King-Errant

CHAPTER VI

Babar wrote these verses from a full heart; for he found much difficulty in reconciling himself to the desert of abstinence.

And it was a desert indeed! After the storm of war had come peace--at least comparative peace--and a flat calm was never to his taste even in youth. And here it was aggravated almost beyond bearing by a thousand-and-one minor troubles. To begin with, ere he had commenced the Holy War against that honourable Pagan, Râna Sanka, he had told his soldiers that if successful, as many of them as wanted it should have leave to return home. And this promise had to be fulfilled. Then Humâyon's division had consisted almost entirely of levies from Badakhshân where the young Prince had been governor, and these were seized with a great longing for home. As Kâbul was imperfectly defended, it seemed best therefore to send both the division and its leader back; indeed Humâyon himself needed a rest. He had worked magnificently and now a young wife was awaiting his return; so, in God's name let him go. And little Ma'asuma should have her husband back also; a good sort, though he need not have shown his discomfort quite so openly. Still, let him go also, to return when the approaching hot weather was past, as governor of Etawah.

Then Târdi-Beg! Babar's heart sank as he thought of life without the man who for years and years had been more of a charge than a help in manners mundane; but in all things super-mundane what a joy! Thoughtless, profuse, a lover of the glass, how often had he not turned a frown to a laugh--a merry, innocent laugh? Truly, ever since he, Babar, had come across him, an irresponsible lovable darvish, and had prevailed upon him to give up religion in favour of fighting, he had been a perpetual stand-by to that side of Babar's nature which was not even perceived by the mass of his entourage. And now to have none ready with quip and crank that held just the salt of life wherewith it must be salted!

Yet Târdi-Beg must go too. That renunciation of his had re-aroused religion in his heart, and it must be allowed free course. He also would see the gardens of Kâbul, would feel its fresh breezes, drink its ice-cold water.... Truly! if one did not drink wine, the water should at least be cold!

Babar gulped down a tepid draught disgustedly, and worked away at the verses he meant to send by his friend to those other friends who had deserted him last year. They were in Turkhi and ran as follows:

Hesht-Bishist or the Eighth-Paradise being the name of his favourite garden in Agra.

In fact verses and gardens were his greatest amusement that hot weather, much of which he spent at Dholpur where he was busy laying out pleasure-grounds and building palaces. He had disbanded most of his troops until the rainy season was over, and sent his nobles to the several districts assigned to them. Thus he was left alone to fight out the temperance battle by himself. It did not agree with him evidently, for twice he nearly succumbed to sudden illness; but he brought religion to bear on the question with a grave simplicity all his own, and kept feasts and fasts with the strictest orthodoxy.

Even here, however, he could not be quite conventional; for, never since he was eleven, having held the Festival of Ramzän two years running in the same place--a fact which gives testimony to his unsettled life--he could not make up his mind to break through the usage. So he ordered a fine camp to be pitched at Sikri, and deserted his capital.

Thus the months sped by bringing disappointments and minor pleasures. The news which came to him that Humâyon--Humâyon the magnificent, the darling of his heart--had on his way through Delhi broken open the treasure-houses there and marched off Kâbul-wards with their contents, hurt him extremely. He had never expected such conduct from him, so he wrote him a letter containing the severest reprehensions, and thereinafter fell ill for seventeen days. It was not so bad a fever, however, as that which seized on him in October after he swam the Ganges at Sambal, in order to ride alone (having separated from his people by a finesse--for no reason at all) to Agra. He lay half-delirious then for nigh four weeks, his brain busy all the time with versifications.

He only recollected one of them, however, when at last, a mere skeleton of a man, he rose from his bed. He set it down, however, to show how bad he had been.

He laughed over the doggerel, as he sat joyously eating fruit once more, and reading a letter which told him that in a month's time two of his paternal aunts would actually pay him a visit. They had come south with little Ma'asuma whom her husband was taking to Etawah.

He was full on the instant of preparations. An architect was sent for and orders given for a special palace to be decorated for their reception. He himself, passing rapidly through convalescence went out to meet them in a boat above Secunderabad. It was a most joyful meeting, and Babar hugged the old ladies as they had never been hugged before. It was almost unbelievable, this delight of family life once more. To hear their shrill voices, with the beloved Turkhi accent, prattling away about the dear loved ones in Kâbul was almost too much for him. But they bewailed his looks and chattered of old Chagatâi recipes for deer's broth and mares'-milk cheeses till he shut his eyes and tried to believe they were his dearest mother and his revered grandmother at Andijân and that he was still King of the valley at the extreme limit of the habitable world, and not Emperor of all India.

Then he opened them and took in and loved the quaint old-fashioned dresses and everything about them that was unlike the gorgeously ugly East which in his heart he loathed. But it was his, and it would be his son's and his son's son's; so there was no more to be said.

Nevertheless the meeting accentuated his dislike to India and he found it necessary to put something into life to make up for its lack of real interest. He had taken the title of Ghâzi or "Defender of the Faith" after his victory over Râna Sanka. Now he felt that another Holy War against the heathen might bring the lacking zest to life. It might, anyhow. But he failed to see it clearly in the Crystal Bowl which Mahâm had given him. He used it chiefly as a divining cup now; or rather as a sort of scrying crystal into which he would look, and dream dreams.

But he never saw anything in it save his own thoughts. He could not, however, after his illness, summon up sufficient energy to start this Holy War that winter, and so another hot weather found him still at Agra. It was his third spent alone in a country he disliked fervently. But the gardens he had planted were growing up, the flowers he had gathered from far and near were blossoming. Kâbul, over the river, now bore some faint resemblance to its namesake. Here he held a grand festival for his veteran soldiers. There were not many now who had been with him since as a boy he had wandered over the upland alps at Ilâk; and it was fitting they should be singled out for distinction.

It was a fine feast indeed. Babar sat in a small octagonal pavilion on the river bank, and before the repast was served, sports and games were displayed on an island just opposite. Here, there were fights between furious camels and elephants, ram fights and wrestling matches. Meanwhile the presents were being given. Vests and rich dresses of honour, besides gifts of other value were bestowed, while Babar, always at his best as bountiful entrepreneur, had many a smile and jest, many a kindly remembrance of past days to give with the other presents. Then came food, Hindustân jugglers and acrobats who did surprising tricks; besides many dancing-girls who performed outlandish dances. Finally, towards evening prayer time, a great quantity of gold and silver and copper money was scattered amongst the crowd and there was a precious hubbub and uproar.

Altogether it was like the light-hearted old Kâbul days and Babar felt the better for it. So, the cool setting in once more, he started on his Holy War against the Pagan; but, though he tried hard to take an interest in it, somehow it fell rather flat. He was more struck with the beauty of Râjputana than with the virtue of exterminating the idolaters who lived there. A country where there was abundance of running water, small pretty lakes, where little spots of rising ground afforded beautiful sites for houses, and where the houses in existence were beautiful and capacious, of hewn stone wrought with great skill and labour, was not a country to devastate. So he came back again, to work on annexation with the pen instead of by the sword, and to receive three more paternal aunts who came crowding to claim his boundless hospitality.

They, however, brought sad news from Kâbul. Little Farûk, the son he had never seen, was dead. There was a piteous letter from Mahâm all blistered with tears. The child had never been strong--surely God's judgment must be on her that all her children died--but he had gone to play with his little brothers and sisters in Paradise. So there was none left now but Humâyon, whom God preserve; Humâyon who was looking these days for a child of his own. God send it were a son. Not that it would matter much to heartbroken Mahâm. And scribbled underneath the flourish of a signature were these words: "If my lord desireth another son let him take another wife. I am accursed."

Babar wept over this postscript more than over the rest of the letter. He was very sorry, of course; but the Child was but an abstraction to him, while the thought of his Dearest-dear's grief was bitter indeed.

He wrote her the most loving of letters, begging her not to hurt him by such words. Even had he not had, by her forethought and kindness, other sons, Humâyon would have satisfied him. Humâyon was a son of whom anyone might be proud; so handsome, so courtly, so brave.

And by the same messenger he sent congratulations to the new-made father; for by this time the news of the birth of a grandson had been brought by special runner.

"To Humâyon," he began, "whom I remember with such longing to see him again, health."

It, also, was the most loving of letters. "Thanks be to God," he wrote, "for giving to you a child, to me a comfort and an object of love. You have called him Alamân--the Protected of God--May God protect him and bestow on thee and on me many years made happy by the name and fame of Alamân."

He went on to tell his son gently but firmly that indolence and ease suit but ill with royalty. Did not the poet say:

And then, with a certain pathetic bitterness, he told him that for two years he had had no direct news of his son, though in the last letter the latter had complained of separation from his friends.

"It is but ill manners in a prince," he wrote, "to complain of this, seeing that if one is fettered by situation, 'tis ever most dignified to submit to circumstance. Truly there is no greater bondage than that in which a King is placed, and it ill becomes him to grumble at inevitable separations."

So, with perhaps a vague sense of injury, he remarked that though Humâyon had certainly written him letters and that with his own hand, he could never have read them over, "for had you attempted to do so," he wrote--and the letter is still extant, "you must have found it absolutely impossible. I did, indeed, contrive to decipher your last, but with great difficulty. It was excessively crabbed and confused; a real riddle in prose! Then, in consequence of the far-fetched words you employed, the meaning is by no means very intelligible. You do not excel, I know, in letter writing, but if in future you would write unaffectedly, with clearness, using plain words, it would cost less trouble both to the writer and the reader."

Babar himself was at the time in a distinctly literary mood, for as a demonstration of joy on the birth of Humâyon's child and the marriage of Kamran, one of Babar's other sons, he sent--in addition to other lavish presents--two copies written in his own Babari hand of all the translations and original poems he had composed since coming to India.

And this was no small task, for in his last attack of serious illness he had set himself to translating into verse a religious tract, as a curative measure. It had not, however, proved very successful, though in his ardour he had composed on an average, fifty-two couplets a day.

For he still suffered continually from fever and often from dysentery. In fact, though he could still swim over the Ganges in three and thirty strokes, take breath and swim back again in like number, he was beginning to realise that life was passing. Surely, by now, he had set his foot with sufficient security upon the throne of India to warrant his sending for those dear ones who were never very far from his thoughts and resuming the happy, simple family life which suited him best.

He pondered over this question for some months. It meant, of course, a delay in his own return to Kâbul. But that was inevitable. Hindustân was not yet sufficiently settled to allow of his absence. Divided in his mind between intense longing to see his native country again, and his ideal of kingly self-denial, he hesitated; until news of discord in the Royal clan decided him, and he wrote to Kwâjah-Kilân, the Governor at Kâbul, to take instant steps to start the Royal Family for Hindustân. His letter told his old friend that the affairs of the country had been reduced to a certain degree of order; ere long he hoped to see them completely settled. Then without losing an instant of time he would set out, God willing, for his western dominions. "My solicitude to visit Kâbul again is boundless and great beyond expression. How is it possible indeed that its delights could ever be erased from the heart? How is it possible for one like me, who have made a vow of abstinence from wine, to forget the delicious melons and grapes of that pleasant region? Very recently some one brought me a single musk-melon. While cutting it up I felt myself affected by so strong a sense of loneliness, and of exile from my beloved country that I could not help shedding tears even as I ate it."

So, after giving minute instructions on various subjects, especially as to the planting of trees at a place called the Prospect, and the sowing of beautiful and sweet-smelling flowers and shrubs, he went on to detail his own experiences in reconciling himself to the desert of penitence. "Last year my desire and longing for wine and social parties were beyond measure excessive; to such an extent, indeed, that I have caught myself shedding absolute tears of vexation and disappointment. (For God's sake do not think amiss of me for this.) In the present year, praise be, these troubles are over. This I ascribe (in part) to the occupation of my mind in the poetical translation of a tract; of which no more at present. Let me advise you, too, to adopt a life of abstinence. Social parties and wine are doubtless pleasant, in company with our jolly friends and old boon companions. But with whom can you enjoy the social cup? Truly if you have only Shîr-Ahmed and Hindâi for the companions of your gay hours and the jovial goblet, you cannot find any difficulty in abstinence."

This, Babar felt, was unanswerable. So far as he was concerned he knew that drunkenness in the company of blockheads had been no better than sobriety. And he was not born to suffer fools gladly.

After he had taken the irrevocable step and sent for his Dearest-dear, he went out and looked at the stars before settling himself to sleep, telling himself that he felt years younger at the very thoughts of seeing them all again.

After four years! four long years. They would not have changed, of course; to him at least they could never change. But how about himself? He had grown gaunt and grey. Still at heart he was young--Aye! as young as when he had first bidden the Crystal Bowl bring him the whole, not the half of Life.

Well! he had had his share. And there was Canopus hanging in the south!

"All hail Soheil!"

CHAPTER VII

There was no question as to the youth of the man who on Midsummer Eve A. D. 1529 was riding post haste from Kalpi to Agra, a distance of close on a hundred miles, to meet his wife and children. He sat his horses, laid out along the sandy sun-bitten roads, as only a Chagatâi Turkh could do, and when he flung himself from his last mount at midnight in the Garden-of-the-Eighth-Paradise, he had indeed passed beyond the Seventh-Heaven-of-Happiness.

It seemed simply incredible that before many hours were over he should see Mahâm again. Mahâm, his moon, his more than wife!

It was no joyous festival to him, this Eve of St. John; but surely in some occult fashion, the youth of all Christendom as it rejoiced with garlands and merry shoutings and dances, must have reached him in far India. Perhaps--since there is no limit to such unconscious influences--the immemorial festival of summer that has been held since the world began, added its quota of perennial life to the vitality that was still ready to leap up at any stimulus.

Certain it is that in this, the commencement of this St. Martin's summer of his life, Babar needed no pity for spent power.

He had been delayed by storm and wind and rain. Only a few days before he had had an awkward experience which might have resulted in serious injury. He had been sitting, writing, in his tent at past midnight when the clouds of the rainy season broke, and there was suddenly such a tempest, and the wind rose so high that it blew down the pavilion, with the screen which surrounded it, on his head. He had had no time even to gather up his papers and the loose sheets that were written; so they all got drenched. However, with much trouble they were picked up here, there, everywhere, and set to dry in a woollen cloth over which carpets were thrown. But he had had to put a jesting postcript to Mahâm's letter to say the blisters were not tears. They wrote to each other constantly, these two, and letters from Mahâm made ever a red-letter day in the Diary which Babar kept.

But now this was over! There would be no more need for writing, since she was within a few miles of Alighur where, God willing, he meant to meet her so soon as he had seen that all things were in order for her reception at Agra.

Never was there such a fussy host as he showed himself.

"Truly, nephew Babar," snorted Khadîjah, his chief paternal aunt, when he cavilled at some domestic arrangement in Mahâm's private apartment, "I am woman and I ought to know. If men, and especially Kings, were to do their own work and leave such things to those who understand, 'twould be better."

He looked quite crestfallen, so that the Fair-Princess, filled with pity, nudged him to say that if he sent her the flowers she would see to their being properly placed.

Whereat he was grateful and went off to his beloved gardens to choose what he wanted. Not roses or marigolds. Those were familiar. He must show his Dearest-dear, and little Gulbadan too, who was to come with this advance party, the beauties of Hindustân. They must be shown that there were some beauties! So he picked the red oleander he had found in the old gardens at Gwalior and the snowy gardenia. Then for scent there was the sweet pandanus. But his favourite of all, the scarlet hibiscus, could not be gathered till the very last, as it withered so soon. In a single hour its beauty would have gone; and Mahâm must see how cunningly the thing like a heart showed in the very middle of the broad flower. She must see the marvellous colour, deeper, richer, more beautiful than the pomegranate.

Then there were endless orders to give about fountains, and fireworks, and food. For everything of good in Hindustân must be laid at Mahâm's feet the moment she arrived.

After this there were papers to be signed, and letters to be sent out to various governors; for Babar had been many months away from his capital on a campaign in Bengal. Still, if Mahâm kept to her programme, he would have plenty of time for the fifty odd miles to Alighar if he rode fast; and she could hardly be due there for another twenty-four hours.

But he had reckoned without the loving heart on the other side. Mahâm, as eager as he for the joyful meeting, had pushed on, and reaching Alighar, had left little eight-year-old Gulbadan to follow at leisure in charge of her nurse, and had come on straight post-haste to Agra.

"Your Majesty!" faltered a breathless messenger, rushing into the Presence unceremoniously--all Agra was on the qui vive, and this was no time for the delay of etiquette--"Her Highness is on the road--four miles out--I have just passed Her--"

Babar stood up dazed. Mahâm! To fling his pen aside and start was instant. No time for a horse, not even for shoes. As he was, bareheaded, in his slipper shoon, he was out. In the dust under the stars he ran, and with God only knows what star-drift and dust-atoms in his brain. Earth there might have been, but of a surety there was heaven also.

Canopus of Victory shone to the South; the Warrior, perchance, showed to the North. But he saw neither. Venus shone like a young moon but cast no shadow on his path. And down the straight dusty road came a litter jingling as it jolted. He laughed aloud in his joy as he sprinted the last few yards.

"Mahâm! Mahâm!"

For the rest, what does it matter? Let those two keep it to themselves for all time and eternity.

"My lord! let me descend and walk, too," faltered Mahâm after a bit, but he shook his head lightly.

"Nay, my moon--that would delay us and thou must get home--home?--God! what delight! Now then, ye bearers, a good foot first, or the King will do gangleader and make the pace!"

His joyous threat roused instant laugh, and with a will, the tired men set off at an amble, chanting in time to their steps. At every minute nobles, apprised of the unexpected arrival, came galloping up, to fall into the tail of the little procession after vain efforts to make the Emperor take their horses. But Babar would none of them. He wanted to hold his wife's hand as he strode beside her and hear her sweet familiar voice saying "Yea" and "Nay" to the torrent of his words.

They crossed the river, and were in Hesht-Bishist. That is all there is to say; that is all we know.

Except that ere the blessed night was over Babar wrote in his diary:

"Sunday. At midnight I met Mahâm again. It was an odd coincidence that she and I left to meet each other on the very same day."

After all there is no need for more. One can imagine Babar translucently, boyishly, content. One can imagine how fear at his altered looks gripped at his more than wife's heart, bringing with it a passionate determination to stand between him and needless worry.

There was no chance of that for the present anyhow; all was pleasure and delight. Early in the morning little Gulbadan arrived in charge of the Wazir and his wife, who had been sent out to meet her. They came across her close to the Little-Garden, and, the child being hungry, they spread a carpet and gave her a hasty breakfast.

"There are many dishes," remarked the little lady superbly, and afterwards described the meal as having been drawn out to "fifty roast sheep, bread, sherbet and much fruit." For the dainty child of eight had inherited much of her father's gift of words. She was rather small for her age and extraordinarily self-possessed. With a vast discrimination in etiquette also, as befitted a Royal, or rather Imperial Princess.

"There is no need to rise for her," said the Wazir hastily, when his wife entered and little Gulbadan would have saluted her. "She is but your old serving woman."

This, however, did not suit the little lady who had also her father's gracious manners. And all the while she was bursting with impatience to see the man who her little life long had been held up to her as a model of all that was good, and kind, and brave. Five years is a long time when one can but count eight in all; and the child's recollection only carried her back vaguely to someone very tall and straight who used to hold her close so that she could feel something beating inside. Was it her father's heart or her own? That was not likely any more; for she was quite a big girl and her hair was plaited in virginal fashion.

Besides she had all her little bowings and genuflections ready. She rehearsed them gravely in the litter as she went along to pay her respectful duty to royalty.

But after all they did not come into the meeting. She had not even time to fall at the Emperor's feet, for, in an instant, he had her in his arms.

"And then," as she told Mahâm afterwards in the seclusion of the women's apartments, "this little insignificant personage felt such happiness that greater could not be imagined."

Mahâm laughed. "Truly thou art a quaint little marionette, Gulbadan! And what dost think of thy father?"

The little maiden pursed up her lips and sat quiet for a minute. Then she said firmly: "I think he is too beautiful to put into words."

Her father, however, did not share her opinion in regard to her looks. He was never weary of praising them, and it was a pretty sight to see him holding her by the hand as he took her round to inspect all his new buildings and gardens. And nothing would serve him but that they must go out, both of them, and see Dholpur, which, in a vague way, might remind them of beloved Kâbul. And from Dholpur they went to Sikri where they spent a happy month rowing about in the big tank. Here little Gulbadan used to sit for hours at her father's feet while he wrote up his memoirs in the summer house of the great garden.

"Lo! little mouse," he would say, looking round to lay a kindly hand on her smooth head, "mayhap thou mayest write a book thyself some day; thou hast more brains than thy brothers." And he sighed; for of late Humâyon had not been very satisfactory; nor, for the matter of that, were Kamran and Askari, his other two grown-up sons, exactly after his own heart.

Gulbadan shook her head gravely. "The Emperor speaks in ignorance of my brother Alwar," she said, not without hauteur, "but when my mother, Her Highness, Dildar-Begum arrives next week the Emperor will admit that his son is a rarity of the world, and a unique of the age."

Her dignity was supreme, and Babar laughed. "Nicer than Hindal, Gullu?" he asked, knowing her preference for the boy who had been brought up with her under Mahâm's care.

The child flushed up visibly, and tears stood in her eyes. "Lo!" she said, "Hindal is indeed my brother. Mayhap he is not clever; but I love him, I love him!"

The Emperor caught her in his arms and kissed her tears.

"So do I, sweetheart, so does everybody. Lo! I dare swear it! we all love each other, do we not?"

In truth it seemed like it. Babar's three wives were there after a time and yet none of them quarrelled; perhaps because no one in the wide world could have quarrelled with childless Mubârika, the Blessed-Damozel, and Dildar was too much occupied with little Alwar to think of anything else. He was, indeed, a marvellous child, of extraordinary beauty and brains. One of those children over whom old folk shake their heads and say: "He is not long for this world." Though barely six he was, as his little sister had said, a unique of the age, and Babar, who had not seen him since he was a baby in arms, was almost pathetically proud of him.

His devotion, indeed, raised a suspicion of jealousy even in Mahâm's generous heart for her own son Humâyon--and one evening as the husband and wife were sitting together in the open balcony of the Palace, she hinted that Humâyon might have to play second fiddle in his father's graces.

Babar came over to her and laid his head--it was fast grizzling--on her lap in the old affectionate Turkhi fashion.

"Little mother!" he said, and there was a break in his voice, "say not stupidities. Lo! thou knowest, as I do, that life became doubly dear to me, when thou didst lay my first-born son in my arms. Thou knowest that I have done all these things--these many things for him--my heir."

There was a faint stir at the door, and Babar turned to look. Then with a bound he was on his feet.

"Humâyon!" he cried joyously; "Humâyon himself! Look! little mother! thy son! thy son!"

And Humâyon it was, unsent for, unexpected, but welcome as roses in May. The Emperor had not the heart to chide him for leaving his governorship, since his presence made the loving hearts of those two open like rosebuds, their eyes shine like torches.

Never was such merry-making as they had that night. It was Babar's rule to keep open table every day, but on this occasion he gave a spread feast, and heaped every kind of distinction upon his handsome son. And in truth he deserved it, for his manners and his conversation had an inexpressible charm, he realised absolutely the ideal of perfect manhood.

So at least his parents agreed, as, after the state dinner was over, they sat, a family party, in the Gold-Scattering-Garden. There was a little tank there, cut out of solid red rock, which in his unregenerate days Babar had intended to fill with red wine. It was now brimming, in honour of this happy meeting of so many, with lemonade, and they sat and quaffed it by gobletfuls contentedly. And Alwar recited his set pieces, and Gulbadan did a stately Turkhi measure, and nothing would serve Mahâm but that my lord should sing her his latest love-song. She had not heard him sing for years, and though he had sent her and his sons plenty of didactic and pious songs of his composition and translation, he had included no love-songs. And he had had such an excellent touch with them in the old, old days.

Whereat Dildar giggled faintly, till Dearest-One, who, tall, pale, a childless widow now, had also come to see her brother, said softly:

"Aye! it was given him by the Good God who sends Love as His best gift to the World. Yea! Sing to us of Love--brotherling."

So he took the lute and sang sweetly enough, though his voice had lost its youthful ring.

"'Tis only a translation," he said thoughtfully, "but I like it--'tis so simple."

And then his mind drifted away to that spring morning among the flowers on the high alps at Ilâk when he had wondered at the look in Dearest-One's eyes. And his hand went out to seek hers and found it. So they sat there hand in hand like children for a space, and a great weariness of the uselessness of life came to Babar.

"Lo!" he said suddenly, "I will make over my kingdom to thee, Humâyon. Thou art young. I grow old and I am tired of ruling and reigning. A garden and those I love--what more can any man desire?" He spoke half in earnest, half in jest.

Mahâm turned pale; Dildar and the paternal aunts and khânums--by this time there were ninety-six in all!--cracked their thumbs, and even Dearest-One shook her head and said quickly: "May God keep you in His Peace upon the throne for many, many years."

But the Blessed-Damozel who always sat a little apart only smiled. "My lord means the Garden of the Eighth Heaven," she put in quickly. "Yea! there is peace there, and rest for everybody."

"My lady says sooth," acquiesced Babar and their grave eyes met.

But little Gulbadan was agog because it was time the fireworks began or Nanacha would be sending her to bed, so the idea of abdication ended in Babar's catching her up in his arms and carrying her off to see how the wheels turned round. Then Alwar, while Dildar gave little shrieks of horror (in which she was joined in louder echo by the Astonishingly Beautiful Princess who invariably wept and laughed to order) actually set fire himself to a bomb and when it exploded clapped his hands with glee.

"When I am a big man like my father, the Emperor," he said boastfully, "I will fire ten guns at a time."

"'Tis silly to say such things," retorted Madam Gulbadan superbly.

But the child's keen little face was not in the least abashed.

"Lo! sister, 'tis silly of thee to say no when thou canst not tell where I shall be as grown man. Likely in some bigger place than this." And he waved his hand contemptuously towards Babar's great palaces.

Whereat they all laughed; for they were a merry, happy party. So they feasted and enjoyed themselves. As little Gulbadan wrote in after years: "It was like the day of Resurrection."

CHAPTER VIII

Humâyon remained with his father for a week or two. Handsome, insouciant, always agreeable and of a curious dignity of carriage he seemed cut out to be a King. Wherever he went, no matter in what society he might be--even his father's--the eye rested on him with pleasure. And yet Babar's eyes, fond as they were, failed to see something he fain would have seen. There seemed no sense of responsibility, such as he, Babar, had had at his years. Yet it was hardly fair to judge the lad by the standard of one who had perforce been thrust into power at eleven years of age. And, after all, Humâyon was barely two and twenty; still quite a lad. There was time yet.

So, weary as he was, Babar said no more about abdicating; he even tried to think no more about a plan he had cherished of going back for the next hot weather to Kâbul and leaving Humâyon in charge of Hindustân.

"My Kâbul," as he ever called it; saying to his sons in jesting earnest--"Let none of you covet it for I will not give it! It is mine own, my very own. The only thing in God's earth I care to keep, for there He gave me happiness."

Still he was happy enough as it was in Hindustân, and, thanks to Mahâm's good care, felt more himself. But, like all women, she was a trifle fussy.

"Lo! my lord," she said, one extremely hot Friday when a dust-storm was blowing, and Babar, despite this, was preparing for his weekly visit to his paternal aunts; a duty he had never once neglected when in Agra for three whole years. "How would it be if you did not go this one Friday? The Begums could not be vexed seeing how good you are to them."

Goodness, she thought privately, was a mild word, considering that each and all of the ninety-six female relations had palaces and gardens assigned to them and that the Court architect had standing orders to give precedence to whatever work, even if it were on a great scale, the ladies desired to have done, and to carry it through with all might and main.

But the bare suggestion hurt the Emperor's affectionate heart.

"Mahâm," he said in pained astonishment, "it is not like you to say such thoughtless things. Think a moment. They are the daughters of my fathers, deprived by God of their parents. Therefore, being female, they are helpless. I am the head of the family; if I do not cheer them, who will?"

Mahâm could not forbear a smile. No one, in truth; but Babar, beloved, kindly Babar, would think twice about a pack of old women; and she would not change him for worlds. So, despite her anxiety for his health, she said no more.

All that winter they were an extraordinarily happy family party. Humâyon had been sent as Governor to an up-country province, and not back to Badakhshân where he and his half-brother Kamran had almost come to blows. And family quarrels were, in the Emperor's opinion, positively indecent, besides being so unnecessary; since there were always plenty of outsiders with whom to have a fine fight. Then the news from Bengal, where the success of his arms was being assured, was satisfactory. Babar did not mind beating the down-country Pagans; it was different in Râjputana where you had to kill real men. But, even there, peace was coming fast; for few brave soldiers could withstand Babar's frankly outstretched hand of friendship. And he asked for so little in return. He took no money, no land. He only claimed suzerainty; and it was much to have a strong man as final referee.

Then Babar's friend Târdi-Beg came back to him, not as soldier, but in the darvesh's peaked cap and white blanket frock. However he came he was welcome, especially to Mistress Gulbadan who appropriated him wholesale. They were a quaint pair, as hand in hand they inspected the gardens, and the stables, and all the ins and outs of the Royal household; for the little lady had great ideas of management.

And Babar would follow, as often as not with Alwar, who was but a weakling in body, perched on his broad shoulder.

The "four children," as Mahâm would call them as they played at ball together in the marble alleys; Târdi-Beg with his cap off, his shaven head glittering to match little Gulbadam's tinsel and jewellery; Alwar, a miniature of the Emperor even to the tiny heron's plume in his bonnet; Babar, his haggard face beaming. The men enjoyed themselves quite as much as the children, and if Babar accused his friend of chucking easy ones to Gulbadan, Târdi-Beg asserted that Alwar never got a hard one; whereat the little lad wept; but his sister stamped her foot and said she wouldn't play any more unless they played fair. A remark that, of course, brought the immediate capitulation of Târdi-Beg and Babar.

"THE FOUR CHILDREN, AS MAHÂM WOULD CALL THEM"

Yes! they were very happy, very guileless, very innocent, as Babar himself had written so often over less commendable amusements.

And then suddenly came a bolt out of the blue. Alwar, little Alwar, to whom every day seemed to bring some new charm of unbelievable intellect beyond his years, fell sick. From the very first he lay quiet, exhausted, spent; but smiling. It was a trick he learnt of his father.

So, after two or three days he died, his hot, thin, little hand in that father's. It was as if the sun had gone out of the sky to the whole household. Even the Blessed-Damozel shed slow tears as she wreathed the dead darling in drifts of scented gardenias and put a scarlet slipper blossom with its quaint "something like a heart" upon the breast.

Babar, placing the light corpse in the niche cut for it in the flower-filled grave, felt as if it were his own heart he were burying; but it was Darvesh Târdi-Beg who recited the committal prayer, and that gave him comfort.

Besides he was a man, and the women had to be sustained. The poor mother, Dildar-Begum, was literally frantic with grief. Doubtless, she said, the child had been poisoned, because its father loved it so; doubtless, in her mad despair, she accused Mahâm of doing the deed. Polygamy is a fair-weather craft; it is apt to fail in a storm.

But the poor soul was mad. Everyone saw that; and the women took it more quietly than the man. Even blur-eyed, half-silly Astonishingly Beautiful Princess nodded her head and remarked sagely: "They say that sort of thing always in grief-time, nephew; so why fuss about it. She will forget it after a time."

And Ak-Begum came with her bright squirrel eyes all soft with tears to Babar, and whispered: "We all know it is not true, nephew. Our lady is God's kindness itself; so why fret."

But it did fret the man and added a bitterness to his grief, which even Mahâm could not sweeten.

"If my lord will listen to this slave," said the Blessed-Damozel at last, "it will be better to beguile the poor distraught one by change of scene. Lo! the lotus must be out in the Dholpur lakes. Why not go there for awhile? Good rain has fallen; it is cooler now."

So they all went, sailing down the river Jumna in tented boats. Far and near the wide level plain was tinted green with fresh spring grass. The parch of an Indian summer was over. This was the Indian spring. With magical, marvellous quickness the flowering trees burst into blossom, the Persian roses budded in a single night, and down amongst their grey-green, velvet leaves you could positively hear the calyx burst as the scented petals struggled to the sun. The climbing gardenias hung like white scarves round the dark cypresses, the hedges of Babar's favourite slipper flower were ablaze with their great flat scarlet circles.

Yes! it was spring! So as they journeyed, the sad little party became more cheerful. The women, especially, had begun to talk of their departed darling as one of God's angels; even his mother had sobered down to copious tears, and pathetic requests that she might be given back her other son Hindal--whom Mahâm certainly had taken from her as a baby.

"Let her have the boy, my lord," said Mahâm pitifully. "Lo! it is but fair she should have one son; and I have Humâyon."

So Babar blessed her for her kind heart, and sent off a special messenger to Kâbul for Hindal, a boy of nigh ten years old who had been left behind with his tutor to complete his education.

The Emperor felt happier when this was done; perhaps because in his kind heart of hearts he had never been quite sure of the righteousness of giving Hindal over to another woman. It was the only action of his in regard to his womenkind which he could not have conscientiously upheld against all comers at the bar of his own judgment.

It was great gain, therefore, to find his Dearest-dear of a mind with himself. For all that he felt--as strong men so often do when limited by feminine outlook--rather battered and worn.

In no fit state therefore for the bad news which came to him by special runner as he sat by the Water-lily tank at Dholpur.

Humâyon, wrote the Court Physician, in Delhi, was very ill of fever. It would be best if his mother were to come at once, as the Prince was much prostrated.

Humâyon! First, Alwar, his youngest; then his eldest son! Was he to lose them both? Babar was in his essence very man. Trouble came to him overwhelmingly. He might face it bravely; but he always faced the worst. It was Humâyon, bested in his fight for life that he saw; whereas Mahâm with the eternal hopefulness of woman, which springs from her eternal motherhood, would not let herself even think of defeat. Upset as she was by the dreadful news, she yet spoke quietly of how she would bring her invalid son back, and how his father had best return to Agra and have everything ready to receive their darling.

"I would fain come, too, dear-heart," said Babar pitifully.

But Mahâm would not hear of it. Even so much would be to admit danger, and there was none--there could be none. Nathless, let urgent orders be sent along the route so that there should not be an instant's delay.

She was quite calm and collected to him; but she broke down a little to the Blessed-Damozel who somehow or another--why, folk never knew--was ever the recipient of confidences.

"Thou wilt look after him, lady," she said quite tearfully, "and see that he wearies himself not with over-anxiety?"

"All shall be as if thou wast here, sister, so far as in me lies," was the quiet reply, and Mahâm was satisfied. What Mubârika-Begum said she would do, would be done. Mahâm knew that; for she knew (what Babar did not) that Mubârika's life had been one long self-denial.

Years and years younger than her husband, she had left a young lover behind her in her father's palace when she had come as a bride to make peace between her clan and the King of Kâbul. She had chosen her part, she had respected and admired, in a way she had loved Babar; but passionate romance had never clouded her eyes.

"Yea! I will guard him as thou wouldst," she said again, "and mayhap in thy absence, and with this common grief and anxiety to soften memory, Dildar also will learn how good, how kind thou art, thou Star-of-the-Emperor's life."

But even Mubârika, so calm, so gracious, so tactful, could not prevent the mental strain from telling on Babar's bodily health. Prolonged anxiety, great grief had always prostrated him for a time, even as a young man; and now illness and hard work had aged him before his years.

"Would to God he could but drink a bit--he need not get drunk," wailed Târdi-Beg who, being tainted with Sufi doctrines, would orate for hours concerning cups divine, and ruby wines. But Babar had never broken a promise in his life, and was not going to begin now.

Besides, Mahâm had been right. Humâyon was brought to Agra alive. That was much. In the first fulness of his joy at seeing his son once more, Babar almost forgot anxiety.

"He will soon be well, dear-heart," he said cheerfully; "he does not look so very bad. When the fever leaves him--"

But it was Mahâm's turn to be despondent. "It does not leave him," she said.

That was true; as yet the crisis had not come, and it was long in coming. Day after day he grew weaker; day after day the brain, weary of fighting at long-odds for life, grew more and more drowsy.

"My sisters! I want to see my sisters!" would come the low muttering voice, reft of almost all its youth, its tone. And those three, Gulchihra, Gulrang, and Gulbadan, Rose-face, Rose-blush, Rose-body, Babar's three rose-named daughters, would creep in with tears and kiss him. A pathetic little picture. The girlish faces all blurred with tears, the tinkling of bracelets, jewelled earrings, head ornaments, what not, the rustling of scent-sodden silks and satins, and that poor head on the pillow turning from side to side, rhythmically restless.

Even Babar himself, had to see after a while that the Shadow-of-Death lay on his son.

"Mahâm!" he said pitifully,--"the boy, the boy--"

Poor mother! For nigh on four-and-twenty years she had been this man's stay and stand-by. He had come to her consoling arms as a child comes to its mother. She had given him in passionate devotion more than he perhaps realised, for they had been faithful friends always, and the friendship had overlaid the love; but she failed him now, for she was at the end of her tether. So she stood dry-eyed, almost cold.

"Why should my lord grieve," she said, "because of my son? There is no necessity. He is King. He has other sons--I have but this one!--therefore I grieve."

For a second Babar stood as if turned to stone, then he answered almost sternly: "Mahâm! Thou knowest that I love Humâyon as I love no other son of mine, because he is son of the woman I love best. Thou knowest that I have sought and laboured for kingship for him and for him only. Thou knowest--" softness had crept back to his voice--"Nay! what need to tell thee, since thou knowest that there is nothing in the wide world I would not do for Humâyon?"

"Thou canst do nothing! There is naught to be done," she muttered, still tearless, calm; and something in her pitiful despair roused instant response in his ever-ready vitality, and he threw back his head with a gesture of negation.

"There is naught I would not dare, anyhow," he said, "and what is dared is often done. Take heart! my moon! All is not lost. Defeat comes not till Death--who was it said that long years ago--Aye! Defeat comes not till Death--And even then--God knows--He knows...! He knows...!"