are and mine grow so cold--so cold. Yet that
+matters not. I am only--only the Kazi." The ghost of a flickering
+smile hovered over the lips that, in the monotonous Arabic drawl of
+the professional priest, began on the opening sentences of the
+Mahomedan wedding service.
+
+The man and the woman standing instinct with Life, looked helplessly
+at each other and instinctively drew apart.
+
+Ma'asuma's violet eyes seemed to strive with coming darkness. "Don't,"
+she murmured. "It is not kind! Look you, I cannot see; and my hands
+are so weak. Be quick or I shall not hear. Say it quickly and then
+there will be peace, then I shall have given my lord a son--then we
+shall all be at rest. It is the last thing--"
+
+There was a second of silence and then Babar's clasp on the hand he
+held beneath that small chill one tightened, and his voice rang clear.
+
+"Before God I take this woman to be my wedded wife."
+
+And swift on the words came a woman's voice, "Before God I take this
+man to be my husband, the father of our son."
+
+A sigh of content seemed almost to end life, and there was silence for
+a space. But it was broken by a pitiful, helpless murmur, "The ring! I
+have forgotten the ring."
+
+"I have it already, sweetheart," came the woman's voice, soft, calm,
+soothing. So they stood, till the chill little hands grew more chill
+in the warm clasps that held them; finally one withdrew itself slowly,
+slowly, and Babar was left alone with Death and Love.
+
+The tall white figure fell on its knees and wept softly; but Babar
+stood still, stern, calm. What use to kiss unconscious lips? What use
+to strain at broken cords?
+
+"She hath found freedom," he said after a time. Then he turned to the
+kneeling figure. "Maham," he said quietly. "Thou wilt see to little
+Ma'asuma for me, wilt thou not?"
+
+It was sunrise when they laid to rest Babar's first and in a way, his
+only love. The birds were singing in the garden he had made so
+beautiful. The roses that decked the grave were full of scent.
+But Babar noticed none of these things, he moved about calm,
+self-controlled, conscious of but one thing, that he was glad he was
+not at Kabul where he would have had wailing women and ceremonial
+condolences. Here, in the open, among the flowers, all was peace. He
+need not even realise that his dearest-dear was dead.
+
+But he had overrated his emotional strength, or rather he had
+underrated it as he always did. All the day long, as he went about as
+usual, his face haggard, his manner courteous and gentle, a storm was
+brewing within, and when sunset came again, bringing the sadness of a
+dead day with it, the tempest burst.
+
+Maham, her eyes red with weeping, was seated in the dusk of the little
+room where Ma'asuma had died, with the dead woman's babe on her lap
+when she looked up to see a tall, swaying figure standing at the door.
+A helpless, bewildered figure that stretched out bewildered hands to
+her.
+
+"Maham! Maham!" it cried, "save me! Save me from myself."
+
+She rose instantly, laid the sleeping infant on the bed, and went to
+him.
+
+"Thou art tired," she said, as a mother might have said it. "Come
+hither and rest awhile, my lord. Sleep will bring peace."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII
+
+       I am the dust beneath thy feet, my sweet;
+       Thou art the cloud that sprinkleth rain amain.
+       Lo! as green tongues of grasses spring to bring
+       Their thanks for moisture given to root and fruit,
+       So, all my being blossometh and saith
+       "Dear God be praised for Love of Thee and Me."
+
+
+Maham had her work cut out for her. But she was a wise woman and from
+the first gauged Babar's volatile, kindly, affectionate nature to a
+nicety.
+
+He had had a shock, and one with such fine-strung nerves as his
+required time for recovery. Therefore, with easy ability, she took the
+tiller ropes and steered his craft and hers through the troubled
+waters which instantly raged about him. She even, rather to their
+resentment, succeeded in pacifying Babar's step-grandmother and his
+paternal aunts as to her position (which she claimed at once) as
+Babar's wife. They had been betrothed for months, she told them;
+indeed for long years the intent to marry had been existent. So
+much so that they had her late husband Gharib-Beg's hearty assent to
+their union. She had come from Khorasan at Ma'asuma Begum's earnest
+wish, and the marriage had taken place when it did--this she left
+hazy--entirely to please her when she was ill and ailing. Doubtless
+the dear little thing had had a prescience of her own death. Such
+angels of Paradise often had. She, Maham, could never hope to hold the
+same place in the King's affection; still it was lucky things had
+happened so, or the Most-Clement might have gone out of his mind with
+grief, deprived as he was in the wilds of Adinapur of the consolations
+of all his womenkind. And the gracious ladies knew how dependent he
+had always been on them, as well as on his deceased mother--on whom be
+God's peace--and his unfortunate sister. Besides, she could be useful
+in bringing up the King's little daughter.
+
+"If thou wilt give him a son 'twould be to more purpose," quoth
+outspoken Shah-Begum.
+
+"God helping me, I will, madam," came the cool reply.
+
+"She is well spoken," admitted the old lady grudgingly, after the
+interview was over.
+
+"And of the inner circle. 'Deed! now that one comes to consider it,"
+wept Babar's Yenkam, "more suited for the work than my fairy, who was
+ever too lightsome for such task. And, look you! there be no question
+of evil eye or such things. She loved my Ma'asuma as herself, and was
+ever good to the child. It is doubtless God's will."
+
+"Yea! Yea! God's will," snivelled fat, silly Princess Astonishing
+Beauty; but little Ak-Begum's keen eyes were soft.
+
+"There is more in it than mayhap we know," she said softly. "And she
+hath a good, clever face. So God send our kind Babar peace."
+
+Good wishes were well enough doubtless, but Maham felt that action
+must be taken; and at once. My lord the King must not be allowed to
+lounge at home, eating his heart out; and to this purpose she sent for
+old Kasim and explained her views.
+
+"Lady," he replied, "I would rather, in faith, have had my master free
+of all feminine wiles. The last seven months have passed without much
+glory, and my sword rusts in its scabbard. But this I will say, for a
+woman, the cupola of chastity shows much sense. The King would be best
+away from Kabul."
+
+"And from me," added Maham, coolly. "So look to it, Sir General, and
+take him--where thou canst."
+
+As it so happened, the times fell in with her desire. The Timurid
+family was at its lowest ebb; Babar himself, being, for the moment the
+only member of it which had kept his kingdom independent; the rest
+having either succumbed utterly to the great Usbek-raider or become
+mere vassals to his power. Thus the King's position was weak, even if
+he had been himself. But Maham's clear eyes appraised her haggard
+young King as he went about grave, silent, doing everything by an
+effort. That was not the stuff for single handed combat against Fate.
+Then sorrow set his feet firmer than ever on the path of what he
+considered right; and this mood was not one in which to rely on those
+Moghul troops of his who were ever ready to take offence at strict
+discipline. No! he must be induced to divert attention from Kabul by
+carrying war to some further field. The further the better, so long as
+it gave those same Moghul troops opportunity for legitimate raiding.
+
+Babar himself never knew how much one woman's influence had to do with
+his resolution to march on Hindustan; even old Kasim, though he had
+the key, did not realise how Maham managed to set aside his proposal
+of an attempt on Badakhshan in favour of the larger, more imaginative
+project; but it was done.
+
+So one day Babar, sad-faced still, but with a certain spring in his
+walk came to say good-bye to his little daughter and to the woman who
+quietly, unobtrusively, had done so much for him.
+
+"Yea!" she said smiling, "I will be Queen whilst thou art gone, Babar,
+never fear. Nor Shah-Begum, nor Mihr-Nigar nor any other woman in the
+Palace shall give trouble, this time, I warrant me. And the child will
+thrive! Aye! it will thrive. So there is no gnawing thought at thy
+heart, remember--"
+
+She paused for a second and something in her face made Babar say
+hastily:
+
+"Nor in thine, I pray, kind wife."
+
+"Nor in mine," she echoed with a brilliant smile. "And now, ere he go,
+I have something for my lord--a remembrance of someone he loved well
+and whom I--respected."
+
+She put her hand in her bosom and drew out thence all warm and faintly
+scented a small crystal bowl.
+
+Babar gave a cry of delight. "The Bowl! The Bowl! How didst find it?
+Did he give it thee? Did he really give it me?"
+
+Her kind eyes smiled on him. "That I cannot say; and this is not the
+Bowl, but perchance a likeness of it. 'Twas the dear dead one, my
+lord, who told me the tale when thou didst tell it to her. So, knowing
+what sort the cup must be, since there is an old man in my native
+village who still can make them after a fashion, I sent to him
+pressingly for one. My lord will remember that 'twas in this village
+graveyard that the Crystal Bowl was found. Doubtless one of olden
+time. This is but a copy--and poor doubtless, since the old craftsman
+can scarce see--but it may serve to remind my lord--of many things."
+
+"And much kindness--" said Babar gravely, and as he took the bowl he
+kissed the hand that held it out to him.
+
+No! it was not the Bowl. It was but a dim likeness of it; but as he
+placed it in his bosom he felt vaguely that he had more than he
+deserved.
+
+The next few months passed swiftly. Once in the saddle and out of
+Kabul, Babar's spirits began to rise. But he soon found it inadvisable
+to pursue his intentions on India. The very idea of his absenting
+himself so far, roused the insolence of the wild border clans. Here
+was their opportunity, whilst the cat would be away, to resort to
+their favourite plunder. So it was mid-winter before it was possible
+for him to advance, and by that time the complexion of affairs had
+changed.
+
+To begin with the Usbek-raider had retreated, patching up a sort of
+peace hurriedly, and returning westward over more important business.
+Then, whether by reason of Maham's firm hand or from mere ambition,
+old grandmother Shah-Begum announced her intention of leaving Babar's
+protection, and going with her grandson to snatch at the sovereignty
+of Badakhshan. The crown had been hereditary in her family, she
+declared, for over 3,000 years and though as woman she could not claim
+it, she knew her grandson would not be rejected.
+
+This intention, involving as it did a breaking up of conventional
+family life, brought back Babar in protest. The old lady had never
+been on the best of terms with him, she had once almost succeeded in
+her intrigues against him, but he had always treated her generously;
+and then, worse than her defection, was that of his own mother's
+sister who insisted on accompanying her.
+
+It was intolerable! Babar went straight to his grandmother and argued
+with her; coming back irritated and annoyed by failure to make any
+impression on the old lady's obstinacy, to his own palace, where,
+without giving notice, he made his way alone to Maham's apartments.
+
+As he entered her room he could see her reclining amongst cushions in
+the cupola'd balcony, his little sleeping daughter in her lap. She was
+crooning to it the lullaby which Turkhoman women sing sleepily during
+a night march. Her pose was exquisite; there was a look of almost
+motherhood in her face; he paused to listen as she sang:--
+
+
+      "Sleep, croodie! Talk with God!
+       Know not the path I've trod.
+       Dad knows not! Why shouldst thou!
+       Sleep, childie! Sleep just now.
+       Don't fear! I keep awake.
+       Heigh ho! My bones do ache.
+       Heigh ho! My horse does pull.
+       Can't it see river's full!
+       No pebbles in _that_ bed,
+       Mine holds an hundred.
+       Dreams! Dreams! Who lies dead?
+       Someone in the river's bed.
+       Praise God! _He_ rests his head.
+       Hush! Hush! I hear thee, sweet.
+       Mums arms around thee meet.
+       Praise God! The night's nigh past;
+       Darling sleeps at last! at last!"
+
+
+The curious drowsiness of the rhythm held him almost silent for a
+while, so did a great surge of admiration for this self-restrained,
+kindly, capable woman who had taken her full position as his wife so
+firmly, without any feminine flutterings or sentimentalities. Truly
+that sort of thing was what he, with his volatile emotionality, needed
+to make him not only successful, but persistent.
+
+"Maham," he said almost timorously, "I have come back to thee--and the
+child."
+
+She gave a little cry, started to rise, then pointed to little
+Ma'asuma. "I should waken her!" she said in a low voice, "but welcome,
+thrice welcome is my lord--to me and to the child."
+
+Her voice lingered over the words; her smile had a certain gravity in
+it.
+
+"But thou," he said anxiously. "Hast not been well, wife? Thy face
+shows ill--why didst not write to me?"
+
+"Because 'twas not worth while," she replied. "And I am most better.
+The spring comes and with it health. And I have had anxiety over thy
+grandmother. What said she?"
+
+The deft turn succeeded. Babar gave vent to his dissatisfaction in no
+measured terms. "See you," he said, "Have I ever failed in my duty or
+service? When my mother and I had not even a single village nor a few
+jewels, I treated all my relations, male or female, as members of my
+family. I have made no difference between my maternal and my paternal
+connections. I say not this to appraise myself. I simply follow the
+scrupulous truth as everyone knows. And now, even my mother's sister
+desires to leave me! I am her nearest relation. It would be better,
+and more becoming for her to remain with me."
+
+Maham's face showed whimsical smiles. "Not, my lord, unwillingly.
+God's earth holds not a more deadly poison to happiness than a
+discontented woman. So let them go; my lord has plenty of paternal
+aunts."
+
+There was a certain patience in her tone! But Babar, still protesting,
+yielded; and set himself solemnly to settle the judicial as well as
+the executive system of his kingdom. It was about this time that he
+wrote his famous Essay-on-Jurisprudence which for many long years was
+to be a work of reference.
+
+His enquiries took him out often into the out districts which, now
+that spring was advancing were excessively pleasant, abounding in
+tulips and indeed in all plants of every description. He began again
+to write poetry; pretty things still touched by profound, if somewhat
+scholastic, melancholy such as this--
+
+
+      "My heart's a rose full flaming,
+       Its petals opened wide,
+       To give her without shaming
+       Myself and all beside.
+
+       Ah me! in vain I lavished
+       My love on her dear heart,
+       An envious thorn has ravished
+       Her hand with deadly smart.
+
+       Her life-blood is a-falling
+       To dim my petals o'er.
+       Oh, Springtime! cease thy calling,
+       This rose will bloom no more."
+
+
+He used to send them to Maham, who used to reply in her beautiful
+_nastalik_ hand that was always a joy to Babar's simple delight in
+anything and everything artistic. And he wrote, also, and told her of
+the thirty-five different kinds of tulips he had gathered, and of the
+inscriptions he caused to be cut on springs and rocks. And of a
+certainty when he visited, as he did, the Garden-of-Fidelity at
+Adinapur, he must have had much to tell her of a small flowerful grave
+there, where his sad heart was laid.
+
+It was all very pathetic; sweetly pathetic. A noble young King, doing
+his duty bravely, though glad life was over for him forever.
+
+Even the crystal cup which he carried in his bosom, and from which he
+drank ever the water of the cool mountain springs, brought him only
+modified comfort. Perhaps, because, from a sense of duty to himself,
+he would not allow it to bring more.
+
+And then suddenly the whole wide world changed for him.
+
+"Maham! My son!--my son!" was all that he could say when urgent
+summons brought him to a smiling mother and a new-born infant.
+
+"He is like thee," she said, a tremor in her calm voice.
+
+"God forbid!" interrupted the father hastily. "God send he be like
+thee--the best woman in the world--the best--the very best!"
+
+Never were such rejoicings. The paternal aunts, who of late months had
+been let into the secret, were almost crazy with delight. And
+wherefore not? When a King has lived to be six-and-twenty without a
+son; when despite three marriages only two children have been borne to
+him, miserable little daughters, one dead, one but a few months old,
+it is time to be festive over a proper birth. And was there ever such
+a baby? So tall, so strong, so handsome and so altogether
+satisfactory. No wonder his father, who ever had a pretty wit, called
+him Humayon. That might portend the ph[oe]nix, the bird of good omen,
+besides half-a-dozen other side meanings, each charming in its way.
+
+But Babar, leaning over the happy mother said softly, "He shall be my
+protection in the future. Lo! Maham! I have put myself outside myself
+as they say in the child-stories of our youth. Who was't who put his
+life safe in a gold box? Well! my life is hid in my son's. So there,
+my wife, have a care of us both--for, verily in some ways, Maham, I
+need looking after like an infant."
+
+The feast of nativity was a very splendid feast. Everyone who was Big,
+and everyone who was Not, brought their offerings. Bags on bags of
+silver money were piled up, until everyone was forced to confess that
+never before had they seen so much white money in one place.
+
+And the entertainments! There were fireworks and marionettes and
+conjuring tricks. In fact a perfect fair for a whole week in the Great
+Four-square-Garden on the hill.
+
+But the greatest amusement of all was one to which the Palace Ladies
+invited a select audience.
+
+It was organised by the Fair Princess who had a genius that way, and
+its _piece de resistance_ was a huge roc-egg brought in by fairies,
+which, cracking in most realistic fashion, disclosed the most
+magnificent ph[oe]nix that ever was seen, with feathers of every hue
+and plumes galore (it had, of course, a gold crown on its head) which
+monstrous bird being removed, like a tea cosy, appeared no less a
+personage than
+
+
+      "The Heir Apparent"
+
+      "Humayon."
+
+
+Endless was the laughter, the tears, the embracings, the gratulations.
+
+But that evening as Maham and Babar sat hand in hand, looking at the
+sleeping infant, its mother cried suddenly--
+
+"'Tis Ma'asuma's child also, thou must remember, husband. 'Twas for
+her sake I married thee."
+
+"Not for mine own, one little bit, Maham?" he queried a trifle sadly.
+"Well! if that be so, I must be lover instead of husband for a time."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII
+
+      "Like a wide-spreading tree whose roots en-thread
+       Earth's bosom, gaining Life from out a grave,
+       So stood he stalwart while each weary head
+       Sought for the shelter that his courage gave."
+
+
+"Look you! what a young man sees in a mirror, an old one can see in a
+burnt brick," quoth old Kasim crossly to Shiram-Taghai. "Did I not
+tell the Most-Clement that benevolence such as his, is doubtless fit
+for Paradise where man shall have shed his sins; but 'tis in this
+world, pure incentive to wickedness. To leave Prince Abdul-Risak in
+Kabul where, seeing he is the late King's only son, he hath some right
+to claim power, was foolish; not to believe when old servants as you
+and I, Shiram, tell him intrigue is going on, is well nigh criminal.
+Yet God knows it all comes from kindness of heart! In truth, old
+friend, to be king one should be as Timur, the Earth Trembler, who
+never spared man, woman or child who stood in his way."
+
+"Aye," assented Shirim-Beg whose beard by this time, after long years
+of faithful service, required a purple dye to pass muster. "And yet,
+to my mind, the King is most hard on the Moghul soldiery. What means
+life to a Moghul without rapine and plunder? Bread without salt,
+friend! Bread without salt! Yet the Most-Clement is so inclement that
+thou hadst trouble to save the lives of those three last week."
+
+Kasim gloomed. "Aye! and I know not now if I were not wrong, since
+those same are the head and front of this present offending of
+which--God save his innocence--the King takes no heed, having it
+forsooth, that my surmisings art not entitled to credit! Look you! he
+is so set on making his men wheel in step and to time, that he hath
+forgotten how quick honest rebellion can step when it chooses."
+
+It was true. Babar, profoundly happy in the birth of his son,
+profoundly absorbed in the new title of Emperor which he had, in
+consequence, bestowed upon himself, was impervious to suspicion, and
+busy expending his exuberant vitality in marshalling and
+man[oe]uvering his troops. He was out all day in camp; thus, at once,
+being more ignorant than usual of what was happening in the city, and
+having less time to listen to cautions; the latter being, in truth,
+the last words suitable to his feelings. He could not, for the life of
+him, see a single cloud ahead, and being absolutely full of good
+intentions towards his world, refused to believe that the world could
+have any ill intentions towards him.
+
+But his eyes were opened one night, and that rudely.
+
+He took his evening meal as a rule in the Four-corner Garden on his
+way back to sleep in the Secluded-Palace. It was a charming place; the
+summer house all lit with coloured lamps, hung with beautiful
+draperies; and there were ever musicians, singers and dancers ready to
+amuse the King, who lingered late at times, especially on moonlit
+nights when the garden showed entrancingly beautiful.
+
+But it was moonless and fairly early, when two friends arrived from
+the city in hot haste, full of the discovery of a plot to seize and
+assassinate His Imperial Majesty that very night.
+
+Babar downright refused to believe it. Even treacherous Moghuls, he
+said, must have some reason for rebellion; and what had he done to
+them?--Nothing! Nor to anyone else. There might be disaffection.
+In what kingdom was it not to be found? But for wide-spread
+disloyalty?--No! it was frankly impossible. So he set warning aside.
+
+Nevertheless the party broke up early and started through the darkness
+for the city. The running lanterns ahead threw light only on the
+forward path, and Babar was engrossed in solving a question of drill;
+so it was not till he reached the Iron Gate that he realised he was
+alone, save for the three or four household slaves who ran beside his
+horse. In the darkness every one of his escort had disappeared!
+
+In a second he saw that something was, indeed, amiss. But in the same
+second he saw what had to be done. Maham and her son must be reached
+and placed in safety. That accomplished he would have time to
+consider.
+
+But as, with a rapid order to the slaves, he turned sharp down a more
+secluded alley, a man running full tilt, brought up suddenly at the
+sight of him. It was an old friend, one Mahomed-Ali.
+
+"Thank God! I have you, Sire," cried the runner breathlessly. "Go
+back! Go back! The Moghuls are in arms, the traitor Abdul-Risak at
+their head--I was in the market place a minute syne and they await the
+Most-Clement there. Go back! Go back!"
+
+Babar dug his spurs to his horse's flank. "Nay! I go on," he said
+recklessly.
+
+But Mahomed-Ali hung to the bridle. "Most-Clement! listen. They will
+await thee there till midnight. If the King does not come till then
+what signifies it? Naught; since the Most-High is given to gardens
+and is often late. So they are there--safe! Now 'tis not yet ten of
+the chime. If, therefore, the King will be wise, turn his horse,
+and ride out to the Camp-of-the-Veterans beyond the Hill Garden,
+I and my following--if the Most-Noble will send a token to the
+Gracious-Lady--will bring her safe thither before the carrion have
+wind of anything. Sire! 'tis the better way! To go on is certain
+death--for all--The Moghuls...."
+
+"God curse them!" muttered Babar. But he was no fool to let his own
+wild anger needlessly endanger those two precious lives. Therefore his
+resolution was taken at once, and he fumbled for his signet ring--
+
+No! not that--it might be used to ill purpose. The Crystal Bowl was
+better--none would send that but he, and so she would be the readier
+to act upon it.
+
+"Aye" he said slowly. "But mark you! I turn but to the Ditch by the
+Khorasan gate. There will I wait. Take this to the Queen and say I
+pray her come--in half-an-hour mind, in half-an-hour! If thou comest
+not by then--"
+
+His face said the rest and augured ill for failure, as, gathering the
+few slaves together lest any might escape and blab, he drove them and
+the torch bearers before him towards the further gate. With time for
+thought he reviewed the position and was satisfied at his action. At
+the worst, it meant but a delay of half-an-hour when time was
+literally no object; since it was his appearance which would start the
+traitorous scheme. He set his lip and his hand clenched on his sword
+at the very thought. Again, his retreat amongst tried loyalists might
+save the situation altogether; for he would be ready for instant
+retaliation if needs be. If not, no harm was done. He had simply spent
+the night amongst his oldest friends, the Andijan troopers.
+
+Yet, as he stood waiting in the darkness of the ditch at the Khorasan
+gate, his heart beat in his ears. He could hear nothing. And time
+passed--It must be nigh on the half hour! Time to tighten sword-belts
+... Hark! that was a jingle--the jingle of a swift borne doolie!...
+
+"Maham?"
+
+"My lord, I am here," came the answer and Babar shook his fist at the
+darkling city. All was quiet nigh at hand, but from the distant market
+place came sounds of rough merriment.
+
+"Till to-morrow, friends!" he muttered, then paced his horse beside
+the doolie with a whispered word or two of encouragement.
+
+Now that imminent danger was over anger, sheer, almost reckless anger
+took the place of anxiety.
+
+"To-morrow!" he whispered to himself again; "To-morrow!"
+
+But that to-morrow to which he had appealed so confidently brought
+bitter disappointment.
+
+Dawn showed him an almost empty camp. Out of all his soldiers a bare
+five hundred remained with him. The rest, with most of the Kabul
+courtiers had slipped off to the city during the night on pretence of
+looking after their families, or saving their property from the Moghul
+plunderers. Disloyalty was widespread indeed!
+
+Kasim-Beg, of course, was at his beloved young master's side, and so
+was Shiram-Taghai and half-a-score other trusty friends, all of the
+old school. They waited the livelong day for the old order to up
+saddle and away; since what could five hundred swords, be they ever so
+nimble, do against a city full of soldiers? But the order never came.
+It was close on sunset when Kasim, impatient at the delay, suggested
+that it was time to move.
+
+"I go not," replied Babar coolly; "See you, old friend, never again do
+I seek shelter like a rat in its hole till I have no other chance. I
+fight in the open."
+
+Old Kasim's jaw dropped. "My liege!" he exclaimed. "When fortune was
+against the Chagatai in one place, he ever sought her favour in
+another."
+
+"And found it not, most times," put in Babar with a grim smile. "I
+have had too much of fighting and running away. I have been at it my
+life long. Now let us see how it does to fight and stick to it--to the
+death."
+
+"To the death by all means, sire," said old Kasim with affectionate
+admiration, "but 'tis madness all the same."
+
+If it were so, there was distinct method in it. Babar threw up strange
+earthworks round his camp and disposed pickets in quaintly modern
+fashion on the points of vantage in the hills. This done he sat down
+calmly and awaited events, much to the discomfiture of those within
+the city. They were not besieged, of course, but there was an enemy to
+be reckoned with beyond the gates where an enemy should not be. Being
+hopelessly in a minority, he ought to have run away.
+
+"Lo!" said one soldier to another doubtfully, as, hand over his eyes,
+eaves-wise, he looked out keenly from the watch towers, "I dare swear
+that is the King going his rounds. How I mind me of his smile as he
+passed the meanest."
+
+"Aye!" would come the assent, "but none were mean in his army. We all
+felt brave men. At least so 'twas with me. I could have swaggered it
+with Rustam."
+
+And both pair of eyes would hold a vague regret. A regret that
+deepened as day after day skirmishes that were almost battles,
+resulted invariably in a retreat back to the walls of Kabul for the
+night.
+
+For Babar's five hundred were ready to fight all the twenty-four
+hours, while the insurgent twelve thousand preferred their beds.
+
+And the next dawn rose calm over that orderly encampment, which it was
+no use trying to rush because of its cunning defences. Then Babar's
+cavalry had learnt to charge without an inch of spare room between
+stirrup and stirrup, so that there was no hope of passage or escape
+between that close-linked, supple, chain of lance and sword.
+
+Altogether it was disconcerting. Then no one had a moment's peace. To
+show your head beyond the gates was to bring down on you the King in
+person, heading a reckless band of picked swordsmen.
+
+"Kasim-Beg is the best fencer in Asia," murmured a trooper with a
+slash on head and arm; "'tis small wonder I got this from him. And his
+teaching hath made even the rank and file better at swordsplay than
+our leaders--curse them--who sit at cards and drink, while we--" The
+rest was sullen silence.
+
+"Yea!" said another, with a leg bandaged. "And I got this from a mere
+back blow of the Most-Clement's. See you, he hath youth on his side,
+as well as all old Kasim's art. I saw him, as I fell, cleave a Moghul
+to the very chin."
+
+So round the watch fires at night it became the fashion to applaud the
+prowess of the foe. With this result that in the morning, more than
+one place was vacant on the ramparts; the holder of it had slipped
+away in the night to join Babar's forces.
+
+As time went on, the latter grew more and more adventurous. His
+military skill, his personal strength, his courage, his invincible
+spirit, brought mingled admiration and dread to his enemies.
+
+"Lo! he is a true _Shaitan_," admitted one of the chief rebels. "Didst
+hear that when he was at the Kharwa Fort he amused himself by leaping
+from battlement to battlement--and there is sheer fall of a thousand
+feet to the river below."
+
+"Aye!" assented another gloomily. "And Shirbash saith he hath seen him
+do it with a trooper under each arm."
+
+So ran the stories, the one outdoing the other.
+
+At last, one day, just before the opposing forces began the clash of
+arms, the armies stood thrilling, aghast, expectant, as a tall young
+figure rode out alone, and in a voice that echoed and re-echoed,
+challenged Abdul-Risak, the usurper, to single combat.
+
+The challenge was refused.
+
+"Then send your best man," cried Babar, "and may God show the right."
+
+There was a pause; and then from out the rank and file of the
+insurgents rode one Ali-Beg, and a chorus of approval went up on both
+sides.
+
+The opponents were well matched. Both young, both in the very pink of
+training.
+
+"Art ready, friend?" came Babar's clear joyous voice, and with a dash
+they were at each other.
+
+"Now God send he remembers the trick of wrist," said Kasim-Beg under
+his breath, "for Ali-Beg hath it to perfection. He was my best pupil
+at Samarkand."
+
+But Babar remembered it. How, he felt, could he forget anything with
+so much for which to fight? His eyes blazed, not with anger--what
+cared he for the actual enemy?--he was but the dummy of possible
+defeat--but with calm will. He meant to disarm this fellow--not to
+hurt him.
+
+The horses reeled against each other, the sword arms were interlocked,
+for Babar, at close quarters, would not let his antagonist break
+loose.
+
+God and his prophets! they would be down! Nor horse nor man could
+stand that boring pressure, that invincible strength. Wrist against
+wrist; and beneath them struggling legs and tails and fear-snorting
+crests!
+
+There! over!--A confused heap upon the ground, but Babar uppermost
+with two swords in his hand.
+
+A shout of triumph rose from the five hundred. But as the discomfited
+champion rode back without his sword, another rode forward to take his
+place.
+
+This was not in the bond; still Babar, checking his laboured breaths
+to more even rhythm, threw away the second sword and sprang to his
+horse, which had risen unhurt but dazed.
+
+"Come on, friend!" he shouted; "I am ready!"
+
+This was a very different sort of adversary. A lean, ewe-necked horse,
+a nimble, dapper, little swordsman with a blade like a razor, who
+buzzed and wheeled, and settled and fled again like a hungry mosquito.
+
+Babar with his half-dazed horse was at a disadvantage for a time and
+the razor-like edge caught him on the little finger once. But only
+once. The next instant in one furious charge, a back-hander with the
+flat of the sword had sent the King's antagonist spinning from his
+saddle like a tee-totum.
+
+So it was with five champions, one after the other.
+
+Babar more and more weary, yet more and more triumphant in fierce
+vitality with every victory, unhorsed, disarmed, or routed every one
+of them. Raising a laugh, indeed, in his own favour when Yakub-Beg,
+last but one, escaped by hard riding from the rain of pitiless blows
+which fell instead on his horse's rump, urging it to greater speed.
+
+Only once did sheer merciless anger leap to Babar's eyes, and that was
+when Nazir, the Usbek, letting go his horse's bridle during a
+close-locked tussle of sword arms, drew a dagger with his left hand
+and would have plunged it in his adversary's heart.
+
+Then, with one wild cry of rage, Babar's hand left his sword, clipped
+his adversary round the middle, literally tore him from his horse and
+flung him head downwards on the ground, where he lay unconscious, the
+dagger still in his hand, the blood oozing from his nose and ears.
+
+"Take the carrion away," shouted the young champion, breathless, "and
+come on, if there be any more."
+
+But there were none ready for personal combat; so the battle began.
+
+It was one of Babar's best battles--at least in his own opinion. And
+it was the prelude to many another, in every one of which Babar drove
+home his lesson of sheer courage. Finally Abdul-Risak fell into his
+hands, and from that moment there was peace; since folk could
+withstand the King's prowess, but they were helpless beneath his
+magnanimity.
+
+To be forgiven, not grudgingly or of necessity, but with open-hearted
+friendliness, was disarmament pure and simple; for all but Moghuls.
+And the Horde in this instance, disgusted at defeat, took abrupt
+French leave. Abdul-Risak also, ever a weakling, had the gratitude and
+good taste to die comfortably and conventionally ere long, so Kabul
+was left at peace.
+
+Such peace as Babar's life had never known before. He was in the
+plenitude of his manhood, his strength, and, even after all these
+years, the imagination warms to the picture of his glad content. A
+trifle flamboyant, perhaps, he may have been in his consciousness of
+virtue, in his very successes. But nothing came amiss to his happy
+nature. The plants he planted throve, the flowers he loved blossomed,
+he was as keen over repairing a ruined aqueduct as he had been over
+taking a fort. He knew the name of every bird and beast in his
+kingdom; he learnt their habits, when and where they are to be caught.
+He tells of the strange migration of fishes, and with keen
+appreciation of the pathos and poetry hidden in the tale, how the
+flights of summer birds are driven in stormy weather against the chill
+glaciers of the Hindu-Kush Mountains and perish in their thousands.
+Then he interests himself in his people. Knows the race of which they
+come, the language they speak, and the superstitions in which they
+believe. And he is stern over some of these. There is a celebrated
+rocking tomb much frequented by pilgrims of which he discovers the
+trick and visits his hot wrath on the manipulators, daring them to
+repeat the imposture; for deceit is the one thing he cannot forgive.
+
+So during the next three years, not only peace, but happiness reigned
+at Kabul. Humayon grew and flourished. A daughter and then a son were
+born, and Maham remained the anchor to which Babar's versatile,
+volatile, affectionate nature was moored. A woman of education, of
+natural talent, she could enter into that side of his life from which
+the majority of his companions were shut out; and between the two
+there was always the inward and spiritual tie of which the Crystal
+Bowl was the outward and visible manifestation.
+
+There was another soul, however, which touched Babar in a lower plane.
+Sultan Said Khan, his cousin, the son of the dead and dispossessed
+younger Khan of Outer Moghulistan, sought refuge at Kabul, and there
+sprung up between the two young men perfect love, accord, and trust.
+
+"The two-and-a-half years I spent as exile in Kabul," writes this same
+Said Khan, "were the freest from care or sorrow of any I have
+experienced, or am likely to experience. I lived on friendly terms
+with all, welcomed by all. I never had a headache (except from the
+effects of wine) and never felt sad (except on the account of the
+ringlets of some beloved one)."
+
+But Babar himself still abstained from wine, or at any rate from
+intoxication. Love had stepped in at Herat to keep him from yielding
+to the first of Said Khan's temptations, and the other form of
+amusement was never to his liking.
+
+Then there was another refugee who forty years afterwards sets
+down his impressions of Kabul and its King. This was Haidar, yet
+another cousin, ten-year-old-orphan, whose father had been that
+Doghlat-commoner rebel of two years back.
+
+What matter? His mother had been a maternal aunt. That was enough for
+Babar. Besides the poor child had no other protector.
+
+His welcome must have made a vivid impression on Haidar, for, as one
+reads, the scene rises before one. The timid child wrapped in the one
+old shawl which the forlorn party of refugees possessed, attempting to
+kneel at the feet of that glorious figure with life or death in its
+hands. The merry laugh, the swift stoop to catch up the child and hold
+it close with comforting words. Then afterwards, the elegant mansion,
+its rooms all spread with many coloured carpets and soft cushions,
+with everything in the way of furniture, food, clothing, servants, and
+slaves, so fully prepared as to leave nothing to be desired in the
+whole building. And afterwards, again, the promises of kindness, the
+threats of severity by which the little lad's love of study was
+stimulated and encouraged. The lavish praise bestowed on any little
+virtue or new accomplishment, the quick blame for anything mean or
+lazy; these were such as most men would scarce do for their own sons.
+"It was a hard day for me when I lost my father," writes Haidar; "but
+I scarce felt the loss owing to the kindness of the Emperor."
+
+"Have a care, youngster," he would say when, study time over, young
+Haidar came as usual to play with Baby Humayon. "He is smaller than
+thou art. Never be rough with weaklings. 'Tis not their fault. God
+made them so. And he is thy cousin, likewise."
+
+"But Humayon holds his own already," said Maham, proudly. "There is no
+boy of his age in the court can come nigh him."
+
+Babar laughed and put his arm round her. "Yea! Yea! little mother! He
+is true ph[oe]nix, and we are the happiest folk in Kabul, which means
+much." Then his face fell, he walked to the arched window-way and
+looked out over the garden.
+
+"What is't, my lord," said Maham, at his elbow in an instant.
+
+He looked at her affectionately.
+
+"Nothing, my moon! 'Tis only this. The dear mother lies yonder in the
+Mercy-of-God. I would not bring her back, if I could. And little
+Ma'asuma--" he paused--"I would not bring her back either, wife, if I
+could. She was too tender for this world--aye! even for me. So she
+sleeps peacefully--God rest her!--but Dearest-One--" his voice
+broke--he turned away and Maham had nothing to say.
+
+That thought was the fly in the pot of ointment, it was the one bitter
+drop in the Crystal-Bowl-of-Life.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX
+
+      "Bring! bring the musky scented wine!
+       A draught of wine the memory cheers,
+       And wakens thoughts of other years."
+
+
+So the months, even the years sped on bringing calm. Sometimes Babar
+felt a trifle regretful over the old storms. The glints of sunshine
+between had seemed, mayhap, the brighter for them. He was now only
+nearing his twenty-ninth year, and yet he felt almost as if life had
+ended for him. He looked round on his growing family, on his gardens,
+his aqueducts, his highly-disciplined small army; all were well in
+their way, but for all that his restless eyes followed the doings of
+Shah-Ismael of Persia, who, young as he was, a mere boy in fact, had
+dared to send the arch-enemy, the Usbek-raider, Shaibani Khan, a
+spinning-wheel and a spindle, and bid him if he would not fight, go
+sit in a corner and busy himself with the little present like the
+woman he was!
+
+It had been splendid, that interchange of discourtesies. First of all,
+the Shah's demand for a treaty followed by Shaibani's contemptuous
+advice to make no claim for kingship through his mother, who had
+withdrawn herself from the circle of distinction by her marriage;
+since he, Shaibani, made one through his father, a Sultan and son of a
+Sultan. This was accompanied by a beggar's bowl and staff with the
+script: "In case you wish, as is fitting, to follow the profession of
+your father, I remind you of it and the verse--
+
+
+"'Clasp the bride of sovereignty close to you if you will, But don't
+you dare to kiss her until the swords are still.'"
+
+
+Shah-Ismael, however, had been no whit behind. Back had come the
+spindle and distaff with the rhyming insult--
+
+
+      "Who boasts of his dead fathers only owns
+       Himself a dog that loveth ancient bones."
+
+
+After that, naturally, there was but one end--extermination of one or
+the other. Which would it be?
+
+Shah-Ismael, with his thousands of disciplined and heretical
+_kizzilbashes_, or Shaibani Khan with his hordes of wild Mongols?
+
+"God's truth," said Babar to old Kasim who had been ailing this while
+back, "I scarce know which to choose. I hate the Red-caps almost as
+much as the Moghuls."
+
+Old Kasim's eyes were growing a little dim for the things of this
+world; perhaps he saw those of the next more clearly in consequence.
+"There be good men on both sides, Most-Clement. A flat face and split
+eyes count no more than a red-cap when we have lost clothes and bodies
+at the Day-of-Judgment."
+
+The shrewd commonsense of the remark clung to Babar's receptive brain
+long after the speaker had gone to his account.
+
+"Yea, I am restless," admitted Babar to calm Maham. "I cannot help it,
+my moon! I am not made as thou art. There was a book at Samarkand when
+I was a lad that treated of the Great Waters. And it said they rose
+and fell as the moon waxed and waned. So 'tis thou who art
+responsible, sweetheart; though God knows, thou art ever full moon to
+me." And he sat down instantly to write a _rubai_ on that fancy. He
+had not half finished it, however, when news came that drove
+everything else out of his head.
+
+Shah-Ismael had defeated Shaibani in full force at Meru; the
+Usbek-raider was dead, smothered in a band of escaping Mongols.
+
+"I must go," muttered the young King hoarsely; "I must go. Samarkand
+is mine by right."
+
+So, with hardly more than an hour's preparation he was off, though it
+was the dead of winter, across the snows to join forces with his
+cousin of Badakhshan.
+
+The fighting fever was on him once more. He could not, he did not even
+try, to resist it. And Maham let him go; she was too wise to attempt
+to chain her wild hawk.
+
+"When spring comes we will meet in Samarkand," she said quietly.
+
+He took Haidar, the boy, with him though, because the lad wept and
+refused to be left behind. And right proud was the lad, when at the
+very first fight, it was the opportune arrival of a party of his
+father's old retainers who had come out to join their young master,
+that turned the tide of victory towards Babar.
+
+"Let the name of Haidar Mirza be inscribed on the first trophy," said
+the Emperor smiling; and the boy's blood went in a surge of sheer
+delight to his face.
+
+But, despite the fact that he was able to reach the river, and settle
+himself in some measure of security at Kundez, Babar felt himself not
+sufficiently strong to attempt Samarkand without help. And there was
+none to whom he could apply save Shah-Ismael, who had already sent him
+a letter containing guarded offers of friendship. It rather went
+against Babar's orthodox grain to ask a favour from a persecuting
+Shiah heretic; but old Kasim's words came back to him.
+
+Yes! there was good on all sides, and--_pace_ the priests!--a man
+might be an honest fellow in spite of his saying "Ameen" in schismatic
+fashion. For Babar, like many of his like, had no taste for dogmatic
+differences and preferred to differentiate by visible and audible
+signs.
+
+So Mirza-Khan, his cousin, was despatched to Irak in order to make the
+best terms possible, and Babar, meanwhile, sent for his family from
+Kabul. The spring had passed to summer ere they arrived at Kundez, and
+Babar, now reinforced by some of the surrounding tribes, crossed the
+Amu and marched on to await events at the strong fortress of Hissar.
+It was close on eighteen years since he had been encamped with his old
+uncle, Sultan Hussain, upon the opposite bank. Close on eighteen years
+since, one darkling dawn, he, a lad of thirteen, dear old Kasim-Beg
+and half-a-hundred or so of rough, honest Andijan troopers had ridden
+through Khosrau Shah's picket, and he, Babar, had lost the Crystal
+Bowl which Gharib had given him.
+
+And now? He looked across to the frightened girl, the mother of his
+children, in a way the mother of himself, and thought what a
+marvellous thing Life was. Even as he saw it, limited by Birth and
+Death, isolated by those five personal, bodily senses which none could
+say he shared exactly with his fellow, how strange it was to watch the
+compensating balance at work on all things, keeping all things as it
+were to true, perfect level. He looked back over his life and saw that
+balance everywhere, save in one thing. The tragedy of Dearest-One
+remained as ever poignant, unappeased.
+
+"Thou art sad, husband! what is't?" asked Maham, fondly. She was ever
+quick to see his moods.
+
+"Nothing, wife," he answered gaily. "Save that today or to-morrow at
+least comes the answer from Shah-Ismael. What will the red-cap heretic
+reply?--God knows!"
+
+So with a laugh he left her for the cares of State.
+
+But he had scarcely gone before he was back again, white, trembling, a
+gold-dust-sprinkled letter in his hand.
+
+"It hath come," he said brokenly. "It hath come--and oh!
+Maham--Dearest-One! Dearest-One!"
+
+He fell at her feet, buried his face in her lap and sobbed like a
+child. She must be dead, thought Maham, and to her lips came the usual
+blankly-tame commonplaces of consolation.
+
+"Nay, 'tis not that!" he said, recovering his calm. "She is alive and
+well--and Shah-Ismael, who hath found her, is sending her back to me
+with all honour--" he sprang to his feet suddenly and raised his right
+arm high.
+
+"Oh, God! may my arm wither if ever it strike a blow against this just
+man, may my tongue dry up if ever it utter word of blame; I, Babar, am
+his servant for ever! There is nothing I will not do for him."
+
+"Does he not desire aught of thee in return?" asked Maham when Babar
+had fairly outwearied himself in joy, in confessions of past regret,
+in promises of future content.
+
+"Aye! Yea! he asks much, but not more than he has a right to ask--not
+more than I will give cheerfully. And he is sending men also, Maham. I
+shall have an army of sixty thousand! With that Samarkand is assured,
+and, of a truth, no man can deem it a disgrace to own justice as his
+sovereign lord! I hold it an honour."
+
+And he upheld this view of Shah-Ismael's proposal that if the aid of
+the Persian _kizzilbashes_ were given to conquer Samarkand, Babar
+should acknowledge the Persian Satrapy as over-lord, against all the
+criticism of his nobles; not that there was much, for it was
+indubitable that without such help Samarkand would remain unwon. And
+Babar had many arguments in favour of this nominal vassalage. To be
+part of a great Empire, was always an advantage; besides the Kings of
+Samarkand had always in the past acknowledged a suzerain lordship. It
+had given stability to the dynasty; and it was of late years only,
+since this dependence had been removed, that Samarkand had been
+bandied from one ruler to another.
+
+When a man is set on a thing, arguments for it grow in the very
+hedgerows; and Babar with the tempting bait of his sister's safe
+return before his eyes, was too full of real gratitude to hesitate an
+instant.
+
+But it was not for a month or more that he was to enter Samarkand
+victorious.
+
+It was a perfect autumn day when, after dismissing the Persian
+contingent, Babar made his triumphant entry. All along the route, high
+and low, nobles and poor men, grandees and artisans, princes and
+peasants, alike testified their joy at the advent of one who had
+already twice before come to them as King, and who had endeared
+himself to them by his kindness and generosity.
+
+The streets were all draped with cloth and gold brocades; pictures,
+drawings, wreaths, were hung up on every side. Such pomp and splendour
+no one has ever seen or heard of before or since. He was received at
+the Gate by the great men of the city, who assured him that the
+inhabitants had for years been longing that the shadow of his
+protection might be cast upon them.
+
+Babar, who was dressed, rather to their regret, in the uniform of a
+_kissilbash_ General (which smacked of heresy, almost of unbelief)
+responded heartily, and all eyes followed his splendid figure as he
+rode through the streets saluting the crowd right and left. He was in
+the highest spirits, for he knew that in the very Palace where she had
+been left ten long years before, his dearest sister was awaiting him.
+
+Dearest-One! It seemed almost too good to be true.--God save the man
+who had brought this happiness into his life!
+
+Impatient, headstrong in all his emotions, he would gladly have cut
+short his reception and gone straight to her; but the people would not
+be denied a sight of their hero. If the angels were crying aloud
+"Enter in peace!" and the populace was shouting "God save the
+Emperor!" the least he could do was to listen to them patiently.
+
+So it was nigh dusk before he found himself, trembling with sheer joy,
+in the Garden-Palace and saw before him a tall, slender figure in
+white--
+
+"Dearest-One! Dearest-One!" he cried and was kissing her feet, her
+hands, her thin, worn face.
+
+"Brotherling! Brotherling!"
+
+That was all they said. And then they held back to see each other. She
+saw strength, and health, and manhood such as she had scarce dreamed
+of, even for him; a man of past thirty in the very prime of all
+things. And he saw a woman of nigh forty with streaks of silver in her
+dark hair, upright, tall, but with a weariness even in her joy.
+
+"I am sorry, Dearest-One," he said humbly as he had said to her many a
+time when as a child he had grieved her.
+
+"And I am glad," she replied softly.
+
+That night the city seemed on fire. Flares blazed from every house,
+the flickering lines of countless lights seemed to interlock one
+street with another. Vast crowds surged through them, and far and wide
+rose Babar's praise.
+
+But at the door of a mosque an old white-bearded _mullah_ sat and spat
+calmly. "He wore the accursed red-cap of the schismatic--Wherefore?"
+
+And the folk who heard him looked at each other and echoed:
+
+"Wherefore?"
+
+That was the question. Asked by one to-day, it was asked by
+half-a-dozen the next, by a hundred the week after, when Babar,
+faithful as ever to his promises, had the Kutba, the Royal
+Proclamation, read in the name of Shah-Ismael as over-lord. A thousand
+asked it when the first gold coin was struck bearing the hated Shiah
+legends. The Emperor, the man they had welcomed, was a heretic. He and
+his army wore the red-cap.
+
+Samarkand, head centre of orthodoxy, became alarmed, began to whisper.
+
+"I am no heretic, but a keeper of promises," said Babar grimly, and
+went on his way. He had become a trifle arrogant, and inclined to
+resent any interference. The Samarkand folk were rude, ignorant,
+bigoted; he would not even try to pacify them.
+
+So the winter passed and spring set in--(the plentiful drops of her
+rain having clothed the earth in green raiment)--and with the warmer
+weather the Usbeks once more appeared like locusts on the edge of the
+Turkhestan desert and the fight for Samarkand began all over again.
+
+And this time Babar with not a wish ungratified, Babar in the
+plenitude of his pride and strength, was forced to flight; for
+religious bigotry is the hardest of all foes to fight.
+
+A horde of _kizzilbashes_, it is true, was sent by his over-lord to
+help him; but they only made matters worse. First by their
+confirmation of heresy; next by their brutality in murdering high and
+low, the sucklings and the decrepit.
+
+Sick at heart, Babar found himself once more a wanderer; once more a
+prey to the treachery of Moghul troops, from which he escaped one
+night with bare life and in his night clothes.
+
+His one consolation was that Maham, Dearest-One and his children, were
+safe with relatives in Khost.
+
+No! he had another consolation; for the man who had set aside wine as
+an enhancement of pleasure, now took to it as a lessener of care. The
+Cup-of-Life for him was filled again and again with the Wine-of-Death,
+and he laughed as he quaffed at its bubbles on the rim. Vaguely, too,
+came to him a sort of disgust at dogmatic creeds. He would sit and
+sing Sufic odes with fervour, and praise.
+
+Perhaps with a man of his temperament, it was only to be expected.
+
+
+      "The wine, the lamp which night and day
+       Lights us along our weary way.
+       Saki! thou knowest I worship wine,
+       Let that delicious cup be mine,
+       Wine! pure and limpid as my tears."
+
+
+
+
+
+                               BOOK III
+
+                              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 Kabul 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 Kabul 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 Kabul,
+leaving a doubtfully-loyal governor in the Punjab. So he was still no
+more, no less, than King-of-Kabul; 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 Shiraz 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 Gedai, 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 Nizami'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
+Kabul--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 Maham, 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 Maham's other children having died in infancy, leaving
+none but Humayon in direct descent, Babar, by her advice, had married
+again. The youngest of three sons thus born he had made over at birth
+to Maham 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 Maham 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 Afghans were an impossible race, strangely foolish
+and senseless, possessed of little reflection and less foresight. What
+trouble had not the Yusufzais 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 Mubarika--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 Mubarika...! 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 Yusufzais sits enshrined in
+my heart!"
+
+It had been fine!
+
+No! Even though Maham 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 Mubarika. Childless, reserved,
+quiet, she was yet a power in that household he had left behind him in
+Kabul. 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. Humayon 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 Tardi-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 Baisanghar, dead these twenty years; from him, memory fled to
+Gharib and the Crystal-Bowl-of-Life. He carried the copy Maham 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-Jan, not to be outdone, "and yonder to the right
+are the Brothers."
+
+"And look you to the left, the Warrior," stuttered Abul-Majid. "His
+sword is somewhat crooked."
+
+"'Tis thine eyes are askew," laughed Shaikh-Zin. "Thou never hadst a
+head worth a spoonful of decent Shiraz."
+
+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-Jan
+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-Jan, 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-Jan--'tis thy turn
+first. Rise and out with it _instanter!_"
+
+Ali-Jan 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."
+
+
+"Shabash! Wah! Wah! 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-Jan, Tardi-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 Afghans.
+
+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 Punjab. 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
+Sewalik 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 Rajputana 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 Kabul pattern;
+for he wrote and told Maham all about it. And he told her also that
+her son Humayon 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 Isan-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
+Hindustan.
+
+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 Shah-Hussan went over on his back, laid hold of
+Kali-Gokultash, 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 Humayon to join in the laughter for a few
+moments, but then to give news which ended fooling.
+
+The advance party of Sultan-Ibrahim'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 Humayon, 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 Paniput 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 Ibrahim-Sultan, as of our
+Princes and Khans 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 Rakush, 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 Paniput 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. Ibrahim, 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.
+Humayon, Kwajah-Kilan 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 Ibrahim 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-Minar 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-Minar! 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 Kabul 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.
+
+
+---------------------
+
+[Footnote 3: Kalendars are men vowed to poverty.]
+
+---------------------
+
+
+"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 Humayon 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 Humayon in full durbar, pulled out the great
+Moghul diamond which had been given him voluntarily by the Rajah's
+people of Gwalior in gratitude for saving their lives and property
+from his soldiery; for Humayon, 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, Humayon, 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 Hindustani 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 Hindustan" (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 Kabul!
+       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 Kwajah-Kilan 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 Hindustan? 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 Kwajah-Kilan 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 Kwajah, stoutly.
+"That is why I urge immediate departure. The men lose heart. The
+Badakhshanis 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."
+
+Kwajah-Kilan 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 Kabul, 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-Jan with a smile. "I stop
+till death."
+
+And most of the hearers had come to the same decision. Only
+Kwajah-Kilan, obstinate as a mule, refused to remain. So, as he had a
+fairly numerous retinue, it was arranged that he should return to
+Kabul 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 Kwajah-Kilan 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 Kwajah-Kilan 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 Hindustan," 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 Kwajah-Kilan 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 Maham'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 Kabul, so Maham, 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 Kabul now. Verily, my moon, who hast so often
+chidden me for fretting wide-eyed the livelong night because Humayon
+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 Rakush and ride Kabul-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 Faruk, wife, since distance separates us."
+
+After this he set to work upon his abandoned plan of a pleasure
+garden. Beggars, he said to Ali-Jan, 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 Hindustan 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 Kabul 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-Jan 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 Kabul with the joyful news of little Faruk's
+birth. And the same post brought a budget of letters written before
+the event, by Maham 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 Kabul 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 Maham, who was out and away the best scribe, "we made
+Kwajah-Kilan 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
+Sultan-Ibrahim, 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 Kabul, to make them remember me, and
+pray for me.'
+
+"And even so, my lord, 'twas done, though it needed not money to make
+Kabul 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 Hindustan, 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 Hindustan. 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 Asas came off beautifully, even as my lord
+arranged it. For when the faithful thing asked Kwajah-Kilan, '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 Kabul, 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 Jan-Ali, "but devil take me if I can tell
+what it means."
+
+"Tis the tale of a wanton," quoth Tardi-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 Kabul," 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 Rana Sanka, the Rajput 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 Biana which had lately gone over to the Rajput side.
+That was not to be endured, and Humayon, 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 Biana, 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
+Padishah!"
+
+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 Ghazi!" 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
+Tardi-Beg.
+
+"Yea!" assented Ali-Jan, "but I would he had as fine a sense of
+danger. Dost know that he hath put on four Hindustani 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 Tardi-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 Hindustani 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 Sultan-Ibrahim'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
+Hindustani cook in the royal kitchen was too much for gratitude.
+
+The result Babar wrote to Maham 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 Hindustanis; 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 Ibrahim 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 Hindustan. 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.
+
+Rana 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 "Kabul," which day by day under
+his fostering care, showed more and more likeness to the sponsor
+country. Humayon 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 Hindustan, not so much by the sword as by statesmanship.
+
+And yet on the 24th February as he stood watching the Khorasan
+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 Rana Sanka of Udaipur was true man; a
+fitting representative of Rajput 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, Rana 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 Khorasan
+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 Kabul"; since by fair
+means or foul, the men's courage must be kept up.
+
+And the butler who had been sent to Kabul 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 Humayon, his
+son-in-law Mahdi (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 Kabul 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 Kabul 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 Kabul?"
+
+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 Turkhoman 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 Karuwan,
+              Still at Karuwan,' 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 Karuwan,
+              Still at Karuwan.
+       Mother (like thy camel) 's still at Karuwan.'"
+
+
+The endless refrain went on and on sillily, mingled with the twanging
+of the _citharas_ 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 Asas, 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 Tardi-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 Maham would be; Maham 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 Koran 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.
+
+Humayon commanded the right. Mahdi Kwaja, 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
+Rajput chivalry almost shook Humayon'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 Paniput.
+
+Step by step the gallant Rajputs 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 Rajputs 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. Rana 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, Rana 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
+Humayon's division had consisted almost entirely of levies from
+Badakhshan where the young Prince had been governor, and these were
+seized with a great longing for home. As Kabul was imperfectly
+defended, it seemed best therefore to send both the division and its
+leader back; indeed Humayon 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 Tardi-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 Tardi-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 Kabul, 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:
+
+
+      "Oh, ye! who left us alone to die
+       'Neath the sultry heat of an Indian sky,
+       Who shirked the labour of life to fly
+       Back to its comfort, its jollity,
+       Lo! you have had your recompense fair,
+       Of joy and delight your proper share.
+
+       But we have struggled to hold our own,
+       Have tilled and laboured without a moan,
+       And God's great mercy a way has shown
+       To patient content as the seed was sown,
+       You in Life's garden God's harvest missed.
+       I gather it here in _Hesht-Bishist_."
+
+
+_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 Ramzaen 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 Humayon--Humayon the magnificent, the
+darling of his heart--had on his way through Delhi broken open the
+treasure-houses there and marched off Kabul-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.
+
+
+      "My fever grows each day,
+       My slumber fades away,
+       My pains go on increasing--
+       My patience is decreasing."
+
+
+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 Kabul was almost too much
+for him. But they bewailed his looks and chattered of old Chagatai
+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 Andijan 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 _Ghazi_ or "Defender of the
+Faith" after his victory over Rana 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 Maham 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. Kabul, 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
+Ilak; 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, Hindustan 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 Kabul 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 Rajputana 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 Kabul. Little Faruk, the son he
+had never seen, was dead. There was a piteous letter from Maham 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 Humayon, whom God preserve; Humayon 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 Maham. 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, Humayon would have satisfied him. Humayon 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 Humayon," 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 Alaman--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 Alaman."
+
+He went on to tell his son gently but firmly that indolence and ease
+suit but ill with royalty. Did not the poet say:
+
+
+      "The world is his who gives himself to work;
+       Inaction is no fellow to ambition;
+       In wisdom's eyes all men may find repose,
+       Save only he who seeks a King's condition."
+
+
+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
+Humayon 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 Humayon'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 Kabul. But that was inevitable. Hindustan
+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 Kwajah-Kilan, the
+Governor at Kabul, to take instant steps to start the Royal Family for
+Hindustan. 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 Kabul 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 Shir-Ahmed
+and Hindai 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
+
+       Good old St. Martini patron of the drunk!
+       Lo! in thy summer thou givest potent draught
+       To warm our cockles ere the world be sunk
+       In winding sheet of snow. This is thy craft,
+       O cheerful saint! to give ere the year dies
+       A euthanasian drink of cloudless skies.
+
+
+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 Chagatai
+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 Maham again. Maham, 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 Maham's letter to say the blisters were not tears. They wrote to
+each other constantly, these two, and letters from Maham 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 Khadijah, his chief paternal aunt, when
+he cavilled at some domestic arrangement in Maham'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 Hindustan. 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 Maham 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 Hindustan must be laid at Maham'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 Maham 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. Maham,
+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. Maham! 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.
+
+"Maham! Maham!"
+
+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 Maham 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 Maham 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 Maham afterwards in the seclusion of the
+women's apartments, "this little insignificant personage felt such
+happiness that greater could not be imagined."
+
+Maham 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 Kabul. 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
+Humayon 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 Maham'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 Mubarika, 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 Maham's
+generous heart for her own son Humayon--and one evening as the husband
+and wife were sitting together in the open balcony of the Palace, she
+hinted that Humayon 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.
+
+"Humayon!" he cried joyously; "Humayon himself! Look! little mother!
+thy son! thy son!"
+
+And Humayon 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 Maham 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.
+
+
+      "Ah! would I were the morning wind
+       To braid her scented hair.
+       Ah! would I were the noonday sun
+       To kiss her cheek so fair.
+       Ah! would I were the lamp at eve
+       Where she her court doth keep.
+       Ah! would I were the happy moon
+       To watch her in her sleep.
+       My heart is like a famished wolf
+       That licks the frozen snow
+       The while it tracks its quarry far
+       Wherever it may go.
+       From morn till night I follow her
+       But she no word doth deign.
+       Oh! ice chill maid! for pity's sake
+       Give me at least disdain.
+       Wind! make each scented tress unbind.
+       Sun! set her life-blood free.
+       Lamp! make her weary for true love.
+       Moon! bring her dreams of me."
+
+
+"'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 Ilak 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, Humayon.
+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.
+
+Maham turned pale; Dildar and the paternal aunts and khanums--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
+
+       Death stood among my flowers, his bright wings furled:
+       "This bud I take with me to that still world
+       Where no wind blows, where sunshine does not fade,
+       Yon open rose is yours," he gently said;
+       But I refused. He smiled and shook his head,
+       So empty-handed back to Heaven sped
+       And lo! by sun-scorch and the wild wind shorn
+       Ere eve, my bud, my blossom both were gone.
+
+
+Humayon 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, Humayon
+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 Kabul and leaving Humayon in charge of
+Hindustan.
+
+"My Kabul," 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 Hindustan, and, thanks to
+Maham'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.
+
+"Maham," 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?"
+
+Maham 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.
+Humayon had been sent as Governor to an up-country province, and not
+back to Badakhshan 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 Rajputana 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 Tardi-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 Maham would call them as they played at ball
+together in the marble alleys; Tardi-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, Tardi-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 Tardi-Beg and Babar.
+
+
+[Illustration: "THE FOUR CHILDREN, AS MAHAM 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_ Tardi-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 Maham 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 Maham 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 Maham certainly _had_ taken from her
+as a baby.
+
+"Let her have the boy, my lord," said Maham pitifully. "Lo! it is but
+fair she should have one son; and I have Humayon."
+
+So Babar blessed her for her kind heart, and sent off a special
+messenger to Kabul 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.
+
+Humayon, 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.
+
+Humayon! 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 Humayon, bested in his fight for life that he saw;
+whereas Maham 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 Maham 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 Maham was satisfied. What Mubarika-Begum said she
+would do, would be done. Maham knew that; for she knew (what Babar did
+not) that Mubarika'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 Kabul. 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 Mubarika, 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
+Tardi-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, Maham had been right. Humayon 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 Maham'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.
+
+"Maham!" 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: "Maham! Thou knowest that I love Humayon 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 Humayon?"
+
+"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."
+
+
+"Then there is no hope to save Death," said Babar sternly. He stood,
+his face blanched, amongst a group of Court-physicians, professional
+prayer-makers, astrologers, sorcerers; frail reeds at which anxiety
+caught distractedly in its despair. And they were all silent save a
+priest who mumbled of God's goodness. Prayer remained, said the
+unctuous voice.
+
+But that strong human heart was almost past petitions; it craved
+something more tangible.
+
+"Is there naught to be given--naught that I could do to make God
+listen from His High Heaven? Naught that would mayhap soften His hard
+heart?" he asked sharply: he was thinking of a ransom: many a soldier
+had had to offer one; he, himself, had given a dear one--once....
+
+Some of those who heard, looked at each other. This death to them
+meant little; but here was an opportunity for personal gain that could
+do no harm to anyone. So they whispered among themselves, and greed
+grew to some of the faces that encircled the man, to whose face it had
+never come, once, in all his life. For Babar had been giver, not
+taker. He had lavished all things on his world; he had been
+spendthrift even in forgiveness.
+
+"Is there naught, gentlemen?" he asked drearily.
+
+Then the chief-preacher spoke. "It hath been written, and is, indeed,
+approved, that in such times of stress some Supreme Sacrifice to the
+Most High may be effectual--"
+
+"But it must be Supreme," put in a coarse-faced reader of the stars,
+his mind busy with money, "a small gift will not suffice--"
+
+"Aye," added another voice. "Look, you! It must be the most precious
+possession of a man; that which he holds dearest. In this case I would
+suggest--"
+
+But Babar, who was standing, his back to the light, held up his hand
+for silence.
+
+"Then I give my life," he said quietly, but his voice rang strong and
+firm; for he had come straight from his interview with Maham and her
+words had roused every atom of his marvellous vitality.
+
+"Yea! I give my life--for sure there is naught that a man can hold
+more precious."
+
+Absolute surprise kept his hearers silent for a moment. The very
+suggestion in one so instinct with life, made it incredible; then
+dismay came to some faces, disappointment to others.
+
+"Your Majesty!" began his faithful servant, the Wazir swiftly--"Our
+Emperor's life is too precious--"
+
+"Naught is too precious, friend, to save Humayon!" came the equally
+swift reply.
+
+"Yea! the Wazir is right," palpitated one who saw money slipping
+through his fingers. "Some lesser thing, yet still supreme, might be
+found. What of the Great Diamond--"
+
+"No stone can outweigh my son's life. No! I offer myself to God--it is
+all I have." The strong voice rang firmer than ever.
+
+"But the offering must be dear to both parties," put in a pompous
+voice. "And since, by the generosity of the Emperor, the diamond in
+question--whose value represents they say one day's revenue of the
+habitable world--was bestowed upon the Prince Humayon, it fits in
+double manner the circumstances--"
+
+Babar turned in quick reproof and scorn to the speaker. "Knowest thou
+so little of love, friend? Lo! I am dearer to my son than many
+diamonds. Could he speak now--" Babar's voice almost broke--"he would
+say, 'I am not worth the price of thy life, my father, for it is all
+the world to me.' But he cannot speak! He is in the grip of Death, so
+I have my say!"
+
+And he flung out his right arm as he had been used to fling it out
+when leading on his soldiers to some desperate charge--"Come!
+gentlemen," he said, command in every word, "let us lose no more time.
+It is precious. I will give my all--may God be merciful!"
+
+
+The sick room was hushed. Humayon lay motionless, unconscious, on a
+low bed set in the middle of the bare, spacious corridor. A physician
+sat to one side holding his patient's wrist, so appraising, minute by
+minute, the fluttering battle between Life and Death. On the other
+side knelt the poor mother; all unveiled, for they had sent for her,
+thinking the supreme moment was at hand, and she had no thought for
+anything save her dying son. Her right hand was stretched out in
+helpless appeal over the loved form which seemed to take up so little
+room amongst the quilts. But her left hand was held fast, consolingly,
+under the folds of a white veil which shrouded another female figure
+close behind her; for Mubarika-Begum, the Blessed-Damozel, was ever to
+the fore in sickness or in trouble.
+
+But Babar did not notice either of them. He stepped swiftly to the
+head of the bed and stood looking down on the face of his dying son.
+Almost it seemed as if he were too late; as if Life had already
+unfolded her wings and fled. Then, with eyes literally blazing with
+inward fire he stretched out his hands, trembling with nervous strain,
+and began his prayer of intercession.
+
+"O God Most High! If a life may be exchanged for a life, and they tell
+me it is so, then I, who am Babar, give mine for his, who is Humayon!
+Let my strength bear his weakness."
+
+"Husband! No! No! Not that--" moaned Maham, awakened to a sense of
+what was passing. But the figure behind her bent forward and whispered
+in her ear--
+
+"Let be, sister! Canst not see that God's mist clouds his brain from
+this world. Lo! Maham, both thy dear ones stand before the Throne. Let
+God decide!"
+
+And with a low sob, Maham fell on her outstretched arms; she said no
+more; she felt nothing save that cool, tightening clasp of sisterhood
+upon her hand.
+
+The hot sunshine streamed in upon the floor, the distant sounds of
+life outside were dulled to a low murmur as of bees, and on it came
+softly-hurried steps, as Babar, with clasped hands, circumambulated
+the bed solemnly. That he knew was the ritual of sacrifice. Round and
+round patiently, his voice rising above the low sobbing of a faithful
+friend or two ...
+
+"On me, kind God! be all his suffering. May all my strength be his. I
+gave him life once, Most-Clement! Let me give it to him again! Let my
+strength be his weakness; his weakness my strength."
+
+Over and over again; over and over! The fire dying out of the man's
+eyes with the nervous strain, until his very steps hesitated--"On me
+be his suffering! On me! on me!" Then suddenly, through the room,
+thrilling every soul in it, a woman's sobbing ghost of a shriek!--
+
+"He moved! His hand moved--I felt it."
+
+Babar swayed towards the voice. "I have prevailed," he muttered. "I
+have borne it away--" threw up his arms blindly, staggered and fell in
+a dead faint on to sobbing Tardi-Beg's breast. The rest crowded round,
+awestruck, curious.
+
+"He is dead--God hath accepted the sacrifice," they said.
+
+The face of Babar's best friend worked; of that, who could say, but
+for the present it was not true.
+
+"Not he!" he cried roughly. "Give him air! 'Tis but the strain on him,
+and what that has been all these years, fools do not know. Here,
+slaves! Carry him to his chamber! Nay! Madam Mother! there is no cause
+for anxiety! H'st! no noise, you there, lest you disturb the Prince
+who in good sooth seems coming to himself!"
+
+And it was true. The nameless change which comes to a fever face when
+the crisis is passing showed clear upon Humayon's.
+
+"Her Royal Highness had best stay with the invalid," went on
+Tardi-Beg, "I can attend the Emperor in this passing indisposition."
+
+But a veiled white figure rose quietly. "I go with His Imperial
+Majesty," said Mubarika-Begum. "There is no fear, sister; as the
+gentleman says it is but a fainting fit. The Emperor hath been
+over-anxious."
+
+So when Babar came to himself, which he did rapidly, he found the
+Blessed-Damozel bending over him.
+
+"My son?" he asked faintly.
+
+"The prince is better," she replied. "The fever hath gone--he will
+recover."
+
+Babar gave a sigh of relief and turned his face to the wall.
+
+Possibly the strain had been too much for him, coming as it did after
+long years of steady, hard work. Perhaps he had worn himself out with
+sheer, restless energy. Doubtless those ten years of drink, possibly
+even the four of total abstinence, had something to say to this
+premature break-down; for in years he was but forty-eight. Yet, deny
+it as they would, it was soon evident to all, that he had lived
+through the tale of heart beats allotted to him by Fate.
+
+Humayon, with the speed of youth, recovered and came to his father's
+bedside; but Babar never rose again. Perhaps he would not have done so
+if he could, for he had a made a promise. He had given his life to God
+in exchange for his son's, and there was an end of it.
+
+But he was quite cheerful. Only to two people did he speak openly of
+coming death. One was Tardi-Beg who stayed with him night and day. To
+him he spoke lightly, almost jestingly, of his long desire to follow
+his example and become a _darvesh_.
+
+"For years--aye! three years--I have desired to make over the throne
+to Humayon and retire to the Gold-Scattering-Garden! What gay times we
+have had there, friend, with the flowers, and the birds, and the
+children--and our own wits! Now shall I retire to Paradise, and God
+send it be as innocent, as guileless."
+
+And to Mubarika he talked of his beloved Kabul and his mother's grave.
+"Lo! thou shalt lay me there, lady, for the others have children, and
+thou dost love thy Kabul also!"
+
+Then he lay and looked at her with kindly questioning eyes, until he
+said, "It hath come to me at times, that I did thee a wrong in taking
+thee, a young girl, from thy tribe. Say, is it so? I would have the
+truth."
+
+Then she spoke softly. "Yea! it is so, Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar
+Emperor of India. Yet was the wrong righted long ago. By sacrifice
+comes life. And my people have lived in peace."
+
+"As we have," he said half-appealingly.
+
+She laid the hand she held on her forehead. "As we have, my lord."
+
+But there was one other wrong about which he was not so satisfied.
+Before death came he wanted to restore Hindal to his mother. And
+Hindal did not come. He had started from Kabul but had been delayed by
+marriages in his tutor's family.
+
+"I must see him," complained his father. "Write and bid him come at
+once. I need him sorely."
+
+It was the one bitter drop in the cup which he drank contentedly,
+smilingly. He held an audience every day, laughing and joking with his
+old friends over past times, and when evening came he would sit with
+some woman's hand in his and talk of little things.
+
+Sometimes it was his most reverend of paternal aunts, sometimes it was
+even poor Astonishingly Beautiful Princess. And little Ak-Begum
+brought him posies of violets, or, best of all, Dearest-One would sit,
+her hand in his, and both would be unable to say anything because
+their thoughts reached so very, very far back.
+
+And there was always a joke when Maham gave him his medicine in the
+Crystal-Bowl-of-Life. It had found its proper use at last, he said:
+for this it was neither too big nor too small.
+
+So the days slipped by.
+
+"Why does not Hindal come? Where is he?" he said fretfully, one
+evening; and they told him that the boy had reached Delhi and would be
+with him in a day or two.
+
+"Who brought the news?" he asked, and when they said it was the
+tutor's son who had come on in hot haste to re-assure the Emperor, he
+bid them bring the messenger up, and a tall, half-grown lad appeared.
+
+"Thy name," asked Babar faintly.
+
+"Mir-Bardi," replied the youth.
+
+The dying man laughed, his old boyish laugh. "Master Full-of-fun," he
+translated, "a good name for the companion of my son. Say! how tall
+hath Hindal grown?"
+
+The lad hesitated. "Lo! I wear a coat the Prince bestowed on his
+servant. The Most-Clement can judge by that."
+
+"I cannot see," murmured the sick man impatiently. "Come hither, boy,
+that I may feel how tall my son hath grown."
+
+So with fluttering fingers the hand that had once been so strong felt
+the brocaded coat.
+
+"It is well," he said at last, "but I would that I had seen him. I
+wanted to give him back to his mother myself."
+
+All Christmas Day he lay but half-conscious.
+
+"Baisanghar," he said faintly, when Dearest-One leant over to kiss
+him. And when Maham begged him with tears to drink his medicine,
+he did so with a smile, then thrust the cup into her bosom and
+whispered--
+
+"Lie there, friend, and bring her comfort."
+
+Towards evening he roused and sent for his nobles, and for Humayon.
+
+"To you I leave my son," he said; "fail not in loyalty to him. And to
+you, my son, I commit my kingdom, and my people, and my kinsfolk. Fail
+not in loyalty to them."
+
+After that he lay silent, with wide-open, smiling eyes. That was his
+farewell to splendid life.
+
+Night was passing to dawn when the end came.
+
+Black fell the day for children and kinsfolk and all. They bewailed
+and they lamented. Voices were uplifted in weeping. There was utter
+dejection. Each passed that ill-fated day in a hidden corner.
+
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+On a hill-side above the town of Kabul there lies a garden planted
+long years ago by a man who loved his world.
+
+Thither a new world comes to make holiday. The man himself has gone.
+As the white marble slab that looks up into the cloudless sky says
+shortly:
+
+
+          "Heaven is the Eternal Home of the Emperor Babar."
+
+
+But his spirit remains in the endless Spring of leaf and flower, in
+the happy vitality of the Children who still lay flowers to cover the
+words of hope.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of King-Errant, by Flora Annie Steel
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING-ERRANT ***
+
+***** This file should be named 39794.txt or 39794.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/7/9/39794/
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
+Google Books (Harvard University)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/39794.zip b/39794.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f4c2038
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39794.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6c96ff2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #39794 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39794)