A Prince of Dreamers. Flora Annie Webster Steel
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.
CHAPTER III
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 white burka veil,[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