Love sent music to sing Love's praiseSo Harmony came to this world's sad ways.Master of melody, Cæsar of sound,Each chord he struck fettered reasoning,Till man and beast by it quite were boundInto friendship fast and companioning.Yea! at the note of his crooked lyreOne wakened up, one was lulled to sleep,And the whole wide world grew quick with desireTo dance and to die, to laugh and to weep.At the burst of his blended melodyThe heart of the wise knew the mystery.--Nizâmi.
Love sent music to sing Love's praiseSo Harmony came to this world's sad ways.Master of melody, Cæsar of sound,Each chord he struck fettered reasoning,Till man and beast by it quite were boundInto friendship fast and companioning.Yea! at the note of his crooked lyreOne wakened up, one was lulled to sleep,And the whole wide world grew quick with desireTo dance and to die, to laugh and to weep.At the burst of his blended melodyThe heart of the wise knew the mystery.
--Nizâmi.
"Lo I am true!" cried Âtma menacingly, "Art thou so also, O! Siyâl?"
She had been with the courtesan for full half an hour, time was running short, and yet she felt that she had gained nothing, and knew scarcely more than she had done when she had climbed the steep oil-greased narrow stairs to the balcony room. She had been eager then to face fact--if need be--keen to test the loyalty of her fellow conspirators; but now she stood baffled before Siyah Yamin's easy but inflexible contempt. That someone had betrayed them the latter said was indubitable; and as Âtma was the only outsider, she must be the culprit. Not necessarily a conscious offender. But, by all she held most sacred, did not Âtma know of some indiscretion, could she not, briefly, guess--and then the noisy, yet silvery laugh had rung out at the Châran's tell-tale face. Her tongue, however, had been loyal. She had refused to say a word. Not that she felt in any way bound to shield Mihr-un-nissa from the possible revenge of those whose game she had given away, but because it was out of the question to tell of the secret visit of a screened lady.
So Siyah Yamin had declined information except by fair barter; declined it with jibes and smiles; but now sudden pallor came to her face, she shifted her eyes uneasily from Âtma's half accusing ones.
"True?" she echoed, and, and her voice had a petulant ring in it. "Aye! as true as it befits womanhood to be! Lo! Âto I grow tired of my sex at times and would I were a man!" She pressed her hands close to her heart, then suddenly burst out again into her hard silvery laugh "And thou? sweet widow--dost not pine for thy lover Sher Khân? Is he not here despite these--petticoats?" She flounced out her clinging muslins.
"Peace, fool! So thou wilt not tell" said Âtma frowning, "then I must ask elsewhere."
"Aye! Ask!" jibed the courtesan. "There be many with tongues beside poor little me who will, look you, have confidence for confidence. Belike the Beneficent Ladies, or mayhap Rajah Birbal for the Envoy from Sinde whom some deem a mere simulacrum of a man, or even the Feringhi jeweller--to say nothing of the King himself."
Her eyes were keenly on the Châran's face as she spoke, but there was no flicker of expression to give her any clue. In truth Âtma was absolutely in the dark. She did not even know if the turban were lost or found. Her mind ran riot over supposition in either case. If the former, it could not remain lost for ever in those underground chambers. It might even now have drifted to the tank where a hundred hands might find it. She must go and watch. And yet, what use? The rather send divers to search below; if indeed any man would so adventure his life! And for this she must proclaim a cause, proclaim that she knew of the theft. And after all there might be no reason for this. Birbal, with his quick wit, must have saved the turban. He must; yet not even he could outwit Fate.
She smote her hands together again impotently as she ran, this time toward the roof which she had left too long. That feeling of neglected duty strangely enough, overmastered all others. She must go back to her immediate charge. Once there she would have time to think what she must do to find out the truth. For she must find it even if she had to go to the King himself tell him all and then repay herself for treachery by the death dagger.
But what she found awaiting her on the roof drove these thoughts from her mind for a time; only for a time--that Time which meant nothing to one brought up as she had been, in a philosophy which counts the past, the present, the future as one. For in India there is no hurry about anything; the wisdom of Isaiah is in every mouth, "He that believeth shall not make haste."
Yet as she joined in the woman's wailing over Zarîfa--for the news of death spreads quickly, and the neighbours troop in as to a festival--a dull wonder lay at the back of her brain, a vague resentment at her own ignorance.
In truth the resentment was scarcely justifiable, since many others concerned in the incident were feeling the same dull surprise.
The conspirators first of all, who found themselves once more deprived of theirpoint d'appui. And Khodadâd the arch-plotter was strangely silent, strangely lacking in suggestion. As the day wore on, indeed he withdrew petulantly from all conclave, and taking Mirza Ibrahîm with him, plunged into pleasure at Satanstown. For something in that scent of roses on the roof, something in the look of that face sleeping so peacefully upon the pillow, had roused memory; and memory in her long slumber had somehow, from some subliminal consciousness in that unknown ego of which Khodadâd Tarkhân was the outward and visible sign, associated herself with regret. He told himself, lightly, that it was the shock of seeing deformity where he had expected beauty, which had unnerved him; but it was not that. It was the ineffaceable memory of Beauty itself.
Then in the Palace where Umm Kulsum and Aunt Rosebody had sate in the little balcony outside the latter's private room all the morning, unable to feel joy over the merciful escape of the Most High and their scapegrace darling because of the probable loss of the turban with its talisman; yet unable to feel sufficient grief over the latter because of bubbling gladness over the Brotherhood between those two dear ones (a Brotherhood that nothing must disturb, not even self-seeking confession of sin) on to all this had followed a dull wonder as to what was to be done next. For after noonday prayers were over had come a despatch by hand from my Lord Birbal, Chief Constable of the Kingdom returning in due course of etiquette to the givers, the turban they had supposed lost. And what is more, when their anxious fingers had privilege to pry, there was the talisman also, safe and sound.
The shock of relief kept them both silent awhile; then Aunt Rosebody cracked all her knuckles vehemently.
"So goes care!" she cried, adding piously, "truly we might have trusted God! His club makes no noise, and what's in the pot comes on the plate."
Then her face clouded. "But what is to be done next Ummu?" she asked feebly. Umm Kulsum shook her head.
"We might give it back to the woman."
"What?" interrupted the little old lady peevishly. "To a civet-cat from the bazaar of whom we know nothing?"
"There was the red woman also, auntie," suggested the Mother of Plumpness, "she seemed honest--at least when she came to----"
"Tell Mihru's fortune--a pack of lies!" sniffed her companion. "Canst think of nothing better, child?"
"Mayhap it might be wiser," suggested Umm Kulsum again, "to consult----"
"Consult whom?" shrilled Gulbadan Khânum, and this time the interruption was wrathful. "What would be the use of asking Hamida? All know her answer. 'Tell truth and shame Shaitan.' And as for Râkiya Begum with her spectacles and her etiquettes and her distiches, I would sooner die! Now it would be different if 'Dearest Lady' were alive----" She paused and her lively dark eyes grew limpid with sudden tears.
"We can go where she went for wisdom," whispered little Umm Kulsum consolingly, "we can pray."
Aunt Rosebody gave a grunt of satisfaction and dried her eyes. "Aye! there is some sense in that! We can pray and wait. 'Twill at least give us time to think out some plan for ourselves, and sleep brings wisdom; but Ummu, Ummu, I would give every hair I possess--and though they are gray they are not uncomely--that I had never mixed myself up with the King's Luck. 'Tis worse than the Day of Resurrection, for then a body will but have two roads to choose--up and down--and here! Lo! wonder grows like a white ants' castle."
In this feeling Aunt Rosebody was not alone. Birbal himself was in a similar state of blank surprise, for to him had come the most startling dénouement of all.
After the momentous events of the night he had felt himself entitled to a few hours' rest. He had had little of it by day or by dark, ever since he had discovered the theft of the diamond; for he had given himself up wholly to the recovery of the stolen jewel; but now that he had this safely stowed away in his waistband-purse he could spare leisure for comfort. So he slept the sleep of the just, without a dream to disturb him. Yet his brain must have been working, for, when he woke, it was to a sense that in the excitement of the moment of success he had made a mistake. Had he had time to consider he would never have given himself away to his enemies as he had done by showing them that he knew of the talisman. It was a tactical error; which might be partially rectified so far as some people were concerned. Therefore without further delay, he sent a message to William Leedes, at the Hall of Labour, to come up to him at once, bringing the false diamond with him. When this arrived it did not take long to exchange the true for the false, and then with due decorum to send the turban back to the Beneficent Ladies, who, he knew from what Mihr-un-nissa had said, had given it to the Prince. He calculated cunningly that this return would at least keep them quiet, and women were invariably at the bottom of every conspiracy.
He felt very secure, very confident, very complacent, and spent an hour or two in entertaining William Leedes with Eastern sumptuousness ere ordering the palanquins to take the jeweller and the diamond back to safe keeping in the Hall of Labour, whence he assured himself no thief in the world would have another chance of purloining it. In truth he had some reason for complacency; since the general outlook was clearing. These repeated failures must dishearten the enemies of empire, and the mere fact of the bond of Brotherhood between the King and his son--which had come incidentally by the way in the course of counterplot--added to the chance of Akbar being content with practical politics and remaining at Fatephur Sikri.
The only unsatisfactory item in past or present was the memory of the man who juggled with other men's eyes and ears. Who and what was he? A friend to Akbar at any rate, and for the time being, that was enough.
The wide roof of the Hall of Labour lay ablaze with afternoon sunshine as they entered it, and as they passed along the arcades, the workmen looked up and salaamed. The door of Diswunt's studio was locked and barred, and a sentry paced across that of the jeweller. Known though they were, it required the password ere William Leedes could produce his key, unlock the door, enter, then close and lock it again behind them.
Birbal gave a sigh of relief as he drew out his waistband-purse. "At last!" he said holding out the diamond. "Replace it on the lathe, sir jeweller, and once I see it there--lo! I will vow pilgrimage if needs be. Yea! I will cry 'Hari Ganga' like any drunk man in a puddle!"
He turned aside, out of sheer lightheartedness, humming aghazalfrom Hâfiz.
Make fast a wine cup to my shroudThat at the latter dayMy soul a good drink be allowedTo nerve it for the fray.
Make fast a wine cup to my shroudThat at the latter dayMy soul a good drink be allowedTo nerve it for the fray.
Meanwhile the jeweller's deft hands were busy. A few turns, a click or two, and William Leedes bent over the treasure joyfully.
"There it is, my master; with naught but a few days' delay in the cutting thereof! I must be all the quicker now, else the King will wonder. Yet have I lost as little time as may be, since the next facet is assured--it will run so."
The delicate steel point he held just touched the surface. Then it fell away from it, as the hand holding the instrument seemed to shrink back. The foot, too, left the treadle, and the spinning pivots slackened speed and sank to rest.
"What is't?" asked Birbal, turning hastily.
The jeweller's face was white, his very jaw had fallen.
"It--it scratches" he muttered faintly "there is some mistake."
There was no mistake about the scratch however. It showed distinct, and wrote the truth without a shadow of doubt. This was no diamond; it was a fraud, like the other!
For an instant Birbal's head whirled. Then helplessly he fingered his purse again. Could he by chance have made a mistake and sent back the wrong one? Impossible; and yet?
He sank on the jeweller's seat and covered his face with his hands. For once his wit was not quick enough to grasp the situation, and-- clogging thought!--that dim suspicion recurred despite denial--Had he by chance made a mistake?
So Âtma as she sate apart on the roof watching the Mahommedan woman prepare Zarîfa's body for the burial which was to take place at sunset had no monopoly in confusion and wonder. She could take no part in what was going on. She dare not, from fear of defilement, even touch the dead child with a kiss, but she sate jealously watching that every ceremonial was duly carried out.
"Lo! she is lovely as any hourinow!" chattered the Dom women who had come in to perform the last offices, as they bound the corpse with gold tinsel to the string bedstead on which it was to be carried to the grave. "'Tis a sin, for sure, to have more body in death than in life; but what will you? Mayhap Munkir and Niker[13]seeing her look so, may not ask questions, but give her a decent body for Paradise--sure she needed one poor thing!"
So they stood looking down on their handiwork. And in truth the crippled child looked very beautiful. Therebeckplayer, saying it was the custom of his tribe, had hired from somewhere a low, oblong, lidless coffin, more like a deep picture frame than anything else; and in this, as it lay on the bed, these tirewomen of the dead, had so disposed draperies, and pillows, and whatnot, that all the curves of the budding womanhood showed beneath the face that remained more beautiful even in death than it had been in life. It was covered only with a fine network, for the veil was draped carefully on either side the slender neck. One corner of it, and a loop of jasmin chaplet fell over the dingy worn gilt of the coffin frame.
"Lo! many will envy Death his bride and send regrets after her as she passes by," said the oldest of the Domni, nodding her head wisely. And it was so.
For as the two bearers--it needed but two for that bier--shuffled at sunset-tide with their light burden through the crowded bazaar, more than one careless eye grew to sudden interest. And one spectator, an idle reckless looking man who sate on a sherbet-seller's threshold joking with a light woman in an upper balcony, ceased his sarcasms to murmur a stanza from Hafiz; for he was rhymster too.
No more from poet's lipsShall love songs passShe who once garnered themIs dead--alas!
No more from poet's lipsShall love songs passShe who once garnered themIs dead--alas!
There were few mourners. Only the professional wailers, and therebeckplayer, who with bent head, followed the bier making mournful music as he went. Âtma, of another creed, still held aloof, walking veiled and stately some way behind. And all around them slipping aside to let the dead pass, for the most part careless almost unheeding, were the living; buying, selling, gossiping, chaffering.
Âtma drew breath more freely when they were through the city gates, and the bearers stepped out more quickly over hard stretches of sand and waste hillocks set with thorn and caper bushes toward the little cemetery which the musician had chosen. A few gnarledjhandtrees decked with coloured snippets of cloth tied there by many mourners, a few nameless roly-poly concrete graves, a sprinkling of tiny turrets showing where someone was laid--someone whose resting place was unknown to all save the women who came thither every week to mourn--marked the spot. A dreary lonesome spot, in truth. But the westering sun showed warm and red over the desert horizon, and the chipping notes of the seven-brother birds sounded cheerful as the family flitted from one tree to another.
The grave was already dug and the diggers stood by waiting for their day's pay. It was a wide deep grave, looking as if it had been cut out of yellow rock, so dry, so even were the sides. And the low arch of the long niche on one side in which the corpse was to be laid as in a coffin, was as regular as if built in with unburnt brick. To Âtma's surprise, the floor of this niche was set thick, as by a coverlet, with roses. She glanced hastily at therebeckplayer, but he was already immersed in the prayers with which an attendant priest had greeted the little procession. She listened gravely, repeating to herself meanwhile the formulas--so few, so simple--of her own creed.
And yet when, after saying aloud the prayer for benediction, therebeck-player stood forward, raised the sad gracious figure from the coffin, and stepping into the grave laid it gently in the niche, she shivered as she saw him stoop to gather up a handful of earth.
"We created you of dust and we return you to dust, and we shall raise you out of the dust upon the day of resurrection."
The words seemed to her almost horrible. To be left lying alone in the desert, waiting, waiting, waiting!
For what? For yourself--the old mean self of which she was so tired.
Ah! better surely to find rest at once in the Great Self which pervaded all things!
"Wilt thou not throw earth also?" said a voice beside her, "then throw flowers. These are the roses of love."
Therebeckplayer pulled aside the kerchief covering a flat basket which one of the Dom women had carried, and lo! there were roses red at their hearts, pale where the sun had kissed them. Their scent filled the air.
"Yea! lord," she said meekly, "I will throw them."
The priest, the bearers, the Dom women had disappeared, their task done. Only the grave-diggers chattered to one another as they filled in the grave.
"Lo! she would have been ripe for kisses soon and now the worms have got her," said one discontentedly.
"Ballah! friend!" quoth the other. "Lovers die, but love dies not--there be ever other food for lust in the world!"
"Throw them into thy life also, sister," said the musician, suddenly. "There is no fear or blame in love."
So as he stood watching the shovelsful of earth hide the roses which covered little Zarîfa, he played softly on hisrebeck, and sang a whispering song to its wailing music.
Love is a full red wine bowlPassion the bubbles on its rim,Drink deep down to the dregs, soul,Heed not the froth on the brim.Passion has wings like an eagleLove needs none; she is at rest--Flood tide full--as the seagullDrifts, the cold wave at her breast.Love is the Lightless EtherPassion the star-shine it lets throughBuilding sense-worlds beneath herLove seeks not form, seeks not hue.Passion has myriad sensesLove has not voice, eyes, nor ears,Space, Time, Life, Moods, and TensesChain not her Soul to the years.Love is a sail, mid-oceanLosing itself in the Whole,Passion the wavelets commotionBlurring the shores of the Soul.
Love is a full red wine bowl
Passion the bubbles on its rim,
Drink deep down to the dregs, soul,
Heed not the froth on the brim.
Passion has wings like an eagle
Love needs none; she is at rest--
Flood tide full--as the seagull
Drifts, the cold wave at her breast.
Love is the Lightless Ether
Passion the star-shine it lets through
Building sense-worlds beneath her
Love seeks not form, seeks not hue.
Passion has myriad senses
Love has not voice, eyes, nor ears,
Space, Time, Life, Moods, and Tenses
Chain not her Soul to the years.
Love is a sail, mid-ocean
Losing itself in the Whole,
Passion the wavelets commotion
Blurring the shores of the Soul.
He ceased suddenly, and his whole face changed. The grave was filled up, the diggers were already passing stolidly back to the city. On the desert horizon the red sun had lost its warmth and was sinking coldly behind the gray verge.
"Lo! I have done with Love," came the musician's mocking voice. "So take this, sister, and may it bring thee more luck than it hath brought Payandâr. For him only hate remains."
When she looked up from her hasty glance at what he had thrust into her hand, therebeckplayer was moving away rapidly after the grave-diggers and she was left alone, looking at the new-made grave, looking at the quaint green stone she had just been given.
A trembling fell on mountain and on plain,The earth, unstable as a juggler's ball,Became a rolling sphere. The dust rose upHigh to the collar of heaven. The clarion of the windRoused shock on shock, and from the valley's streamsThe fish, out-cast, lay gasping. Lightning flashOn lightning flash split the wide sky; the sinking rocks,Disjointed, filled with water, and the hills,Clasping each other, squeezed themselves to death.--Nizami.
A trembling fell on mountain and on plain,The earth, unstable as a juggler's ball,Became a rolling sphere. The dust rose upHigh to the collar of heaven. The clarion of the windRoused shock on shock, and from the valley's streamsThe fish, out-cast, lay gasping. Lightning flashOn lightning flash split the wide sky; the sinking rocks,Disjointed, filled with water, and the hills,Clasping each other, squeezed themselves to death.
--Nizami.
Khodadâd Khan, Tarkhân, sate at the head of his supper cloth, with the dazed look of one who has taken drugs in his eyes. And in truth he had drugged himself body and soul to the uttermost. He had passed from one pleasure to another, and all the while he had raged inwardly at the necessity for seeking yet further forgetfulness; since after all what had he to forget? Only the shock of seeing deformity; for the rest was dead as the past years which had contained it. And yet he could not forget! Even as he had come hither to this last stimulant to jaded appetite--anal frescoentertainment out in the desert stretches beyond the city, where all the wallowing wickedness of humanity would show up the more alluringly vicious against that pure background of solitude and silence--even then he had shrunk back as from a snake before a glimpse that had come to him in the bazaar of a dead face. It could not be the same girl from whom he had turned horror-struck that morning, for his practised eye noted in a second all those graceful contours of budding womanhood, which showed above the shallow coffin. Besides, why should she die? He had barely kissed her, and--he laughed cynically, as the thought came to him--where was the woman who objected to a kiss, who was the worse for it? Were they not made for it?
He flung his arm round Yasmeena who lolled on the cushions beside him and kissed the heart-shaped curve of skin which her swelling, filmy bodice left exposed below her dimpled chin. She slapped him lightly on the cheek and the company laughed at his frown.
"None can escapeWounds in the Red Rose garden where no RoseBut arms with thorns her Beauty"
"None can escapeWounds in the Red Rose garden where no RoseBut arms with thorns her Beauty"
quoted one of the guests. "My lord is over hasty. Our stomachs are not yet satisfied, though by the twelve Imâms, this saffron pillau of tender chicken filters fast to my vitals." He leered at Siyah Yamin, who threw up her dainty little head disdainfully.
"Keep thy spiced sentiment to thyself, fool," she replied archly, "I desire no forced feeling of fowl."
The laugh at her retort ran round boisterously, and even Khodadâd joined in it. But it was a mirthless laugh. Still as the hours went on the fun waxed fast and furious, and the stars above must have been glad of the widespread square canopy of tent which hid some of the doings of man from High Heaven. It was well on into the night ere the first guest, excusing himself, jingled in his palanquin back cityward. So, by ones and twos, the party dispersed until Khodadâd was left alone looking contemptuously down at Mirza Ibrahîm, whose senses had deserted him in the long orgie, and who lay helpless amid wine cups, torn shreds of muslin, and all the indescribable beastliness of uncontrolled amusement.
"Take the fool home, slaves," said the Tarkhân thickly, "And bring a bed here. I stop; the night air will cool my brain."
So in the midst of all the refuse of vicious humanity, they set a dirty string bed, and covered it with satin quilts. As he lay on it he formed fit matching to its hidden squalor.
It was now the hour before the false dawn; that hour of slumber even for wickedness and wrong. The servants, outwearied by long ministering to every whim of their masters, were soon asleep even while they simulated watchfulness.
But Khodadâd lay awake. Half-drugged, half-drunk though he was, his nerves tingled, he started at the least sound. Possibly some vague unacknowledged fear of what the darkness might bring had lain at the bottom of his resolution to sleep were he was, where none could know of his presence; yet everything disturbed him. A prowling jackal, a mere noiseless shadow in the moonlight, made him sit up and watch till it had slunk away.
How still, how horribly still the desert was! One could almost hear the soft patter of the birds' feet which would leave delicate tracery upon the sand for the dawn to discover. And then his mind flew back to another still, hot night in the past. Surely it must have been about this time of year? Perchance this was the very night. Was it so? His brain, reluctant yet insistent, traced back the past. Nay! it could not be--and yet-- Yet it was before that. Aye! and after that----
And by an odd chance, beyond a low thicket of caper bushes that bounded the desert to one side of the scene of past orgie, lay the little cemetery where Zarîfa slept so soundly. He did not know this but he lay awake, thinking of her.
Ye Gods! Why could he not sleep? What had he to fear; a Tarkhân in a strange country? Nothing. On the morrow he would be himself; free of all things--free to do as he chose.
And so suddenly with the comfort of the thought came slumber.
Was it for an instant or for an hour? He sate up, the sweat starting from him with causeless fear, to look about him.
He could see nothing. All was darkness itself. Then a sense of constriction about his forehead made him raise his hands to feel if aught were there.
God and his Prophet! He was blindfolded! He was on his feet in a second, but even as he rose, strong hands of iron grip closed round his and despite a wild struggle, he stood helpless, his arms fast pinioned to his sides.
"What is't?" he asked putting unfelt boldness into his voice; it sounded thick almost unintelligible.
"Dalîl, Tarkhân of the Royal House, thou art summoned to the Last Assize of thy Peers."
The answer came from close; so close that it seemed to knell in his ear as if it came from inside himself, and it brought a sudden throb of purely animal dread to his heart. But he essayed a laugh. This was not real; it was but a disordered dream, a nightmare due to the excesses of the day. His peers? Here in a strange land where were they?
"Wherefore?" he asked.
The answer was too swift for him to judge of the quality of his own voice; the other was resonant though still curiously personal, curiously close to him.
"Because the measure of thine iniquities is full at last! Mount the White Horse, and ride bravely to judgment, as thou hast ridden bravely to sin."
He felt himself half-forced forward, half-willingly yielding to unseen pressure, and he told himself again it was but a dream. The sooner through with it, the sooner to wake; it could not go on forever.
The warmth of the horse's body felt against him, brought another throb of fear. He heard its screaming neigh. Was it indeed, the Tarkhân's White Stallion of Death which he bestrode? Ah! if he could but see, could but move!
But his feet were fast bound beneath the warm breathing belly, his arms were close pinioned to his side. For an instant he thought of shrieking aloud--it might at least wake him; then something--perhaps pride of race and that admonition to bear himself bravely--held him back from cries.
Whither were they taking him? The way seemed endless, and he fought for bare breath between the mad throbbings of his heart; his very lips tingled and smarted as the life blood pulsed irregularly through them. Would that ceaseless strain and relaxation of muscle as the horse galloped on and on never end? Must he always wait and wait. For what? Something worse perhaps.
"Halt!"
He gave a convulsive gasp. The whole universe seemed to stand still. So an awful and intolerable silence settled down on all things.
"Who are ye!" he cried at last in desperation, and his voice rang out strident yet quavering, like an ill-tuned violin.
A low, reverberating roll of kettledrums was the only answer, and an uncontrollable shiver shook him, replying to the shudder with which they filled the air.
"Who are ye?"
This time the cry had a wail in it; but once again that roll of kettledrums was the only answer.
"Who are ye?"
It was a mere whisper, hoarse, half-choked; but this time a voice came instant, clear, in reply.
"Unbind his eyes, heralds, and let him see those who judge him."
The flood of moonlight seemed at first to blind him, and even after his eyes recovered sight a mistiness, a vagueness rested on all things. And yet he saw all things; aye! and recognised them, not from personal experience, for the Last Assize was even in those days fast becoming legendary, but from the racial experience which he could not escape.
Aye! Beneath him was the White Stallion of Death standing square upon the square of white cloth, whose purpose sent a shiver of horror through him. Those were the heralds masked, veiled, who rode on black horses beside him, and at their feet curled up, cowering like loathsome reptiles, he could see the two executioners, their long fingers clutching--at what?
Not a sword or a dagger. No! He knew what they held and with a wild hope of pardon, his strained eyes sought, beyond these nearer things, the semicircle of faces before which he stood. The moonbeams showed them clear yet blurred. How like himself they were, these chieftains of the Barlâs clan! And whence had they come? From the grave surely, some of them, or were they only simulacra? Was it indeed the race which sate in judgment on him? The race; and so himself. Ah! in that case what hope--what chance of life had he, Dalîl?
And then suddenly there leaped to clearness the figure which centred the wide semicircle of dim countenances.
It was dressed in regal robes, it wore the emeralds of Sinde, and there was no mistaking the face which stared at him with cold implacable justice.
"Payandâr!" he gasped--"hast come back from the dead to kill me?"
"From a life that has been a death I come to judgment," was the reply. "Chiefs of the Barlâs clan, assembled for this high purpose, listen! Listen to the record of this man's iniquities and say if the cup be full."
It was a long record, yet Dalîl's memory gave assent to all, and as each crime was counted a surging murmur of acquiescence came from those listening faces. It seemed to deaden the miserable man's senses, for after a time he forgot all things but that one accusing figure in its royal robes, and the hard, cold, accusing voice.
"It is but eight," he muttered hoarsely, "no Tarkhân can be condemned by eight----"
"Listen O Chief of the Barlâs clan," interrupted the accuser, "to the ninth crime. Yestermorn he did of vile licence kill with his lustful kiss----"
Khodadâd essayed a mocking laugh.
"With a kiss? What then? Lucky for any maiden to be so honoured by a Tarkhân; so much the more lucky for such a devil's mash of deformity."
"His own daughter," rang out the charge, harder, colder, crueller. "His daughter by the Rosebud of Love which he dishonoured. His daughter whom he called into being without cause, when he defiled her mother!"
Ah! now he knew! now he understood why--the thought came to Dalîl even as he fought blindly against it.
"Thou liest!" he murmured thickly. "She was Payandâr's spawn. He----"
"He is the accuser," returned the voice calmly, "and by his right of Tarkhân he swears it before the Last Assize. Speak, chiefs of the Barlâs clan, doth this man deserve sentence?"
Once again that surging assent mingled with the rolling of kettledrums, filled Dalîl's ears; but through it he heard the words:
"Executioners! open the veins of his neck and let the Barlâs blood go free of his vile body. Let him bleed to death while I, the king, mourn the spilling of good Barlâs blood."
Then from all around seemed to arise a low wailing, backed still by that quivering roll of the kettledrums. The veiled figures rose slowly; a blackness rose also obliterating all save awful fear. Ah! he knew what was coming! He knew. Was that the keen prick of a long lancet at his throat? Was that a warm stream trickling, trickling?
Oh! ye gods and devils! it was time to wake!
"Ohí my son! Ohí my brother!" The long-drawn wail rose louder and louder!
Wake!Wake!Wake! What a hideous dream it was. She was not--she could not be his----
An awful cry, half-choked, broke from him. It was bloodwarm blood--his own blood caressing his bosom, nestling at his heart ...
Wake! Wake!
"Ohí! my brother! Ohí! my son!"
Something surged in his brain. He heard no more.
* * * * *
It was dawn.
The delicate tracery of the desert birds' feet showed close up to the edge of the ruffled carpets whereon lay--hideously confused--all the indescribable refuse of sensuality which the mind has enabled humanity to bring to bear upon its pleasures. But he who had called all the past lust and licence into being, still slept peacefully on the squalid string bed beneath the rich satin quilts.
A servant or two wakened and yawned; then, seeing his services unrequired slept again. So, swiftly, the sun rose with a ruffling wind that followed the footsteps of the birds, in circling eddies, and passed on, leaving the sand without a sign of passage on it.
"He sleeps long," said one, a servant.
"Let him sleep," grumbled another, "when he wakes it will be but another service of sin for him and us."
But others needed the quick wit and relentless purpose of Khodadâd; so almost ere dawn had passed to day, two or three horsemen came galloping from the city intent on finding help from the arch-conspirator.
"God and His Prophet!" faltered Mirza Ibrahîm shrinking back from the shoulder on which he had laid an awakening hand, "he is dead!"
Dead and cold. There was no sign of violence upon him; only on his neck two blue marks, mere signs as it were, of scratches about half an inch long.
"He has died in the night," said Ghiâss Beg with a shiver. "No one is to blame. God send he had time for a prayer."
But Mirza Ibrahîm clutched the complacent Lord High Treasurer by the arm and gasped:
"Look! Look!"
In front of the tent just beyond the ruffled carpet lay a square of white cloth and on it as if in blood, lay clear, distinct, the red marks of a horse's hoofs.
"'Tis the sign," he whispered, his face ashen gray. "The sign that judgment has been passed by his peers."
No strength of Hand, no strength of Foot have I,To reach the restful Heaven of Thy Throne;Yet can my soul's eyes gaze upon the SkyAnd finding dream there, dream the Truth mine ownEven while wearied by its ceaseless StrifeI watch the Shuttle in the Loom of Life.--Nizami.
No strength of Hand, no strength of Foot have I,To reach the restful Heaven of Thy Throne;Yet can my soul's eyes gaze upon the SkyAnd finding dream there, dream the Truth mine ownEven while wearied by its ceaseless StrifeI watch the Shuttle in the Loom of Life.
--Nizami.
That self-same dawn Akbar the King sate alone, as he so often did, upon a large flat stone which lay in a lonely spot beside the Anup tank. He was dressed in the saffron sheet of an ascetic, and a fold of it, drawn across the lower part of the face, completely disguised him; though the few persons abroad at this early hour were not of the class from whom he could fear detection or even interruption--except perhaps a petition for a blessing. For this was the widows' hour; that strange hour in India, while the world still sleeps, when sorrowful womanhood works out the salvation of mankind. When dim, ghostlike in their white shrouding, figures creep out of the shadowy homes, burdened with the sins of men, and, after washing them away in the chill waters of dawn, creep back to the hearthstones, ere the sun rises upon the devoted drudgery of another widows' day.
The sight of these figures, the whole scene, unreal, mystical, had always had a fascination for Akbar, a curious almost angry interest. He felt himself helpless before it, King though he was. True! he had abolishedsutteeby a sweep of his pen. The swift cruel sacrifice of life he had checked; but this long-drawn agony was beyond him.
And what did it mean when all was said and done? His active mind, ever wrestling with problems of the psychic world, fought for a conclusion on this, the question which has puzzled so many inquirers.
"Whence and wherefore comes the sense of sin which in the woman lies ever at the root of sex, making her falsely modest or boldly brazen?"
How silent they were, these mateless, almost sexless bodies whose souls were seeking--through past æons, and for endless centuries to come--salvation not for themselves but for their men folk! The very water slipped noiselessly over the shaven unveiled heads that slipped into it as noiselessly.
Sound only came when, on the red sandstone steps of the tank once more, they again drew their wet shrouds round youth and age alike.
Drip! Drip! Drip!
The water fell in blood-red tear drops beside the blood-red print of their bare feet upon the stones. A dolorous way indeed! a dolorous life.
A couple of gray-crested cranes, mates evidently, showed nestling side by side as they stood knee-deep in the gray levels of the tank; levels which brimmed up from the dim shadowy steps of the dim shadowy reflections in the water of the dim shadowy realities of stunted bushes and gnarled caper trees that rose against the dim gray of coming dawn.
Why was not humanity like the birds, accepting the Great Mystery of generation as differing not one whit from other functions of Life?
There lay the puzzle. What sin was it that the woman had committed in the dawn of days!
Yea! the dawn came fast! Below the distant verge of sight the bright-hued riders of the Day were galloping hard, each bringing his pennant to the battle of Light and Darkness.
Blue upon gray, violet tinting the blue, so passing to red, flaming to orange. Then with one throb of primrose----
Light!
He felt the thrill of it--that endless quiver of the ether waves passing on and on regardless of him, around him, through him, in him--felt it in a sudden answering shiver of nerve, and vein, and muscle, as he stood up, absorbed utterly in adoration.
"Thy blessing O my father!" came a voice beside him.
"May thy sacrifice be propitious O my daughter!" he replied mechanically.
"And may the King-of-Kings live forever! His slave kisses the dust of his footsteps."
He turned hastily, kingship coming back to him at once, to recognise Âtma Devi. Crouching at his feet, the wet folds of her widow's shroud clung to every curve of her supple body. After a night spent in fruitless inquiry she had come to the tank at the earliest point of dawn to wander fruitlessly in search round its shores; so after a hasty performance of her sacrifices, she was on her way cityward again when she had seen the solitary figure, and, guessing instinctively that it was the King--for his habits were known to all his people--had come to test her suspicion and so, perchance, gain direct speech of someone from whom, surely, she might hear the truth. But his first words checked her.
"I wist not, woman, thou wert widow," he said sternly. "As a rule thy dress----"
Thinking he blamed her--and blame from him meant all things--she was quick in explanation. "The Most-Auspicious is right," she almost interrupted, "but he to whom I was wedded as a babe proved vile; so my father--praise be to the Gods!--withheld me from him utterly. Yet these few years past, that the man's evil body is dead, I come hither to ransom his soul."
The answer fitting so aptly with Akbar's previous thoughts roused his instant curiosity.
"Wherefore?" he asked, his keen face lighting up with interest as he seated himself once more. "Sit yonder, sister, at my feet and tell me, wherefore?"
"Because he was my husband," came the almost aggressively quick reply. "And a wife is bound to her husband in Life and in Death."
Akbar smiled--the foibles of his world always amused him. "Not in Death, nowadays, my good woman," he cried lightly. "Akbar hath forbidden Death. Would that he could forbid this also."
He touched a fold of her wet shroud with his finger. A shiver shot heartwards from the contact. Was it merely the chill to his flesh warmed by his heart's blood, or was it--something he had told himself he had forgotten? He drew back in resentment. She also; but from his touch on what to her, as to most Hindu women, was the dearest privilege of her sex--the right to burn!
"The Most Excellent is a mighty King," she commented sarcastically, "but even he cannot stay the immortal man in woman from following man in death. We are not all cowards like she who sent yonderrâm-ruckito the Most High."
She pointed with scorn to a slender, silken cord, behung with coloured tassels which the King wore on his wrist, bracelet fashion.
Akbar frowned.
"So. Thou knowest the story?"
"This slave knows all that concerns the Honour of the King," she replied proudly.
The frown grew.
"The King can keep his honour without thy help, woman! Aye! and his promises too; so this coward shall be saved." Then, as was so often the case with him, eager questioning swept away everything else. "Yet wherefore coward? Tell me that, thou, her sister in sex? Wherefore should a young girl not shrink from burning with an old profligate whose very age hath prevented natural fulfilment of husbandhood? By the sun, my very stomach turns at the thought of it; yet womanhood accepts it dutifully. Lo! couldst thou but tell me--but thou canst not--whence comes this sense of sin which makes women prostitute, and tempts men to be far worse than the beasts, I would give thee----." He paused, looking into her soft dark eyes whence the fierceness had died away giving place to wise surprise at ignorance.
"The Most Excellent must know," she replied. "Our mothers teach it to us. It is the love which seeks for pleasure, which forgets motherhood. Lo! in the beginning we were the nothingness which tempted form, even as Siyâla the courtesan sang; so we cannot live save through that which we create. We are 'thieves of form, and sanctuaries of souls,' even as the Princess Sanyogata told Prithvirâj. Aye! though she had lured him with the love that is illusion! But she was brave also. She left her womanhood to die, and followed the immortal in the man."
"Then this mortal love is woman's only?" he asked critically, eager as ever in argument.
"Aye!" she answered simply. "In the beginning it was so; but we have taught it to man; thus it returns to us again in every soul to which we give a body. Yea! it is so! Look how far we are, Most Excellent"--she pointed with slim finger to the distant cranes--"from yonder birds to whom pairing time is breeding time, who know not sex save for the life they have to give to the world."
She paused, and there was silence; for once again, the example she had chosen fitted in with past thoughts. Far away on the primrose verge a sword-shaped shaft of red-encircled cloud hid the rising sun.
"And there is no other Love?" he asked moodily, forgetful as ever of hisentouragein the absorption of inquiry. Her face grew paler, her hand went up almost unconsciously to her throat round which the green stone of therebeckplayer hung; but no essence of rose assailed her senses; or if it did she denied the fact strenuously.
"I know not, my King," she said quietly. "There be some who talk of it; but my father--he was very learned, Most High--held that Love, needing both subject and object" (she spoke quite simply of such abstruse idea as many a nigh naked coolie in India will do, if so be he is Brâhmin), "lay outside the Great Unity and so was illusion. Yet to me----" she hesitated and looked at him almost appealingly out of her large, dark, unfathomable eyes. "Lo! I am woman, so I cannot think--wherefore should not Love be all things?"
"Wouldst thou have it so, sister?" he asked, meaningly. She flushed faintly under her dark skin.
"Nay! Most High," she replied proudly. "For me honour is enough, since I guard the King's."
The words held something of self-revelation in them. He rose and wound his saffron veil closer. "So be it, sister! Guard the King's honour, aye! and his Luck too if thou canst!" he added with a smile as he moved away.
The word roused her to a sense that her chance was departing; she caught at his feet and bowed herself over them in the attitude which in India brings arrest to all in authority; for it is ultimate appeal.
"What is it, sister?" he queried almost mechanically.
"What--what, Most Excellent, of the King's Luck?" she asked tremulously. At the moment other, clearer words failed her.
"What?" he echoed perplexedly, wondering what the woman would be at. "Naught that I know of save that it shone when I saw it yester-evening, and that it will shine still more when the Feringhi jeweller hath spent his Western art upon it," he added with a smile.
"Yester-even," she could scarce speak for surprise, "then--then it is not stolen? The King's Luck is safe?"
"Stolen! Ye Gods, no!" His look of wonder changed to kindly compassion. "Go home, my sister," he said as he might have said to a child. "And dream not so much of the King and his Luck. He is not worth it! So farewell! Yet stay! I owe thee something once more for--thy treatise on Love! I gave thee thy father's titular office did, I not? Well! to-morrow take up his duties! Come to the Great Durbar in thy Châran's dress, and, for once, a woman shall challenge the whole world for Akbar. Lo! it will make some of thedurbariessee Shaítan," he interpolated for himself light-heartedly. "But come and fear not--I will warn the Chamberlain to give thee place. So once more farewell, widow----"
Thus far he had spoken with a smile; now his face grew grave. "Lo! despite Akbar, methinks thou wilt die for some man yet; thou art of that quality. Heaven send he be worth the sacrifice!"
"I will die for the King's honour if need be," she muttered, true by instinct to her life-idea, even in the midst of her mingled joy and amazement. She sate for some time after Akbar left her, trying to piece together the tangled clues she held; but such intricate balancing of facts was beyond her. She lived only by what she felt, so she was without guide in following up the actions of others.
That the diamond had been stolen she knew; and now it was evident that Birbal had kept the knowledge of the theft from the King--doubtless to save him from distress. This latter thought leapt to her heart and found instant harbour there, so that she began to reproach herself with having gone so near to making such forethought of no avail; a forethought that had done its work too, since as the Most High had seen the diamond but the evening before it must have been recovered. The incident was therefore over--small thanks to her!
And yet the King had bidden her challenge the whole world on his behalf! She crept home and looked at her father's corselet and sword wonderingly. How had it come about that the Great Hope of her life was about to be realised, and she could scarce feel any joy in it?
Meanwhile Akbar was doffing his ascetic's robe, and donning the heron-plumed turban of empire. It was a change to which he was accustomed; but this morning, he felt that something of his interview with Âtma Devi lingered with him.
He paused for a moment as he passed to the Private Hall of Audience with Birbal to look out across the palace courtyard and so through the Arch of Victory to India stretching wide and far beyond it.
"If I leave this place," he said quietly, "as leave it surely I shall some day, thus condemning myself to sonlessness, I shall go down to the ages as one who failed--who built dream-palaces unfit for humanity; therefore fit home for the bats, the foxes, the hyenas."
"This will I warrant, sire!" replied Birbal, hotly, in instant defence of his master. "Let who will come to Akbar's Arch of Triumph in the future, it shall remain to them unforgettable, unforgotten, until Death kills memory!"
"The memory of a great defeat," continued the King shaking his head. "And to my mind a greater one if I remain!" He turned and laid his hand on Birbal's shoulder. "Yea! old friend. I have failed--why strain thyself to hide it? Wherefore--God knows! for I have striven." He paused, then went on, "There was a woman at the tank this morning who said that Love was all things. Is it so? Have I not loved enough? Is that the solving of the riddle--is it the Master-Key?"
Birbal's face was a fine study in sarcastic disagreement. "Mayhap, my King! The poets have it so; though in God's truth this wondrous key has unlocked naught for me--save nothingness!"
"A perfect mating," went on the dreamer, absorbed in his own thoughts. "The Twain once more as One, sex and its vain search forgotten. Strange if it should be so! Strange if the finding of Self in the Giving of Self should bring back memory yet forgetfulness of that far beginning when the Ocean of Light everlasting, quiescent, stirred into ripples of Shadow, and the One became Two."
"The Audience waits, sire," said Birbal drily.
Akbar laughed, and went on. Yet he turned to Birbal swiftly half an hour afterward when, in the course of business, words were let fall which brought back the memory of this conversation.
It had been rather a disturbing audience and Akbar, ere he commenced it, had felt wearied beyond his usual measure.
So, as he sate below the throne, the position he invariably occupied as symbolising that he was but the representative of a higher power, he had listened with a certain sense of irritation, while a letter, which Father Ricci, the Jesuit, had left behind him, was read aloud by a slim white-robed man with a marked bend of the head and a kindly, patient face.
It ran as follows:
"To the Most Merciful and Most Illustrious King and Emperor Jalâl-ud-in Mahommed Akbar greeting, from his Father in God and Vicar of Christ, servant of the King of Kings: Whereas for long years past I have to the great injury of the cause of Christ, yet with the most pious hopes of eventual harvest, permitted that good servant of the Lord, priest Rudolfo Acquaviva to reside at the Most-Excellent's court in the hopes that by his godly example and teaching light might come to the eyes, and knowledge to the ears of the Emperor. Yet having, during my recent visit, seen with mine own eyes how small a part the great truths of the Church play in the life of the Most-Excellent, and having in view also the most great favour extended to heretick Protestants----"
Birbal's mime-like face puckered, he bent over the King.
"Said I not the reception of the English merchants would bring about greater zeal for Majesty's conversion?"
But Akbar checked him with a frown; so the long phrases of disappointment, partly pious, partly pique, went on and on. When they closed he turned swiftly to the reader.
"Be thou the arbiter, friend Rudolfo. Dost wish to go? Is Akbar not kind enough?"
Pâdré Rudolfo Acquaviva looked affectionately at the man whom he refused, almost to the point of insubordination, to count accursed.
"The King is not kind enough to himself," he said, his gentle face a benediction, as he noted the strain, the anxiety, which in all moments of rest sate on Akbar's countenance. "Wherefore should not weariness lay down its burden at the gracious command, 'Come unto me and I will give you rest'?"
For a second there was a pause. Then Akbar rose, and squared his broad shoulders. "I could not if I would, friend," he replied proudly. "A King's burden must be carried." So with a loud voice he cried:
"Has any or aught further need of the King's wisdom?"
There was no pause this time.
The Makhdûm-ul'-mulk, in his robes of chief doctor of the law, stepped forward hastily and began to read.
"Lo! Makhdûm-sahib," interrupted Akbar lightly vet impatiently, "Majesty hath listened to this before. The petition is dismissed. It hath seemed good to the Crown so to cement union with our Râjpût Allies, the marriage ceremonies are commenced, therefore this demand that the Heir-Apparent shall have his first wife one of his own faith is idle--and ill-timed."
"It hath the signature of fifteen thousand learned Ulemas of Islâm," continued the Makhdûm militantly.
"If it had fifty thousand----" interrupted Akbar again; this time sternly.
Ghiâss Beg, the Lord High-Treasurer flung himself, suddenly at the King's feet, and his example was followed by half a dozen of Akbar's most tried and trusted Mohammedan counsellors.
"If the Most-Auspicious will grant us private audience for a space, we will disclose that which may alter Majesty's opinion," said their leader.
Akbar frowned; Birbal and Abulfazl scenting some further conspiracy, stepped forward with instant excuse.
"It is not on the list, sire," said the latter. But the Emperor's sense of Kingship had been aroused, first by his reply to Pâdré Rudolfo, next by the Makhdûm's militant protest. So with a quaint admixture of pride and humility he set aside the Prime Minister's plea haughtily.
"Justice, Shaikh-jee, is not listed like an auctioneer's tale of goods. Ushers! clear the assemblage! My friends, farewell! I would be alone with these gentlemen for a while."
After the ceremonial salaamings, the rustle and glitter of retreating silks and satins had died away, he faced those few as he stood below the throne.
"Well," he said, "speak."
A little old man, poet as well as prince, prostrated himself, and so began with many flowers of speech, many ambiguities, and many quotations from Hafiz, on the story of Prince Salîm's sight of Mihr-un-nissa. "Thus O Most Illustrious King, O! Most Indulgent Father, Fate hath intervened and sent Love!" he concluded, adding in pompous monotonous chant the well-known lines: