A Prince of Dreamers. Flora Annie Webster Steel
the doors on us. The lamp flickers in the evening wind!"
The song went on lazily--
Oh! Love! I am held by the power
Of her bare brown bosom-flower
Oh! Lo/ve! I am lost in the mesh!
In the very thought of a sip
At the nectar of soft warm flesh
And the touch of her lip.
Then the door closed, and he turned swiftly on the figure which had entered.
"So, at last! I have been awaiting thee these four-and-twenty hours. And wherefore was there no due notice of arrival? Lo! my liver dissolved when the arch-heretic, Abul, spoke at the King's audience of an envoy from Sinde. For aught I knew Jâni Beg might have failed to secure the crown. It was a relief to see thy face--but how came all this Sufardâr?"
He spoke as one having authority, but the supposed merchant answered sulkily as he unwound his close-draped shawl, so disclosing, in truth, the slender spareness and the high pallid features of the envoy from Sinde.
"If thou canst tell me how it came about, Oh! Dalîl Tarkhân of the House of Kings," he said, "thou knowest more than I, the companion of thy youth; since I know naught. A blank as of death lies behind me from the time we encamped at noon yesterday, five miles beyond the city."
The whilom scribe looked cynically at the dull opium-drugged eyes.
"A blank!" he echoed. "How much of the Dream-compeller goes to make that for thee now a days, Oh! Sufar?"
Those dulled eyes lit up with sudden fire. "No more, I swear to God, than the noon-day pellet of twelve years agone. Thou knowest the old Tuglak tombs about Biggâya's Serai? The tents were late and it was hot, so I slept in one of them----"
"Curse thee! Sleep where thou willst," interrupted his companion impatiently, "but give me the packet. I must answer it, if answer be required." He held out his hand, scented, manicured, be-ringed like any modern lady's.
The envoy's face showed uneasiness. "If thou wouldst listen, thou wouldst learn," he said vexedly. "I slept and dreamed. Then I woke; but it was to to-day, not to yesterday."
"But thou wast at the Audience--for I saw thee! Aye! and I wondered what Birbal, the heretic pig, had to say to thee as he kept the King waiting."
The envoy shook his head slowly. "It is a blank; and hearken, Mirza sahib, the packet hath gone!"
"Gone!" echoed the other again, his face paling at the thought of Akbar's ever-swift punishment for treason. "Thou hast lost the letter; and this tale of forgetfulness----"
The envoy from Sinde leant forward and laid one warning finger, slender, almost emaciated, on his companion's well-kept hand. "'Tis no tale, but a mystery. The packet was ever in my girdle cloth, and left not my side day nor night. None knew of it. And I remember nothing of my sleep, except my dream." He shivered and looked round apprehensively. "It was a dream of nigh thirteen years ago--of--of a rose-garden, Mirza Dalîl! Oh! thou mayst laugh, but I curse the day that ever I took a part in that damned work of thine. It comes between me and my prayers."
Mirza Dalîl laughed airily. "It comes not between me and mine; but then I am Tarkhân. There must be nine deadly sins ere even earthly punishment be thought of, and I am but at my seventh; or stay, is it eighth? Truly I know not and it matters not. But this tale of thine--What says thy retinue?"
The envoy's face fell.
"They say I woke as ever, and gave the orders for the audience but I remember naught, save----"
"Turn thy forgetfulness toward rose-gardens, opium-eater!" interrupted the man he called Dalîl sternly. "Have I not ever told thee thou wert but as a beast to give up the heavenly dreams of hemp for the clogging sleep of the poppy. Thou wert drunk, that is all--or hast been since. So remembrance is left with the drug. As for the packet--thou hast lost--or sold it. Lucky for me, no names come from Sinde, and none here know me save as Khodadâd--Khodadâd, the gift of God, the companion of princes, the chamberlain of pleasures to the Heir-Apparent! Khodadâd adventurer, made Tarkhân on the battlefield by the King's brother, the rebel of Kabul, because, being above myself with hemp, I saved his life! Made Tarkhân, thou prophet of God! and I a Tarkhân by birth. Still," he continued, checking himself in his reckless mirth, "thou art in luck. But mark me, if by this loss suspicion comes--aye! even a suspicion that Khodadâd is of the Kingly House (younger brother, aye! even though he be a bastard, of the fool Payandâr who went mad over the rose-garden) thy life is not worth much. Go therefore. Here is thy packet." He drew out the paper he had written, set the seal he wore on his first finger to it, folded it neatly, then continued with an evil smile, "Mind I say naught in it against thee. Thou mightest lose the letter if I did. But I will see thou comest not with messages again."
"Lo! that will I not," muttered the envoy, wrapping his shawl round him as before. "This very sight of thee recalls the rose-garden--I seem to hear her piteous cries----"
Khodadâd lay back amongst his cushions and laughed.
"Thou art far gone in opium, Sufardâr!" he said chuckling. "Ere long thou wilt see the devil clutching thee, for sure! God's prophet, man, hadst heard as many maidens' screechings as I!" He was silent but smiling, evidently in pursuit of memory, and when the envoy had gone he lay back among those scented cushions and allowed himself a certain latitude of remembrance. At five-and-thirty there were few experiences of which he had no cognizance; but it needed many experiences to leave a mark on a Tarkhân! As he lounged lazily the soft night air fanning his perfumed hair, his smooth yellow skin oily with unguents, every atom of his body and soul surcharged with sensuality, there yet came to him an uprush of almost wild pride in his race, in the honours, the privileges which distinguished it even from the common herd of princedom. A Bârlâs Tarkhân! Bârlâs the brave! Master of seven distinctions in procession or audience. Free of every part of a king's palace by night and day! Aye and more! Having the right to drink with the King! So that when the Royal cup was handed from the right, the Tarkhân's cup was handed from the left. And still more. With the right to set his seal to all royal orders, above the King's seal! Unpunishable too--until the uttermost. And then? If Mirza Dalîl's face grew gray as he thought of that uttermost assize, it was not altogether in fear, since there are some things pertaining to race which bring with them an almost passionate acquiescence even in terror; and this thought of the final verdict of his peers, to be carried out by those peers with many ceremonials, had in it an element of pride.
Besides, here, in a far country away from those peers, there was small danger of the Silent Session being held.
So he looked out over the vast shadows of the town, wondering vaguely how he should fill up the night with iniquities. He would have an excellent companion--which was half the battle--since he had been asked to sup with Mirza Ibrahîm, the Lord Chamberlain. There would be business first, no doubt, due to the Heir-Apparent's childish knuckling under, since some new intrigue must be set on foot to weaken Akbar's authority; but once that was over Ibrahîm might be counted on to make the hours hum. So he clapped his hands for the tiremen and fresh dressing, and shaving, and scenting; then, after due dallying with cosmetics and dyes, set off--the very pink of fashion--in his gilded litter in which he lay lazily fanned with a peacock's feather fan by a tiny boy who sate at his feet dressed in a girl's tinsel-set garments, his hair braided on his forehead in the virginal plaits.
As he was borne through the silent streets with running torches beside the ambling porters, a host of pipe-bearers, toothpick holders, keepers of aphrodisaical pills, and general panderers trotting behind him, he was Eastern vice personified; soft, perfumed, relentless.
So he disappeared into the Palace and the star-lit world was quit of him for a time; for the night was spangled beyond belief. Spangled with myriads of stars, not white as in northern climes, but holding in their shine faint hints of rose, and green, and blue, and amber.
Against the clear obscure, the terraced town showed like some vast fort, turreted, battlemented, from which one by one the twinkling lights disappeared as the hours