King-Errant

The firelight danced on the young face as it sang cheerily. The Khânum, his mother, wept unobtrusively at the thought of what she would do if her young brave were to die. Old Isân-daulet beat time with precision; Dearest-One smiled gently; but Nevian-Gokultâsh--the Heart-of-Stone--held up his finger.

"Hist!" he said, "a horse's steps."

Not one but many. A little detachment of loyalists headed by Kâsim Beg, arriving in hot haste with renewed hope!

Babar stood up tall, strong, and threw his wide arms out as if to shake off inaction.

"Whence?" he asked briefly; "East, west, north or south?" There was weariness in the thought, not in the tone. He was ready to fight anywhere for Kingship again, though his heart sank at the futility of it all. Bokhâra, Samarkand, Hissâr, and half-a-dozen other chief-ships always changing hands. But this, a message of treaty from Ali Mirza who had held Samarkand since it had dropped from Babar's hand might mean something. So he was in the saddle and off; only to return then, and half-a-dozen other times, despondent, to admit that his star was not yet in the ascendant.

Isân-daulet wearied of waiting at last, and set off herself to Moghulistân to levy troops to aid her grandson in the name of her dead husband. The Khânum went with her, and Dearest-One took the opportunity of retiring with one of her old aunts, to a House-of-Rest. So Babar was left alone. He would not remain at Khojend, however; he felt that he had already taken too much from the loyalists there, so in a state of irresolution and uncertainty he made for the border land of the Pamîrs beyond the White Mountains. There he remained amongst the nomad tribes, perplexed and distracted with the hopelessness of his affairs.

And here, as winter passed to spring once more, a saintly Kwâja--also an exile and a wanderer--came to visit him. And having no help to give, no advice to offer to one so down-cast, prayed over him and took his departure much affected.

"And so was I," writes Babar frankly. Doubtless he was; and yet before sunset that very day he must have been out on the hillside, possibly hunting for new tulips in this new country; for he descried a horseman making his way rapidly up the valley.

A horseman!

Within half-an-hour, without an instant's delay, Babar had backed his lean Turkhomân mare and, followed by a leaner troop of such friends as still clung to him (Kâsim and Nevian-Gokultâsh of course amongst the number) was galloping for Marghinân (the place where they remove the stone from apricots and put in chopped almonds!). For a message had been sent by the governor of the town to say he was ready to give it up to its rightful owner, and would hope for forgiveness for past offences.

It was then sunset, and Marghinân lay more than a hundred miles away as the crow flies. All that night till noon next day the little band rode fiercely on. On those wild hills there was no road to speak of; one could but follow the water-courses as the streams sought their level. At noon next day they drew bridle for the first time. They had not come far, or fast, yet so hard had been the way that their horses needed rest. Twelve hours to give them a chance, and also, in the close valley of Khojend to secure night time for the first part of the march, and they were off again; this time to let sunrise pass to sunset and sunset pass to night before they again drew rein in the grey dawn. Drew rein and looked at each other doubtfully. Yet their goal lay not four miles ahead of them, a shadowy hill crowned by a fort and scarce seen in the half light.

But the doubt was this:

They had ridden for forty-eight hours up hill and down dale, over breakneck precipices and roaring torrents, without ever considering that they had no real warranty for so doing!

The Governor of the town was one who was known to stickle at no crime. With what confidence then could they unconditionally put themselves in his power?

So at least urged Nevian-Gokultâsh. Others joined in, and Babar, ever reasonable, saw cogency in the doubt, and ordered a halt for consideration.

Out in the dawn, the horses, heads down, taking a nibble of grass between heaving breaths, the sweat running down from their polished backs, the tired troopers, too tired to dismount, arguing pros and cons wearily, until Babar rising in his stirrups, showed tall, straight, strong, commanding.

"Gentlemen!" he said. "Our reflections are not without foundation, but we have been too late in making them. We have now ridden three nights and two days without sleep or rest. Neither horse nor man has strength left. There is no possibility of retreating, since there is no place of safety to which we could retreat. Having come so far we must proceed. Therefore let us go forward remembering that nothing happens save by the will of God. Right turn, gentlemen! Forward!"

And forward it proved to be from that moment. Marghinân his, the country people, disgusted with the late usurpers, crowded round their old young King.

Of course Grandmother Isân-daulet was in at the finish with her horde of two thousand wild Moghul horsemen; who nevertheless did good, if barbarous, service at Âkshi, where treachery met with its just reward. For the Moghuls, stripping their horses, rode barebacked into the stream and sabred the escaping traitors in their boats.

So the peach trees had not shed their blossoms before, by the Grace of the most High (and many real fine fights) Babar recovered his paternal kingdom, of which he had been deprived for two years.

Two years!

He could hardly believe it as he rode through on the mantle of lambskins between the fort of Andijân and the river, where not so long ago he had been playing leap-frog when first King-ship came to him.

"Nevian-Gokultâsh!" he cried suddenly, "an thou lovest me! off from thy horse and give me a back like a kind soul. I must leap to my kingdom once more!"

He stood there laughing, the embodiment of boyish youth and energy; forgetful of past troubles, eager to enjoy life.

"Ul-la-la!" shouted some of the nobles catching the spirit of the thing and throwing themselves from their horses.

So leap Babar did, not over Nevian only, but over half-a-score or more of the friends of his adversity including Kâsim who nearly tumbled over with laughter and joy.

And the young King, as he once more cast himself face upwards on the soft furry little blobs of blossom amid a chorus of applause, felt that the whole world was splendid indeed.

CHAPTER VII

"There is no use in talking," quoth Isân-daulet decisively. "Send the trays to Ayesha Begum, my daughter, and prepare the wedding comestibles. It has been high time, these two years back, that Zahir-uddin Mahomed got himself married, but of a truth there was not the wherewithal. One cannot marry out of a basket. But now all is smooth, so send for the bride. God grant she be not so unwilling as the groom."

And in truth Babar, seated on the floor, of course, between his grandmother and his mother, looked far from happy. His hands lean, supple, strong, hung over his grasshopper knees, and his head--small for the rest of his body--had not its usual frank bearing.

"I am not unwilling," protested the young man; "Lo! it has to be done, that I know. 'Tis the duty of Kings to marry and have sons; but, see you, I have no experience at all; indeed I have never been so circumstanced as either to hear or witness any words expressive of the amorous passion, and I have never seen my betrothed since I was five."

"God forbid!" ejaculated the Khânum piously.

"But how then can I love her?" protested Babar; "'tis not like Dearest-One and Cousin Baisanghâr--"

A shriek of outrage drowned what he would have said. Not that either of the two good ladies really felt shocked, but that in dealing with Babar they held it wiser to adhere to the strictly conventional; otherwise, heaven only knew if he would not go off at a tangent as Dearest-One had done. Poor Dearest-One on whom the blow of uttermost fate had fallen at last. For a terrible tale had come to Andijân but a month before, snuffing out the lamps of festival like a dust-storm at a wedding. For who could rejoice when they thought of a poor young prince who was nobody's enemy but his own, like Baisanghâr, strangled with a bowstring by the orders of the miserable and infidel-like wretch, worthless, contemptible, without birth or talents, reputation or wisdom, Khosrau Shâh? Babar had been beside himself with rage, and had expended every known epithet on the murderer, who though he prayed regularly, was black-hearted and vicious, of mean understanding, slender talents, faithless and a traitor. A man who for the sake of the short and fleeting pomp of this vain world had done to death the sweetest prince, the son of his old benefactor, in whose service he had been and by whom he had been patronised and protected. Thus rendering himself accursed of God, abhorred of men, and worthy of shame and execration till the judgment day. Perpetrating his crimes too for the sake of trivial enjoyment, and, despite his power and place, not having the spirit to face a barn-door chicken!

The young man had poured all this and much more into his sister's ears, hoping to comfort her, but she had only turned her face to the wall, and wept.

Strange, indeed, were women-folk; she had been so composed when she herself renounced him, but now that Death had stepped in she was all tears.

The thought of her weeping brought him a quick excuse. "Anyhow," he remarked, with evident relief, "there can be no weddings yet awhile; my sister is not in condition for festivals."

Isân-daulet sniffed. "Sisters are not indispensables to a marriage. So be good boy, Babar, and listen to reason. Do I not ever advise thee to thy benefit?"

"Not ever," retorted the young King sulkily; "thou did'st advise me to set my promise aside and let thy cursed Moghuls and others plunder those I had sworn to protect."

"Not plunder, boy!" replied the old lady shrilly, "but to resume their own property."

"I care not," said Babar sternly, and rising to go; "I say I was wrong to yield. 'Twas senseless, to begin with, to exasperate so many men with arms in their hands. And then--Lo! grandam--I was precipitate, and in affairs of state many things that appear reasonable at first sight require to be well weighed and considered in a hundred different lights ere orders are given. I shall have trouble over that yet."

He stalked away in dignified fashion, and his mother sighed. "He grows a man, indeed. 'Tis time he married; but I wonder will she be good daughter to me?"

"She will be good granddaughter to me, that I'll warrant me," retorted Isân-daulet viciously. She would stand no nonsense from young chits.

So the marriage went on, and Babar performed his part of it with grave politeness and propriety. He wore his wedding garments with a difference, and when he sat beside his bride for the first time, holding her hand and repeating the words after the officiating Kâzi he felt quite a thrill. In fact he would like to have squeezed the little hand he held, only it was so covered with rings and gew-gaws that he was afraid of hurting it. Altogether the fateful she looked rather small; but distinctly fetching--though of course he could not see her face, in her veil of jasmine blossoms. They smelt, however, rather sickly.

That was in fact all that he vouchsafed to Dearest-One who, late in the evening, slipped in, dressed in white from head to foot, to wish her darling brother happiness.

"I would she smelt of violets instead," he said thoughtfully; "dost think, Dearest-One, it could have been the jasmine perfume and not the sweets that made me sick when I was five?"

And Dearest-One laughed; a laugh with a sob in it, and said to her mother ere she returned to her House-of-Rest:

"He is not fond of her, see you?"

"God forbid!" snapped Isân-daulet tartly. "Lo! he will love her when she is the mother of his son."

And Dearest-One was silent; that might be; though she doubted it. But for the present she was right. Babar was not in love; what is more he was shy.

The Khânum, his mother, who found her town-bred, mincing and thoroughly amiable daughter-in-law quite an amusing distraction, began by rallying him on his bashfulness; but as the first period of his married life went on, bringing a decrease of such affection as he had had, and a corresponding increase of shyness, raillery turned to tears, then to anger, until the gentle lady, outraged by her son's behaviour, would scold him with great fury and send him off like a criminal to visit his wife.

Babar had, however, some excuse for his lack of interest. Marriage had come to him in the very moment when he needed all his vitality to keep his newly-recovered throne. What he had said to his grandmother concerning his overprecipitate permission for modified plunder had been true. The inconsiderate order, issued without sufficient foresight had caused commotions and mutinies.

The Moghuls, still dissatisfied, had marched off in a huff; good riddance of bad rubbish, as Babar said, though he chafed inwardly at not having been able to control them amicably. Still the Moghul Horde had ever been the authors of every kind of mischief and devastation. Five separate times had they mutinied against him; and not only against him--that might have pointed to incompatibility of temper on his part--but against every one in authority, especially their own Khâns.

It was in the breed. True was the verse:

Thank God! he was no Moghul; he was Turkhomân born and bred!

Before winter came on, indeed, the position of affairs had become critical. Half the nobles had sided with young Jahângir who still claimed the throne, and fighting was general all over the valley of Ferghâna. To shut himself up in the town of Andijân for the winter months would only be to leave the enemy free to ravage the country outside. He therefore chose a spot on the skirts of the hills and cantooned his army there. A pleasant spot with good cover for game! An excellent sporting ground, in fact, containing plenty of mountain goats, antlered stags, and wild hogs. In the smaller jungle, too, were excellent jungle fowl and hares.

Then, when such sport palled, there were always the foxes, which possessed more fleetness than those of any other place. Babar rode a-hunting every two or three days while he remained in those winter quarters, and regaled himself on the jungle fowl, which were very fat. Keeping an eye all the time, however, on the enemy's movements, and guarding Andijân, where the Khânum and old Isân-daulet appeared to have forgotten wars and war's alarms in something more cognate to their woman's hearts; something that was almost too delightful to be true.

Babar, when he first heard of the delightful prospect, was all that could be desired. Affectionate, overjoyed, proud. What else could he be when his mother hung round his neck hysterically, and even Dearest-One's pale cheeks flushed at the future.

"He shall be my son as well as yours, brotherling," she said. "Lo! I will be his best-beloved aunt. So that settles it, and all silly women's talk about my marrying somebody--does it not, O King!"

And Babar, as he sat holding his sister's hand as in the old days, saw a vista of happiness before him. It would be delightful. Imagine having a son of his very own! Ayesha Begum could not complain of his coldness on that visit, and he returned to his camp jubilant.

But the knowledge of what was to come, made him restless. Of what use was an heir, unless he was heir to something tangible? Ferghâna, divided against itself, was no permanent position for either claimant.

But what of Samarkand? There, his cousin Ali (who had no claim) had just beaten Weis, his younger brother who had a claim, doubtless, through his mother: but after his, Babar's, since she was the younger daughter.

He sat on the snowy slopes waiting for bara-singha, or bear, and ciphered it out; he came back to camp and talked it over with Kâsim and the nobles.

"Praise be to God!" said the old swashbuckler, "we may see some fine fighting once again."

They were to see more than they had bargained for; since, when with the advancing spring Babar and his army arrived before Samarkand it was to find that they were pitted, not against the weakling Ali and his half-hearted troops, but against the great Usbek raider, Shaibâni Khân, who, God knows why or wherefore, had attacked Bokhâra, taken it, marched on to Samarkand, taken it by the treachery of a woman, and was now there in undisputed possession. Babar felt that to attack the position overtly with his small force was madness. But what of a surprise? The Usbek horde were strangers. Babar himself had been beloved, during his short reign of a hundred days. If once he could find himself within the walls, the people of Samarkand might declare in his favour. At any rate they would not fight for the Usbek. That was certain.

It was worth a trial. But those who were to attempt the forlorn hope must be picked men, and there must be no attacking force before the city. That would put the garrison on the alert.

In the meantime he would go to the mountains; one thought clearer in high places.

Summer was nigh on, ere preliminaries were settled, and Babar with his picked band, ready for swift attempt, stood on the heights of Yâr-Ailak once more. Above him, unseen in the darkness of the moonless night was the flower-carpeted alp where Dearest-One's face watched the stars wheel. The Heft-Aurang, the seven thrones, showed in ordered array on the purple velvet of the night. Was one of them kept vacant for him, he wondered, or had Baisanghâr's poor ghost found it? Babar's mind was ever full of such whimsical thoughts; they came to him, unasked, making his outlook on life many-facetted, many-hued, like the iridescent edge which had set a halo round all things in the Crystal Bowl.

The future seemed thus glorified to him as he sat looking out over the unseen city in the valley beyond.

His nobles, his comrades, were sitting round him, revelling over the camp fire; holding a sort of sacramental feast before the dangerous surprise.

"Come!" cried Babar, turning, a light on his face brighter than the firelight; "let us have a bet on when we shall take Samarkand. To-night, to-morrow or never!"

"To-night!" cried Nevian-Gokultâsh and the others followed suit.

Half-an-hour afterwards they were in their saddles, low-bowed upon their peaks, light scaling ladders slung alongside, riding for all they were worth. Now or never! The time was ripe. Shaibâni Khân himself, lulled in security, away on a marauding expedition, the garrison unalarmed, confident.

It was midnight when they halted in the Pleasure-ground before the walls of Samarkand. Here Babar detached eighty of his best men. They were, if possible, to scale the wall noiselessly by the Lovers' Cave--most deserted portion of the fortifications,--make their way silently to the Turquoise Gate, overpower the guard and open the doors.

Babar himself, with the remainder of his men was to ride up to the Gate and be ready to force their way in.

How still the night was! The stars how bright! The Seven Thrones wheeling in their ordered array to the dawn. What had Fate ordered in his life? Babar, waiting, his hand gripped on his sword-hilt in the dark way of the Gate, listened eagerly for a sound. The horses' hoofs, deadened by enswathing felt, had made no sound, the very chink of steel on steel had not been heard. All was silent as the grave.

What did Fate hold in store? Hark, a sentry's sleepy call: "What of the hour of the night?"

What, indeed?

Then in one second, tumult, uproar, a clashing of sword on sword.

"The Gate! Open the Gate!" shouted Babar.

A swift bombardment of dull blows--stones, anything on iron bolts and bars. A shiver, a sudden yielding, and the wide doors swung open.

An instant after Babar was through the gateway, King of Samarkand. He knew it, even as he galloped on through the sleeping streets to the citadel. A drowsy shopkeeper or two, roused by the clatter, looked out from the shops apprehensively, then offered up prayers of thanksgiving. So, by ones and twos, the city woke to relief and gratitude. By dawn the hunted Usbeks had disappeared; dead or fled. And the chief people of the town, bringing such offerings of food ready dressed as they had at hand were flocking to the Great Arched Hall of the Palace, to do homage to their new King, and congratulate him on his success.'

Babar received them with his usual frank, simple dignity. For nearly a hundred and forty years, he said, Samarkand had been the capital of his family. A foreign robber, none knew whence, had seized the kingdom unrighteously. But Almighty God had now restored it, and given him back his plundered and pillaged country which he would proceed to put in order.

He did it to his heart's content! He was now nineteen, the birth of his son was nigh at hand, and all must be ready for the expected heir.

So the next month or two passed in preparations and congratulations. Babar, who felt the strength of the pen as well as that of the sword, wrote endless letters to the neighbouring princes and chiefs, assuring them of his favour, and requesting like return from them. These he despatched duly accredited with rose-scent and gold-dust and brocaded bags; but not so many came back as went out.

Moghulistân was slow to recognise the value of peaceful persuasion, and looked askance at the young general who could surprise so wily a foe as Shaibâni Khân and yet think it worth while to write missives like a scrivener.

But one letter came which brought the young King unmixed delight; for it was from the incomparable Ali-Shîr at Khorasân; an incomparable letter without one word astray; a pure pleasure from start to finish. The young King answered it boldly: even daring so far as to write a Turkhi couplet of his own composing on the outside thereof; a Turkhi couplet that was not half-bad; for he was growing to be a man in mind as well as body.

So all things went merry as a marriage bell. His grandmother, his mother, and the mother of his expected heir, arrived by slow marches from Andijân and were lodged in the Birthplace and Deathplace of Kings, the Green-Palace. And Dearest-One came too in the white robes of a sainted canoness, eager to take up her position of aunt-in-ordinary; a position of honour with the Chagatâi family. Babar himself had half-a-dozen or so such Benificent-Ladies ready for all festivities, all condolences.

So, one hot night, he found himself looking distractedly at the moon in a balcony of the women's apartments.

Hurrying feet and whisperings had gone on, it seemed to him, for hours.

But these feet did not hurry; they lagged.

"A daughter! a miserable daughter!" said his mother's voice, full of tears. "Lo! I wonder Ayesha could think of such a thing ... It is unpardonable."

"Let us say no more," put in Isân-daulet. "When a woman disgraces herself, the less said the better. We will get thee a more dutiful wife, sonling."

Even Dearest-One's face was downcast utterly.

"A daughter!" echoed Babar and paused. Then he said eagerly: "May I not see it, motherling?--'Tis my first child, anyhow."

And they showed it him, a naked new-born baby wrapped in a cotton quilt.

"It looks old; as if it had been born a long time," he said reflectively; then his fine, strong, young hand touched the tiny crumpled fingers tentatively. "Lo! they are like little worms," he said and laughed aloud suddenly, a gay young laugh. "She is not bad, my daughter. I will call her 'Glory of Women.'"

And almost every day he would find time to go in to the women's apartments and look at her.

But, after a month or forty days, the little Glory of Womanhood went to share the Mercy of God.

She was his first child, and at the time he was just nineteen.

CHAPTER VIII

Fate had called a halt in Babar's life. A court had once more gathered round him, and, as King of Samarkand, a city of colleges and culture, this was of different stamp from that of Andijân. It occupied itself with other things than the edge of a sword-blade or the merits of a polo-ball.

"Lo!" said Mulla Binâi the poet, his voice lubricated with artificial adulation to extreme oiliness, "I have at last found fitting memorial for the magnificent victory of the King in these poor words:

The horrid doggerel, with its inlay of numerical letters giving the date of Babar's surprise of Samarkand, was allowed to pass muster in that crowd of flattering courtiers.

Only Kâsim Beg, bluff as he had been from the beginning, said, smartly:

"Good enough, if so be 'tis accurate; but of that, thank God, I know naught; for whilst thou rememberest fine fights by dots and strokes, I keep them by the dents on my good sword."

The old noble disliked Binâi; he disliked all poets in general; but this one in particular. He knew nothing good of him but his riposte to Ali-Shîr--who was worth ten of him since he had at least been born a Beg and who, before he was bitten by the mad craze for jingling words, had struck a good few shrewd blows for the right. Besides, he had been author and patron of many useful inventions, and it was not his fault if the gilded youth of Herât named every new fashion after him, and when he, in consequence of an earache, bound up his face with a kerchief, bound up theirs also and called it à la mode Ali-Shîr. Still Binâi's riposte to the sarcasms which had driven him from Herât was a good joke. To order a ridiculous pad for the ass he was to ride and call it the Ali-Shîr pad! The recollection of it always made good old Kâsim laugh broadly. The humour of it suited his sturdy outlook. An outlook that was disturbed by the jingle-jangle of words and wits that began to arise about his young master. It was all very well, and affairs were doubtless in a most prosperous state. All the same there was no counting on any continuance of fine weather with half-a-dozen claimants to the throne and Shaibâni-Khân close at hand. The Usbek raider was no man to give in because of one reverse; his whole life was war.

So Kâsim frowned at culture, and as Prime-Minister looked to his weapons.

It was not however for many months that his fear came true and Shaibâni, reinforced, appeared again on the horizon of Babar's world.

But when he did, the young King set aside everything else and buckled on his sword once more with zest. He had been studying military art in his great ancestor Timur's memoirs, and was eager for a pitched battle. No sooner, therefore, did Shaibâni's hordes show themselves, than the young general marched to meet them, and, over-impatient, precipitated a collision before his own re-enforcements of over five thousand men had time to join him.

But it was his first pitched battle, he was keen as mustard, and had planned it all out on paper beautifully on strategical lines.

And the astronomers were to the fore with a lucky conjunction of stars.

So the right and left wings marched out in orderly array, and wheeled admirably to meet the first attack of their flank. But somehow this separated Babar from his staff of veterans, who possibly did not believe in the virtue of disciplined movements; and though in person he led a dashing and impetuous charge of his centre on the foe, which drove the Usbeks back to the point of rout, Shaibâni would not accept defeat. He stood firm, despite his officers' advice to withdraw while he could, and continued the wild desert tactics of repeated charges on the enemy's flank, repeated withdrawals to wheel and reform.

And Babar's army, but half-disciplined, divided by conflicting ideals became hopelessly confused. His Moghul troops, refusing to obey orders, reverted to their old habit of killing and plundering, with the result of rout--complete absolute rout.

That night the young leader, stern and calm, despite the ache at his heart for his own broken ideals as well as for the loss of the many Begs of the highest rank, the many admirable soldiers, the many devoted friends who had perished in the action, held a council of war in the citadel as to what had best be done under the circumstances. Capitulation on terms, or unconditional defence?

Belief in their leader and the devotion of the Andijân nobles carried the day against the more lukewarm Samarkandis. It was resolved to hold the citadel to the death, to the very last drop of blood; and with vitality renewed by the need for immediate action Babar set to work strengthening the fortifications. Here at any rate he was master; bricks and earth could not disobey orders; they must remain where they were put.

Yet most of the nobles sent away their wives and families secretly. Babar's mother and sister, however, refused to leave their beloved one whose fortunes they had followed for so long through thick and thin. Grandmother Isân-daulet, also, remained of course. Her brave old heart rather gloried in the thought of a siege, and with all the hatred of a desert-born Chagatâi, she hated the Usbek raider who had dared to beat her grandson.

Though on that point she and Babar had many words. He reviling her Moghul horde as the cause of his failure; she asserting it to be his cramping conditions which had prevented the success of the old methods of warfare that had served his fathers well enough.

As for Ayesha Begum she had long since retired in a huff to her own relations, making as her excuse the plea of grief for the death of the little Glory of Womanhood. But Babar knew better. She had not cared at all. Her other plea that he did not love her was more to the purpose. Anyhow it was as well, thought the young husband grimly; she would only have wept and been uncomfortable.

For discomfort was inevitable even from the very beginning of the siege; at any rate for the men. The nightly round of the ramparts alone entailed lack of proper sleep, since but a small portion of them was ridable, the rest had to be done on foot. And so long was the circuit that, starting at dusk, it was dawn before every place had been inspected. Still, even with the small force at his command, Babar kept the foe at bay, though, more than once he had a narrow squeak of it. Once when a feint attack of Shaibâni's on the Iron-Gate covered a daring escalade at the Needle-makers Gate. An escalade that was all but successful. Four of the attacking party were actually over the wall, dozens of others were swarming up it, when one Kuch-Beg, noble by birth and by nature, caught a glimpse of someone where someone should not be. To draw his sword single-handed as he was, and spring to the attack was the work of an instant. It was an exploit for ever to be cited to his honour, though his ringing war-shout brought three more heroes to his aid. Even so, there were but four against dozens; but furious blows, daredevil recklessness do much, and almost before the nodding guards were roused, the danger was over, the escaladers driven back, to fall a confused heap of ladders and men leaving a dead body or two on the ramparts.

Then Kâsim Beg sallied out again and again to engage the enemy's pickets and returned, bringing heads to set on pikes upon the walls.

For war was war in those days; there was no talk of Red-Crosses and ambulance-wagons.

And yet two women went about inside the fortress, bandaging wounds and applying simples. For the Khânum, Babar's mother, could not bear to see pain, and though old Isân-daulet sniffed at new fangled ways, asserting that men could but die once and that it was waste of time to tend a common soldier as though he were a noble, she came of a fighting tribe and could give many an inherited recipe for the healing of cuts, the prevention of wound fever. Then Dearest-One despite her youth, had a claim, as one who had renounced the world to freedom for good works; so mother and daughter went about in their close white veils applying the simples which the old woman pounded and compounded, and doing all they could for the brave men who were helping the beloved of their eyes to keep his kingdom. They could do no less; they could do no more; so at least said the Khânum, as often in the dark nights the mother and daughter lay awake trembling in each other's arms, listening during an attack or a sally.

Grandmother Isân-daulet would fall foul of them for their red eyes.

"When a man comes in to his food," she would say, "reeling from blows at his head or sick at stomach with hunger, 'tis no comfort to him to see tears, or the signs of tears. Thou sayest, daughter, thou can'st do no more for thy son? Then I can. I can make him angry."

And she did: so that Babar went from his breakfast with his soft heart hardened to disdain.

Dearest-One used to admire her grandmother's pluck. Not to care if one hurt the beloved for his good! That was great. And she would wring her hands tight and say to herself: "I told him long ago that there was nothing I would not do for him; but there is nothing, nothing I can do."

So the months dragged by. Harvest came and went without bringing fresh supplies to the beleaguered fortress, and Shaibâni, cynical, somewhat afraid of his daring young antagonist, withdrew from actual collision, and contented himself with blockade. Starvation would do the work without his aid.

The grain for the horses had already given out; however, while the leaves lasted the mulberry trees and the rose-wood trees in the fortified gardens were stripped and did for fodder. But the winter winds ended this supply, and the shift was made to keep some few horses alive with the rispings of wood moistened with water and sprinkled with salt. A sorry appearance was that of the poor steeds on such miserable fare; but Babar's charger did better, with a daily share of his master's bread; though the big-boned lad could ill spare it. For all alike were on short commons; and they grew shorter day by day. The dying horses were killed and eaten, the donkeys went next--then the cats and dogs. When matters came to this pass, however, night after night men--brave men--began to let themselves down over the wall and make their escape. The haggard young King never knew when he called a council of war, what trusted, what honoured face, might not be absent. Yet still he clung to that last drop of blood. The oath might have been foolish, since, as the ancients said, a fortress can only be maintained by the joint action of head, and feet, and hands; that is to say by generalship, two friendly forces on either side, and a good supply of water and stores as the starting point of all. Still he had made it, and he meant to stick to it. The others might go if they pleased.

"If I could only secure thine and my mother's and my grandmother's safety," he said to Dearest-One--"the other few women also," he added--"though there is little fear for them, they count not enough for harm; and Shaibâni hath his army well in hand. That is how he scored against me. Those accursed Moghuls of my grandmother's would not obey orders. If they killed a man they plundered him--and what is that, when a turning movement hath been ordered? Ah! it was devilish! devilish!" And the tall, thin, young figure would throw out its arms almost appealingly. For Babar was ever high-strung, and his nerves were going.

He gave himself no rest either. Night and day he was always on the watch. So it did not matter so much to him as to others when Shaibâni Khân, changing his tactics, commenced making the darkness hideous by beating large kettle drums and sounding the alarm. Yet the young King shook his fist over the battlements at his foe, who had now pitched his headquarters tent close to the Lovers' Cave, and said to Dearest-One, "It is not fair, and yet it is! I would do it in his place--and yet I don't know--I don't know!" He was very near the end of his tether, yet his grip was tight as ever and he would sit on the top of the gateway with a crossbow and shoot at everyone and everything living that showed itself.

"I struck a palish white-coloured horse to-day," he said to his sister with a cruel exultant look in the eyes that had always been so tender for God's dumb creatures, "and it fell dead--would it had been a man!"

And Dearest-One turned pale. This was worse than death; worse than anything--anything in the wide, wide world!

She lay face downwards beside her mother that night and thought, and thought, and thought, until the grey dawn came. Then she sat up and looked at her mother sleeping beside her.

Yes! it was best. The plan was worth the trying at any rate; and she would be the only one to suffer.

She lay down again, and laid her head on that gentle, loving, sleeping breast. And the motherly arms, unconscious as they were, closed round her and held her fast until she, too, slept, outwearied. That morning she was closeted with her grandmother for hours, and at the midday meal the old woman's eyes showed red; but Dearest-One's were clear and bright; when the mind is made up there is no use in tears.

The evening was stormy. The bitter east wind swept along the ramparts and drove the dust in blinding clouds into the eyes of all. The very foe ceased from their disturbing shouts of alarm, and on many a post the sentry slept awhile.

Did one at the wicket gate by the Lovers' Cave sleep or did he not; and did the white-robed figure that slipped after dusk through the deserted streets pass out, unseen, to challenge fate in the Usbek leader's camp?

Or did Dearest-One send a message only?

Or was it only chance which the very next morning brought the ultimatum to the haggard young King? Who knows? Certain it is it came.

There was no reason, Shaibâni wrote, why those who had been brave foes should not be brave friends. None could deny the King of Samarkand's bravery; few would care to deny his own. Why then should they not be friends? A marriage was ever the best way of securing peace. Let Babar therefore give his sister Khanzâda Begum in lawful marriage to his foe--who, be it said, was in strong enough position to take her--and so form a lasting alliance.

"My sister!" burst out Babar in a fury. "Go back to the savage Usbek Shaibâni, robber, raider, sir ambassador; and tell him that Zahir-ud-din Mahomed is not his peer--he is his master!"

This was all very well in the saying; it sent the blood, growing a bit sluggish from sheer starvation, flooding to heart and brain; but afterwards when the envoy had gone, and the hungry anxious faces of the few who still remained to him showed bitter disappointment, he leant his head on his hands drearily in the quiet of the women's room, and tried to put himself in the place of those bearded Begs to whom a woman's honour or happiness or indeed affection, was, as a rule, of small account.

He could not, of course, assent; and yet it seemed a pity that he could not.

And while he sat crouched in upon himself, spent and weary, Dearest-One herself came and crouched beside him and laid her pretty head on his shoulder.

"Brother!" she said, "I have heard. Come let us talk it over as in old days. So let me hold thy poor hand as we used to do; for we have ever been friends, Babar-ling--have we not?"

Her voice was calm and steady despite the clamant note of tears that was in every word.

"Talk not of it, sister! I will not have it," he muttered; and his voice was broken, husky. "By God and his prophet! I could strike him dead for the thought that I could be such a cur as even to think of it."

She shrank just for a second. "Many men would think it naught," she said, "but it is because it means much to thee that thou must think."

"I will not think," he cried passionately, "I will not be coerced. I will not be cozened. I, Babar, take the consequence."

He left her, baffled, yet still determined, to return to the charge in a day or two; and in starvation times a day or two means much. So much, that she spoke sternly with finality.

"Wilt thou kill thy mother by thy pride, Babar? Listen! Long years ago I said I would do aught for thee--"

"And I answered I would never ask aught," interrupted her brother hotly; but she went on unheeding:

"And now thou deniest me the right to save thee. I who have so few pleasures. Lo! as thou knowest, my heart is dead for love; and this man--this Shaibâni--is not all bad--I--I know he is not. Brotherling! women have borne more for love than I shall have to bear maybe--for the man must be kind in a way--for--for if it ended, Babar--he could take me--without marriage--so grandmother says--"

Babar started up with an oath. "So she also is against me!"

Yet in his heart of hearts he knew that the old woman spoke truth. It was generous in Shaibâni even to offer marriage.

"I will not have it!" he cried. "I will not yield! I would sooner kill thee, myself."

"Thou wilt kill--us all," she said calmly. Then she broke down and clung to him sobbing. "Let it be, brotherling, for my sake. There is so little I can do--let me do this."

The quick tears of understanding ran down his cheeks, but he shook his head and left her.

So, after a day or two, yet another proposition came from Shaibâni to his brave foe. Babar might go with bare life, taking his womenkind with him if he chose, provided he capitulated utterly and acknowledged he was beaten.

There were parleyings and parleyings and who knows what secret promisings beside, what innocent lies, what heart-broken yielding on Babar's part. At last, protesting vainly that had he had the slightest hope of relief, or had he had another week's stores remaining he would never have listened to either threats or entreaties, he agreed to capitulate for bare life to him and his. His mother, his sister, his grandmother, these three must share his freedom. The others must take their chance of horses, or remain, unharmed. Grandmother Isân-daulet, however, flatly refused to come. She was too old, she said, to be cocked up on a horse for days. She was not afraid. Thrice, already, when she was young and good-looking she had fallen into the enemies' hands and had been unmolested--save once and how that business ended Babar knew. So, being now wrinkled and undesirable she would just remain and mayhap give Shaibâni a piece of her mind. So her horse had better go to Mingilek-Gokultâsh who was perchance over good-looking. It was ever best not to put temptation in men's way. Besides Dearest-One might like to have her foster-sister with her. It was convenient to have some woman one could trust beside one in dangerous times.

As the old woman spoke, she held her granddaughter by the hand, and her old fingers tightened themselves on the young ones with a grip firm as steel, soft as a caress. And Dearest-One stooped and kissed the old face on the lips.

So by midnight all was ready for the preconcerted escape. The few sorry horses left in the citadel were standing saddled, the enemy's pickets, it is to be presumed, were looking another way. Babar, fierce, miserable, helped his mother to her pad and settled the stirrups for her. He could scarcely see for the hot tears held back so angrily in his eyes. He could scarcely speak for the hard-held breath that seemed to choke him.

Defeated, flying for his life--No! not for his own only; for theirs also!

He gave a glance round at his party. "Is everyone there? Is everyone ready?"

And from the midst of the little crowd clustering round the fugitives with sobs and tears a voice came clearly:

"Yea! brother! I am ready."

It was Dearest-One's voice. That must be she leaning from her horse to whisper a word to old Isân-daulet who stood waving farewells.

"Then in God's name let us begone, and end the business," he shouted fiercely, leapt to his charger, dug spurs to its flanks and was off careless of disturbance. He had sold himself for the sake of those who loved him, man and woman alike; but the blackness as of death was before his eyes; he could not think; he could do nothing but dig spurs to his horse, and ride on recklessly.

And the night itself was dark as death; he had to rein up amid the great branches of the Soyd Canal, and with difficulty rallied his party to the right road. Yet, still entangled in the intricacies of the irrigated fields, there was time for no other thought save that of getting as far from Samarkand as possible before the dawn. Since though the Usbek leader himself had given order for free pass, his followers, still less his allies, were not to be trusted.

The sky was grey with coming day before they reached the comparative safety of a wild valley set amid encircling hills. Here Babar called a minute's halt to breathe the horses, and for the first time turned to take stock of those who followed him.

His keen eye took in his mother's veiled form. But that bundle like a sack of corn, that crumpled heap like a withered rose leaf--neither of these were Dearest-One? She rode! In a flash, a sense of pride at her upright carriage on her horse came to him, even as a suffocating leap of his heart made him speechless for a second. An awful fear seized him. He knew, and yet he would not know what had happened.

"Khanzâda Begum!" he muttered hoarsely. "Where--where is she?"

No one spoke, and anger--hopeless, helpless anger and grief kept him silent. Then someone said almost fearfully:

"Mayhap in the night time--in the darkness--"

"It is a lie!" burst out Babar. "It is a lie!--I have been tricked!" Then something of the innate truth that was ever in his soul made him pause. He ought to have known--he ought to have guessed. Foes were not usually so generous, and he saw himself not altogether free from blame. "I have tricked myself--I ought to have known," he burst out. "I--oh! may God's curse light on everyone--everyone--"

So he stood, his face turned towards the distant city for a moment, then with a reckless laugh he loosed the rein on his horse's neck and threw his arms above his head.

"Come on!" he shouted as the horse bounded forward. "We are free! Let us ride to hell--to hell and damnation!" And his laughter echoed back, bringing terror to his mother's heart.

"He is beside himself," she cried. "After him, Kâsim--for God's sake keep him from harm."

But Kâsim and Kambar-Ali his squire, were already at the gallop, and the sound of their horses' feet followed Babar as he fled.

From what?

From everything in the wide world. From anger, love, remorse, helpless grief, even from resolve not to be beaten. His nerves were unstrung; for the moment his one thought was escape.

But only for a moment. The sound of those galloping hoofs behind him brought immediate self-control, immediate grip on kingly dignity.

He turned back on his saddle to cast a word that would re-instate him in sanity to those following fools.

"A race!" he cried gaily. "Come on! A race let it be!--Ten dinars ..."

But even as he spoke, he overbalanced. Perhaps he felt giddy, perhaps the girths on his starving horse were all too slack. Anyhow the saddle turned with him and he fell; fell clear on his head.

He was up again, however, ere they reached him, standing unsteadily with dazed eyes, passing his hand gently backwards and forwards over his brow.

"What was it all about?" he murmured cheerfully. "I've clean forgotten it all." And he had.

He mounted again after a minute and rode on; but the memory of that night had gone out of his mind for ever and aye.