For the Lord our God Most HighHe hath smote for us a pathway to the Ends of all the Earth.* * * * *And some we got by purchaseAnd some we had by tradeAnd some we found by courtesyOf pike and carronade.--Kipling.
For the Lord our God Most HighHe hath smote for us a pathway to the Ends of all the Earth.
* * * * *
And some we got by purchaseAnd some we had by tradeAnd some we found by courtesyOf pike and carronade.
--Kipling.
Elizabeth, by the Grace of God, etc.... To the most invincible and most mightie prince Lord Yelabdim Echebar, King of Cambaya Invincible Emperor--etc.The great affection which our Subjects have to visit the most distant places of the world, not without good will and intention to introduce the trade of all nations whatsoever they can, by which meanes the mutual and friendly traffeque of marchandise on both sides may come, is the cause that the bearer of this letter John Newbery joyntly with those that be in his company, with a curteous and honest boldnesse, doe repaire to the borders and countreys of your Empire, we doubt not but that your Imperial Maiestie through your royal grace will fauvurably and friendly accept him.And that you would doe it the rather for our sake, to make us greatly beholden of to your Maiestie; wee should more earnestly and with more wordes require it if wee did think it needful.But by the singular report that is of your Imperial Maiesties humanitie in these uttermost parts of the world, we are greatly eased of that burden and therefore wee use the fewer and lesse words, onely we request that because they are our subjects they may be honestly intreated and received. And that in respect of the hard journey which they have taken to places so far distant it would please your Maiestie with some libertie and securitie of voiage to gratifie it, with such privileges as to you shall seeme good; which curtesie if your Imperiall Maiestie shal to our subjects at our request performe, wee, according to our royall honour will recompence the same with as many deserts as we can. And herewith we bid your Imperiall Maiestie to fare-well.[7]
Elizabeth, by the Grace of God, etc.... To the most invincible and most mightie prince Lord Yelabdim Echebar, King of Cambaya Invincible Emperor--etc.
The great affection which our Subjects have to visit the most distant places of the world, not without good will and intention to introduce the trade of all nations whatsoever they can, by which meanes the mutual and friendly traffeque of marchandise on both sides may come, is the cause that the bearer of this letter John Newbery joyntly with those that be in his company, with a curteous and honest boldnesse, doe repaire to the borders and countreys of your Empire, we doubt not but that your Imperial Maiestie through your royal grace will fauvurably and friendly accept him.
And that you would doe it the rather for our sake, to make us greatly beholden of to your Maiestie; wee should more earnestly and with more wordes require it if wee did think it needful.
But by the singular report that is of your Imperial Maiesties humanitie in these uttermost parts of the world, we are greatly eased of that burden and therefore wee use the fewer and lesse words, onely we request that because they are our subjects they may be honestly intreated and received. And that in respect of the hard journey which they have taken to places so far distant it would please your Maiestie with some libertie and securitie of voiage to gratifie it, with such privileges as to you shall seeme good; which curtesie if your Imperiall Maiestie shal to our subjects at our request performe, wee, according to our royall honour will recompence the same with as many deserts as we can. And herewith we bid your Imperiall Maiestie to fare-well.[7]
The polished Persian periods of the translation--the original of which, drawn from its brocaded bag, lay before the King--fell mellifluously from Abulfazl's practised lips; the final cadence of the farewell holding in it a certain sense of finality.
Some of the audience yawned; surfeited with the magnificences, the festivities of this New Year's Day, both minds and bodies were attuned to sleep in the present, not to dreams of the future.
Outside the wide rose-red arches of the Hall of Audience; a rose-red sunset was flaring in the west. Over the wide plain of India the growing shadows were obliterating the familiar life of millions on millions of men.
So there was silence; a second, as it were, of breathing space. Then, suddenly, a gong struck, echoing through the arches and over the purpling plain beyond them, in rolling reverberations.
One of the three Englishmen who stood in worn doublets and hose awaiting the reply to their Queen's letter shivered slightly. It sounded to him like the knell of some doom. Whose? Theirs, or the King's, who, with face suddenly alert, rose, and standing, looked down the central aisle. The assemblage rose also, more or less alertly, and all eyes followed the King's.
So, cleaving the hot evening air, which seemed the more heated by reason of the fierce blare of many colours, the dazzling glitter of gems which came with that sudden uprising, the sound of boys' voices singing a wild, wavering chant was heard. Then far away down the pathway of Persian carpeting two tiny babyish figures showed, heading a procession of lighted tapers. Boy and girl, they were naked save for the wreaths of roses with which they were bound together, and for the filmy gossamer veil, spangled with diamond dewdrops, which, just reaching their foreheads in front, trailed behind them on the floor. The first footsteps of the following choristers almost touched it, as they advanced slowly, twelve of them in single file, each bearing a massive golden candlestick containing a flaring camphor candle. The smoke of these drifted backward, lit up by the white light to fantastic curves, and rested like a pall over the procession.
The Englishman who had shivered, crossed himself devoutly as he stepped back to let it pass. He felt as if some corpse lay there, lifted high above the world, shrouded by that trailing fume of light.
And now the wailing chant of the "Dismissal of Day"--discordant to English ears--steadied to something vaguely reminiscent of the Kyrie in Palestrina's Mass of Pope Marcellus, as the procession formed itself into a semicircle about the throne, the two tiny figures, girl and boy, tight hand-clasped, solemn, wide-eyed, standing together at the King's very feet.
Come Night! Our day is doneKeep thou the SunSafe in the WestLulled on thy breastFor day is done.Our light its course has runThe West has wonLo! God's behestIs manifestOur course is run.His Might and Right are onePlaint have we noneCome darkness blestGive us thy RestOur day is done.
Come Night! Our day is doneKeep thou the SunSafe in the WestLulled on thy breastFor day is done.
Our light its course has runThe West has wonLo! God's behestIs manifestOur course is run.
His Might and Right are onePlaint have we noneCome darkness blestGive us thy RestOur day is done.
The words fell lingeringly, and with the last, each chorister bent toward his taper and softly blew it out, the tiny children drew the gossamer veil over their faces and, bending to kiss each other, turned, still solemn, wondering, wide-eyed, to head the retreating procession which passed, silently and in shadow, whence it came.
Was it merely the swift extinction of those twelve brilliant tapers symbolising the Hours-of-Light which brought a sudden sense of darkness to all the pomp and magnificence? Or was it only because outside the rose-red arches the sun's last rim was just disappearing beneath the western horizon? Or on that memorable evening when the English grip first closed upon India did some shadow of future fate fall to intensify the solemnity of the Dismissal of Day?
It may well have been so.
"Read that portion again," came Akbar's resonant voice in the pause which ensued, "which says 'with more wordes we should require it.'"
If there was pride in his tone there was arrogance in most of the faces around him. Their owners had already prejudged the case, and were ready with denial. On Akbar's, however, was only the quick curiosity with which he met all new things, and a not unkindly personal interest for the three adventurers whose bold blue eyes gave back his curiosity unabashed, and whose worn doublets, shabby and travel-stained, appealed directly to one who, like Akbar, was desert-born and hardly bred.
"'We are greatly eased of that burden and therefore wee use the fewer and lesse words.'"
The phrase seemed to satisfy, and Akbar held up his despotic forefinger.
"Your names," he said briefly, adding to the clerkly figures who sate in their appointed places on the floor at the extremities of the small semicircle centred on the throne, the equally despotic word, "Write!"
"John Newbery, merchant," replied the tallest of the three, who was also unmistakably the leading spirit. As he spoke he made an obeisance which showed him not absolutely unversed in Eastern etiquettes.
"Your home?" put in Akbar quickly. There was a half-defiance in the answer:
"Aleppo. My purpose is trade." Something in the face, however, belied the latter profession for it showed the restless energy of the born wanderer to whom gain of gold is as nothing to gain of experience and of power.
"Is there then not trade enough in the West?" came the swift question.
"Trade and to spare mayhap, your Majesty," replied John Newbery, "but not enough for Englishmen. We live by trade."
A faint stir of distaste rose from amongst the nobles, and Mân Singh muttered under his breath. "A Râjpût lives by his sword--would I had it in some wames I wot of!"
"And you?" continued the King, turning to the next adventurer. He was shorter, broader, and had an open face, matched by his bluff, frank manner.
"I am one Ralph Fitch by name, may it please your Majesty, citizen and trader of London town."
The answer passed the muster of Akbar's mind, and he repeated the same question to the third traveller.
Older by some years than his companions, his whole appearance suggested a more courtly breeding than theirs.
"May it please your Majesty," he said, dropping on one knee, "if indeed that be the proper form of addressing the mighty Jelabdim Echebar, Emperor of Cambay, I am one William Leedes, a jeweller. Native of England, educated at Ghent and Rotterdam. I have cut gems for royalty"--his eyes fixed themselves on the almost rough translucence of a huge diamond which Akbar wore ever in his turban as a fastening to the royal heron's plume, and then he paused to draw something from his breast--"like this, my liege."
He held out betwixt finger and thumb a small rose-cut diamond. Even in the growing dusk of the Audience Hall it showed its hundred pinpoints of light welded into one bright flash, and a low guttural "wâh" of admiration ran through the immediate circle round the throne. Akbar took the stone between finger and thumb also, and as he looked his eyes clouded instantly with dreams.
"A hundred suns where there is but one," he said, absently; "'tis like a many-sided life!" Then he held the jewel out toward Birbal, the young Princes, Abulfazl, Budaoni, and others of the inner court who were craning over to see it.
"'Tis better cut," he went on, "than the little one Pâdré Rudolfo showed us. Where did you learn the art?"
"At the fountain-head, my liege," replied William Leedes; "of old Louis de Berguein's son at Ghent."
"And you could cut such gems here?"
"Given the stones. 'Tis diamond cut diamond----"
"In all things!" interrupted Akbar, with a sudden smile. Then he turned to John Newbery.
"And what do you bring us in exchange?" he asked.
"Gold; and all that gold brings with it," was the ready reply.
Akbar shook his head. "We have gold and to spare already! Purse-bearer! Set forth the immortal money that they may see we lack it not."
In the brief pause, during which an old courtier stiff with age and brocade fumbled in a netted bag and set out a row of coins on an embroidered kerchief, Akbar sate silent, fingering the vellum of the Queen's letter, absorbed in thought.
"All is prepared, Most Excellent," petitioned the purse-bearer.
"Read out the legends, O Diwân!"
In obedience to the order Abulfazl, stepping forward, raised the first huge disc which contained a hundred pounds worth of pure gold, and read aloud from about the plain stamped semblance of a rose, these words:
I am a golden coinMay golden be my use.
I am a golden coinMay golden be my use.
So from the obverse, where it encircled a lily, came this couplet:
Golden it is to helpThe seeker after truth
Golden it is to helpThe seeker after truth
The Englishmen looked at one another. Their coin of the realm, despite its stamp "Defender of the Faith," held no such sermons.
So from the next largest disc worth just one half thes'hensercame these words:
I am a garment of HopeMay hope be high.
I am a garment of HopeMay hope be high.
and from the obverse:
God in His pleasureGives without measure.
God in His pleasureGives without measure.
"May it please your Most Excellent Majesty," interrupted John Newbery readily, "we ask but this; that following the divine example, your Majesty at your pleasure may grant our request without measure."
Akbar glanced round his court tentatively, first toward his sons. The eldest, Salîm, a big, handsome lad who looked years older than his age--eighteen--was asleep. Prince Murâd the next, tall, lanky, cadaverous, sate sulky, indifferent. The youngest, Danyâl, a mere boy of some twelve years, was carelessly munching sweetmeats. The King's glance shifted with a sigh to Birbal's face.
"Wanderers are always beggars," quoted the latter warningly.
"Has Akbar's purse no penny left as alms?" came the instant answer.
"If this slave's opinion be asked, as Keeper of the Most Excellent's regalia," spoke up Ghiâss Beg boldly, "I must protest against the jeweller."
Akbar's sudden laugh seemed almost an outrage on that decorous assemblage. "Sure Akbar's crown can spare a gem or two? What dost thou say, O Abulfazl?"
As he spoke, he sought the wide-open, tolerant, far-seeing eyes of the man on whom, more than on all the others, he was dependent for the capable grip on possibilities which changed dreams into realities.
The eyes narrowed themselves for the moment, their gaze concentrated on that somewhat forlorn-looking group of three, awaiting the verdict.
"They come, Most Excellent," he said slowly, "by their own showing from a nation of traders. 'Tis your Majesty's axiom--a true one--that where trade flourishes justice must lie, seeing that the greater principle of mind is needed for the control over the lesser principle of gold. Yet, ere your Majesty decides, it were well that these traders be made acquainted with your Majesty's law, which while yielding due profit to the dealer, denies to him greed of unearned gain; the law demands fair, frank dealing from both parties to every contract of sale." He turned to the trio, adding courteously, "Doubtless it is also the law of your land, and of your Queen; since the fame of the justice of both has echoed here to the East?"
The three wanderers looked at each other dubiously, and Ralph Fitch muttered under his breath, "Ours iscaveat emptorand it works well."
Then John Newbery pulled himself together and made bold answer:
"We need no such law, for England while she trades free, trades fair. And by that just fame of our country and of our Queen we engage to do naught unbecoming of either----"
"And to abide by my laws," put in Akbar sharply.
"And to abide by such laws!" echoed John Newbery, adding to himself, "so long as they may last."
There was a pause. Once more Akbar's hand--that true Eastern hand, loose-knit, double-jointed, small, yet with sinews of iron--fingered the Queen's letter. At all times his mind went forth joyfully to any new thing, expectant, he scarcely knew of what; and this vellum, warming under his finger-touch seemed to grow responsive.
It was like a woman's hand. Aye! it was a woman's hand stretched out as a Queen's, to him as King! Stretched out across the sea; that dim mysterious sea which he had seen once, long years before, of which he had so often dreamt since, seeing himself standing with the ebbing tide at his feet and calling across the receding waters....
Calling for what?
For reply--always for the reply that never came!
"Write," he said suddenly, "write: Who injures them injures me, Akbar the Emperor. They have safe conduct so long as they remain in my realms."
John Newbery gave almost a laugh of relief. His part was played. The rest lay with Providence--and Commerce! England had gained a foothold in India. Let her see to it that she kept it. Aye! and more than kept it.
"There is yet one more petition," said Abulfazl hastily, as the King made as if he would rise. "The envoy from Sinde waits to bring the accession offering of the new ruler to the feet of acceptance."
Akbar sank back amongst his cushions resignedly. The province of Sinde was a perpetual thorn in his side. Sooner or later he felt it must be delivered from the tyranny of its hereditary rulers, but a Tarkhân was a Tarkhân, that is someone whom even a king would hesitate to touch, someone hedged round by strange privileges and high honours. Still annexation must come in the sequence of civilisation, so what mattered it if Bâzi committed suicide in a fit of drunkenness, if Payandâr Jân his son--poor "Wayfarer in Life" by name indeed!--had gone mad and disappeared in the Great Desert, or whether Jâni Beg or any other of the ill-doing royal house of Târkhâns had seized the reins of government.
It was a farce from beginning to end. His sympathies lay, if anywhere, with the Wanderer who had sought escape, so men said, from hereditary iniquity in the wilderness. From what? If rumour spoke true from terrors almost too horrible to be told.
So he sate indifferent while the envoy, a slight man with flowing black hair and beard, and curious dull eyes, read out from a gold-leaf besprinkled paper that Bâzi had taken the baggage of immortality from the lodging of life, that Payandâr having poured the dust of his brain into the sieve of perplexity and so removed the known into the unknown, Jâni Beg placed his unworthiness on the steps of the Throne of Virtue.
He did not even look up when the reading ceased and Birbal advanced to perform his duty of taking the missive in its brocaded bag and handing it to the throne.
But a quick exclamation roused him.
"What is it?" he asked, for Birbal stood staring at the envoy.
"Nothing, Most Excellent!" was the hasty reply, but the speaker still stared at the envoy's throat. Was it--or was it not--a smagdarite of which Birbal had caught a glimpse beneath brocaded muslin? His curiosity prevailed.
"I wait, sire," he added suavely, "for the virtuous name of this accredited of Kings."
The envoy's hand went up to his throat; he bowed gravely.
"Sufur-Dâr Khân of the Kingly House," he replied.
For the life of him Birbal could not resist another low swift question.
"And of the talisman he wears?"
The dull dark eyes held the alert ones.
"A common stone called smagdarite. If it pleases the Favoured-of-Kings, this Dust-born-Atom-in-a-Beam-of-Light resigns it."
Ye Gods! A rose-garden indeed! Birbal's bodily eyes saw the slender dark hand holding out the lustreless green stone, but his mind was lost in colour, beauty, perfume. Rose-leaves twined themselves into his brain, they sought his heart, their scent bewildered his soul, and faint and far off he seemed to hear a singing voice--
Who would have Musk of Roses must not touch the Rose.Its scent is secret; only Heaven knowsHow the sweet essence of a spirit grows.
Who would have Musk of Roses must not touch the Rose.Its scent is secret; only Heaven knowsHow the sweet essence of a spirit grows.
"What now!" came Akbar's full imperious voice. "Must the King wait while Birbal dreams?"
The rose garden disappeared, for Birbal, taking it, thrust it hastily into his bosom, and then advanced toward the King with the brocaded bag.
"It is accepted," said the latter impatiently, signing away the offering, "the audience ends. Birbal, your arm. I lack air. This place is stifling."
The Englishmen awaiting the Lord Chamberlain to conduct them to suitable lodging looked round the fast-emptying Hall-of-Audience with the sort of stupefaction which follows on accomplishment.
"If we lose grip," said John Newbery suddenly, "'twill be the fault of metal."
"Mettle," echoed William Leedes almost sadly. "There is mettle here and to spare already, God knows. Yet must it go, since it is not of English making."
Ralph Fitch looked at him dubiously. "We be Christian men, comrade, and these but Pagans. Moreover, our commerce----"
John Newbery gave a loud laugh. "The pike and carronade for my choice, my masters! But cheer up, friend! We will do the cutting of India whilst William Leedes facets yonder pigeon's egg Echebar wore in his turban."
The jeweller looked up quickly. "Lo! I could not an' I would! There is something of steady radiance in it that would defy my tools."
So they followed their guide, catching a glimpse as they passed through the courtyards of two figures standing under the Great Arch of Victory and looking out over the purpling Indian plain. It was Akbar's favourite evening resort, and to-night he had his favourite companion, Birbal.
It was growing chill already under the massive masonry of the palaces, but it was still warm out in the open where the blistering sun had scorched all day long into the very heart of India--that dreaming heart hidden away under the wide arid levels, under the calm content of its multitudinous peoples.
The little dancing lights of the long line of booths and shops which edged the whole twenty miles from Fatehpur Sikri to Agra had already begun to glitter. The stars were lower in the sky, and only in the West, Venus hung resplendent. A haze of heat and dust from the lingering steps of homing cattle lay in quaint streaks, still faintly tinted with gold, over the distant country, and hung whiter, more obscure, and mingled with the smoke of the city, about the base of that mighty mountain of wide measured steps which recedes up and upward, climbing the low ridge of rocks until it finds pause in the vast platform whence--as springs no other in the wide world--the tall Arch of Victory thrusts itself skyward exultantly.
"'Hafiz!'" quoted the King suddenly. "'No one knows the secret! Why dost ask what happens in the Wheel of Time?' But we do ask it, Birbal! How many years is it since we two have sought the rose-essence of truth and found nothing but the scentless leaves? And yet 'tis here! I feel it, I know it!"--he touched his forehead lightly. "Strange to hunger so, after what is hidden in me, myself!"
Birbal shook his head. "What is self, my master? Purûsha gazes upon the Dancer Prakrîti, but by and by his eyes will tire of her disguises----"
"And then," interrupted Akbar, eagerly, "what then? When the object is gone, what of the subject? Answer me that, thou cold Kapilian! Nay! Birbal! I cannot believe it so. It strikes a chill to my very marrow. 'Tis warmer beneath the shelter of All-pervading Âtman holding both mind and matter in tenacious grip. Yet even that is cold to my hot life."
He turned slightly, and let his eyes follow the inlaid marble lettering of the legend which he himself had ordered to be set round his great Arch of Victory.
Said Jesus, on whom be peace: The world is a bridge, pass over it, but build no house there. Who hopes for an Hour, hopes for Eternity. Spend the Hour in Devotion. The rest is unknown.
"Aye! but a bridge to what?" he murmured. "Could I but know what lies before me--before this land!" His eyes embraced the darkening plain, and questioned vainly the reddening flush behind the departed sun. "We hope--that is all--hope for an hour--hope for eternity!--an eternity for ourselves and for our children!"
Those far-seeing eyes turned to rest lovingly on the red towers of Fatehpur Sikri. "No! I will never give it up. Birbal--it is my city of dreams--the heritage of those who shall come after me--the birthplace and the death-place of the holder of an empire that is deathless. Water? Lo! what is water? 'Man,' says Pâdré Rudolfo the Jesuit, 'doth not live by bread alone.' Neither does he live by water."
"Natheless, sire!" put in Birbal drily, "it hath a trick of being the birthplace of most things; and the last report of the engineers is unfavourable. There is not even a dampness at three hundred feet!"
"Then we must make an aqueduct from the river--the Ganges, an' thou wilt--even from Holy Himâlya," answered the King gaily. "Akbar is not to be let or hindered by aught save Death--and even so"--he glanced with his winning, affectionate, almost womanish smile, at the man beside him--"thou dost not forget the promise that whoever of us finds freedom first shall come back--with news."
"I have not forgotten, Master," replied Birbal. "Yet who should want my poor ghost--if I have one?"
Akbar's face lit up with curiosity, almost with credulousness.
"A ghost! By my faith, Birbal--which only God Himself knows since I sway like any weathercock!--a ghost is what we need! Someone to tell us fairly, squarely----" Then he smiled. "Didst see one but now when thou stoodst staring at the Sinde envoy like a fretted porcupine?"
Birbal paused. He had almost forgotten the incident. "Nay, I saw no ghost," he said slowly, and his hand sought his bosom as he spoke.
Then his face paled, for he could feel nothing there. The Garden of Roses had gone.
Oh! fathers who have sung I singWith woman's lipsYet shall your sword hold honour for the KingTill my blood dripsTo cover failure with red blazoning,Of set defiance, deathful-triumphingOhé the KingChallenge I bringOhé the King, the King!
Oh! fathers who have sung I sing
With woman's lips
Yet shall your sword hold honour for the King
Till my blood drips
To cover failure with red blazoning,
Of set defiance, deathful-triumphing
Ohé the King
Challenge I bring
Ohé the King, the King!
The huge silver hilted, cross-handled sword she had been holding--its point skyward--smote the stone at her feet as the wild chant ended, and the clang of the tempered steel rang out over the roof as Âtma Devi, turning to the north, the south, the east, the west, repeated her challenge. She had put on her father's silvered coat of mail, and her long black hair bound with a silver fillet about the brows, made her look like some Valkyrie of the West, ready to avenge the slain.
A water-bright ripple of laughter came from the door opening on to the small square of roof, and Âtma turned toward it fiercely to see a pink and yellow lollipop of a woman, respectability, in the shape of a thick whiteburkaveil,[8]flung at her feet, leaning against the door lintel and watching her amusedly.
Her fierce frown faded. "Yamin," she said slowly, "What dost thou here?"
Siyah Yamin, pampered darling of the town, sank down, like a snake coiling itself, amid circling billows of soft scented satin and jingling fringes of silver and pearls. She was a small woman, extraordinarily graceful, extraordinarily beautiful, with a tiny oval innocent-looking face on which neither pleasure no pain left any mark whatever. From the crown of her head to the sole of her feet she looked, and was, prepared at all points for her trade; a dainty piece of confectionery ready to satisfy any sensual appetite.
"Here?" she echoed, and the one word showed her a passed-mistress in polished elocution. "Didst fancy I would stay in Satanstown because his Majesty the Monk chose to lump me with other loose livers and exile us beyond his city's walls? Not I!" Here the water-bright laugh rang out derisively. "Lo! many things have happened since Siyâla played with Âtma--what a bully thou wast in those days to poor little me; and thou lookst it now, thou sister of the veil!--for did we not drink milk together out of one vessel and under one veil, see you, before I drifted to the temple--and so hitherward? Yea! leaning on thy sword so--why! thou lookst beautiful! Could but some of my men see you----"
"Peace, woman!" said Âtma sternly. The tall cross-hilted sword held point downward formed a support for her elbow as she rested her head on her hand and gazed thoughtfully at Siyah Yamin.
"Thou hast not changed much, Siyâla," she said, more softly.
"Come! that is more like," laughed the little lady. "Those were merry old days! A pity thou didst not come with me to the temple, Âtma! Better anyhow than widowhood ere womanhood began."
"Peace, child!" repeated Âtma sternly. "What canst thou know of that high fate which makes of womanhood something beyond itself--but I waste words. Wherefore hast thou come?"
Siyah Yamin pouted her pretended sulkiness. "Because from my roof yonder--lo! how well we have kept the secret that thou didst not know the Companion-of-the-Court was thy next neighbour!--it hath been such fun, Âtma! beguiling the beadles whom his Monkey Majesty----"
"Have a care, Siyah Yamin!" interrupted Âtma hotly--"the King----"
Siyah Yamin coiled herself to closer laughing curves. "The King!" she echoed, "Oh yea! Âtma and the King--the King and Âtma!"
The woman hidden within the sword-bearer shrank back and paled.
"Well! What of Âtma and the King?"
"Naught! Naught!" laughed the little lady, "but I have heard of thy success to-day. What is there that Siyah Yamin does not hear? So when I saw thee from my roof up yonder with the old man's armour and the sword--frown not sweet sister, it becomes thee mightily--I just caught up my veil, and ran downstairs (for we have many entrances see you, and this tenement of yours is one of them) to offer thee congratulations--since if the King cast even the wink of an eye on a woman that is something! And theysayhe raised thee by the hands!"
The hot blood surged into Âtma's face. "And if he did, what then?" she asked.
Siyah Yamin rose, and yawning took up her veil. "Touching comes before tasting," she replied airily, "even with Kings. And so, having offered my gratulations on good luck--farewell."
Âtma stood frowning at her. "Thou playest a dangerous game, Siyâla; if the King discovers that thou--the darling of the town--hast set his rule at naught----"
Siyah Yamin burst into a perfect cascade of laughter. "Fie on thee, Âtma! and me a married woman, veiled, secluded, a perfect cupola of chastity!" Wrapped in her white burka, all one could see of the devilry within, was two eyes brimming over with malignant mischief.
"Married!" gasped Âtma, "what man has dared----?"
"Aye! He is brave," assented the courtesan, "and I love him--as much as I love most! And he is the best-looking of them all--is Jamâl-ud-din."
"Syed Jamâl-ud-din of Bârha?" echoed Âtma incredulously.
The veiled head nodded. "Yea! He is Syed, and set on his religion. So I said the Creed and he gave me one of the eight marriages--I forget which. These Mahommedan ceremonials are not awe-inspiring like the Seven Steps and the Sacrificial Fire; lo! even with no man, but a dagger, that gave me shivers. Thou wilt come and see me, Âtma. It is pleasant up there. We have joined four roofs. Ask for the Persianbibifrom Khorasân and if needful give the password--'Kings-town.' Rage not, virtuous beloved! 'Tis better anyhow to live under Akbar than under Satan!"
So with a tinkling of silver and pearl fringes she passed upward.
Âtma stood for a while lost in thought, then rousing herself in quick impatience, put aside the sword in its appointed corner, removed her hauberk, laid it on the ground in front of the sword and on it set the two lamps which all night long kept watch and ward over the weapon, placed between them the death-dagger of her race, and so, her new-come evening task finished, went toward the parapet of the roof and, leaning her arms on it, looked out over the fast-fading horizon of India.
In her dark eyes still lay some of the unrest, the resentment which, since her father's death, had made the townsfolk call her mad: for those words with which the King had gifted to her the Châranship, "I'll treat thee not as woman, but as man," had curiously enough brought home to her all the limitations of that womanhood.
How little she could do--except die--for the King's honour. Still the roof was no longer voiceless. The challenge had rung out from it once more, obliterating the sad echoes of that last dying effort of the old man. She looked round as if listening for that feeble whisper.
No! It had gone. She was the Châran now! and the edge of the death-dagger was keen enough for woman's flesh; she might yet join the great and noble company of the self-immolated.
Her heart stirred in her at the thought of their deeds enshrined in old bardic verses that had been handed down from father to son from generation to generation.
They were in her keeping now at any rate, and she must not forget them.
So, half-kneeling by the low parapet, her chin resting upon her crossed arms, she said them over to herself rough, rude, almost unintelligible, yet still instinct with fire, with courage, with defiance.
She lingered lovingly over one: that tale of how the young ten-year-old Heera when his father was treacherously slain and his master falsely accused of high treason to his suzerain, was sent forth by his mother to seek his father's body in the wilds, and having found it, to take the death-dagger from the bleeding corpse, and so, all travel-stained and weary, his young face blistered with tears, to appear before the hasty tribunal and give the champion's cry--
It is a lie!I, Heera, II take the lie!Ye Bright-Ones see me die!Avenge the lie!
It is a lie!I, Heera, II take the lie!Ye Bright-Ones see me die!Avenge the lie!
And thus by his death force upon the conspirators a full inquiry. So she knelt dreaming, her chin upon her hand while the glow of the set sun faded from the sky.
Yet with all her dreaming she was very woman, and in every fibre of her being she still felt the touch of the King's hands upon hers.
Such hungry hands! Dimly, in her sexless soul, she recognised that quality in them. What did they want? Not womanhood certainly. But who wanted that? No one. Motherhood was one thing and widowhood was another, but sexual womanhood was nescience.
With a sigh she rose to fetch her Dharm-shastra and read her nightly portion from its pages, choosing it at random, so manyslokasthis way or that way from the one on which her eye fell first. Yet despite this superstitious selection, she was learned beyond the learning of most women, beyond even that of many learned men, for her father had taught her as he taught his sons--all save the Sacred Text, that privilege of Brahmanhood. The limitation, however, left Âtma smiling, since her widowhood outweighed for her the repetition of manygayatris.
By it she gained a privilege greater than her brothers. By its very virginity she became their ancestress, the ancestress of all her race. That voluntary yielding up of sex brought her eternal motherhood, because through her renunciation those heroes had found life everlasting.
Her barren breasts--sucked of no child's lips--had nurtured them--nurtured them all!
Shiv-jee, Râjindar, half a hundred others, were all her children. Aye, it was her hands which had sent little Heera into the wilderness to do his duty. His childish face full of tears of courage was hers!--was hers!
There was no death; nothing but unending life that "cannot slay that is not slain." So to her, as she sate reading the Sacred Book came spirits innumerable, until in the vast multitude of men, her own womanhood was lost.
A low knock came to the door. Holding the light by which she had been reading in her hand, she rose and went toward it.
"Who enters?" she asked, and started at the reply.
"It is I, Birbal. Open, my sister. I come from the King."
He stood within the threshold unfolding the shawl with which he was enveloped, and disclosing his keen face lit by a satirical smile.
"A good password, by all that's holy," he said airily. "Nay! frown not, sister, I am of thy tribe."
"True," she replied gravely. "My father spoke often of Maheshwar Rao"--she gave Birbal's tribal name with intent--"and said that could he but learn not to jest----"
The faint laugh, the little shrug of the shoulders came, unfailing as ever.
"Were the world less amusing, sister," he said, "Birbal might have more chance!" He passed lightly to the parapet, and sate on it dangling his legs "Padré Rudolfo, the Jesuit, hath it," he continued, "that I am the fool who saith 'There is no God'; but Birbal propounds no such proposition. He hath an open mind. His very errand here this night, my sister, shows--shall we say credulity? I come, sister, for thyrebeckplayer. I need him."
"Wherefore?" asked Âtma quickly.
Birbal's mouth quivered cynically. "Shall I say the King desires him, sister? Nay! I will not lie. I want him, because of a talisman stone he wears around his neck. He called it smagdarite. I wish to see it again."
"A stone?" echoed Âtma surprised, "what stone? He wears no talisman, for sure."
Birbal's feet came down the roof in sudden excitement. "He wears none! Better and better! Tell me where he lives, sister. I would see for myself. Come! quick, the night goes on, and it is time the King's Châran was abed."
He looked at her in frank mockery and she flushed slowly.
"If it be not for harm," she began, "he is but a poor player."
"Harm!" he echoed impatiently. "If what I think prove true, it is not likely Birbal would harm one possessed of--smagdarite! Out with it, sister. I have tramped from well to water, and water to well, these two hours seeking the Sinde envoy, but it comes ever from each clue that he has gone--disappeared beyond the city. So I bethought me of smagdarite and thee. Come! where lives he?"
"I will take my lord thither," she said evasively. "Nay! 'tis no trouble; he lives--he lives here in this very house."
She raised the light above her head and passed down the stairs. It was a many-storied tenement house, that circled round a central stair, and then broke away from it and wandered in labyrinthine passages to return once more to the same flight of steps; or was it another and she was purposely deluding him?
On and on they went through the dark silence, going down and down.
"He is in the cellars," she said, pausing at a corner to show with her lamp a flight of smaller, steeper steps. "He is so poor, he cannot pay. Have a care! the steps are broken!"
They stood before a small low door at which Âtma knocked. There was no answer. "Wayfarer!"[9]she cried softly. "O! Wayfarer!"
Still no answer.
"I have a key," she said, and drew one from her bosom. Birbal followed the light into the dark room. In that hot climate a cellar is no bad place wherein to live, and this one struck pleasantly cool, deliciously scented as by a thousand roses in blossom.
Birbal was conscious of a sudden elation. He was on the track assuredly! The next instant he was standing beside a string bed on which lay, wrapped in a white sheet, the figure of therebeckplayer. The clear, fine profile turned upward almost as if he lay dead, and he did not stir when Âtma touched him on the shoulder.
She gave a vexed sigh. "It is the Dream-compeller," she said, "he takes it at times, and lies like a log, and then----"
But Birbal, eager in his quest, had drawn the sheet aside, and now started back with a swift exclamation. For, on the drugged man's breast was no talisman; but, upturned as his, there lay the most beautiful face surely in the whole wide world. It was that of a girl apparently not yet in her teens, yet still close on womanhood; perfect, delicate, pure, like some scented lily. Her breath coming and going regularly exhaled the perfume of a thousand flowers.
"'Tis Zarîfa--his daughter," explained Âtma softly. "She is a cripple utterly. Naught shows of her scarcely save her face, but when her eyes are open, one forgets." She gathered the sheet together so as to hide all that should be hidden. Only that perfect face remained asleep upon the Wayfarer's breast.
"Does he give the Dream-stuff to her also?" asked Birbal, feeling his voice unsteady. Poet, artist, to his finger-tips, the sight before him stirred him in every fibre, bringing with it a sense of half-remembered dreams.
She shook her head. "He sends her to sleep first with flower essences. She is like a deer for scent--a rose makes her unconscious, and then they sleep, and sleep, and sleep."
Slumber seemed in the air. They stood beside the low string bed, silent, almost drowsy. Âtma roused herself with an effort.
"He promised he would not; but they must have been given money to-day," she said regretfully. "There is no use waiting, my lord--they will sleep for hours--perhaps days."
"Days?" he echoed interrogatively.
She passed her hand over her forehead again. "It seems as if it were days. Then, when he goes out, I carry Zarîfa up to my roof. She is so light. There is nothing of her but the face. Yet she sings like a bird."
Birbal's hand went out to the lamp Âtma held and turned its light full on her face.
"You are but half-awake yourself, sister," he said gravely. "And it is all hours of the night. See, I will wait until I note your light pass on the uppermost stair, lest danger lurk for you in the dark."
He waited for her to lock the door, then standing in the dark archway watched her twinkling light circle the stairs, then disappear, circle again higher up and disappear, until he judged from the failure of the twinkle to return that she had reached her roof. And, as he watched his mind was busy.
Who was this man? And did he really possess the art which some deemed magic, but which he, keen rational thinker, found to be inextricably mixed up with the whole problem of life? What was it that all the great ones of the earth had possessed? What gave them their power, their influence? What was it, for instance, which made his own clear-seeing eyes fall at times before those dreams in Akbar's? What was it, what?
His whole life was one ceaseless questioning; and finding no answer, he jested at the very question itself. What was reality? Not surely the death-like profile he had just seen, the death-like form with that flower-face upon its breast.
He was turning to go when a burst of half-sober laughter rose close beside him and a voice answered tipsily.
"Ts'sh, Dhâri, thou art not safe yet in Siyah Yamin's paradise, so lurch not, fool, lest the watch seize thee! Take my arm, lo! I am steady."
A sound as of confused tumbling against the wall belied the assertion.
Every atom of blood in Birbal's body seemed to leap to his hands in anger, for he recognised the voice. It was that of his only son, his spendthrift son Lâlla--the son of so much promise, so many regrets. And the other was his boon companion Dhâri--another bad son of a good father--Tôdar Mull the man whose financial skill had saved the Empire from the oppression of bribery. Where then was the third of this precious trio of young rakes? Where was the Heir Apparent, Prince Salîm? Not far off, that he would warrant!
Slipping off his shoes, he followed up the stairs, keeping at a respectful distance to be beyond reach of the lurches, yet close enough to hear the password given at the closed door, not far he judged from Âtma's square of roof. Allowing a decent interval he knocked again and briefly saying "Kings-town" found himself admitted to an inner, scantily-lit staircase which, however, showed a brilliant light at its end.
A minute more and he stood looking with a curious amusement at Siyah Yamin's paradise. The jade had taste! Here on the highest roof in all the city she had set a terraced garden open only to the stars. The little coloured lights, edging the rose beds and the tiny splashing fountains, scarcely sent their diffused radiance higher than his knee. It did not reach the edge of the trellised walls, and above that was night; cool, quiet, night. A liveried servant salaamed to him profusely, then returned to his solitary game of cards. A white Persian cat rose, hunched up its back and clawed viciously on the Persian carpets laid along the paths, then yawned showing its needle. like teeth. From a confused heap of silks and satins under an awning came loud snores, but at the farther end of the far roof there was wakefulness; for a half-tipsy, wholly-discordant voice made itself heard singing a song--