and petted him by turns. But she ought really to get married; it was nonsense to say you preferred being a sainted Canoness!
Baisanghâr did not say that, though, he, too, refused to marry. He said women were unnecessary evils. Was that true? Not that it mattered, since he, Babar, would have to marry, because he was King …
King! Would it make him happier, he wondered? Could anyone be happier than he had been in this splendid world? Supposing it was to make him unhappy? Supposing it took the charm from life …
The idle thoughts went on and on. He felt sleepy, yet he could not sleep. And by and by the glimmering oblong of the unglazed window kept him watching the slow growth of light.
Out on the hills, the still dawn must be stepping softly so as not to waken the world too soon … soft, sandalled feet among the snow-set flowers. …
The mere thought of it was sufficient to rouse him thoroughly. He rose, passed to the window, and thrust his young body into the chill air of dawn. All shadow! A deeper shadow in the valley, a lighter shadow in the encircling hills, and above it all the clear, grey, pellucid shadow of the sky.
Hark! That was the dawn cry of the wild fowl on the marsh and he held his breath to listen like the young Narcissus, while the whole joy of splendid life seemed to fill his world once more. He did not realise--few humans do--that he was but listening for the echo of himself; the self which came back to him from sights and sounds, that many a better man might have seen and heard unmoved.
So he waited and watched till the eastern sky showed pale primrose, and the unseen sun encarnadined the distant snows, and separated the white morning mists from the blue shadows of the hills.
It was a new day, and yonder over the brow of the road were pennons and lance-points. The tribesmen were coming to bury the dead, to do homage to the living.
It was a busy day, filled up with long-drawn, intricate ceremonial. Bare time for more than one tight clasp of tearless mother and tearless son, while that Dearest-One, his sister, stood by silent, the tear-stains still on her cheeks. But that did not matter; those three understood each other.
And old Isân-daulet, his maternal grandmother, had set emotion aside also, and, stern old disciplinarian as she was, had bidden him--in high staccato phrases which betrayed her effort to keep calm--take his father's place as bravely as he could.
And he did what he could, though it was a strain upon his twelve young years, for the long night had left him feverish and the long day with its need for initiative had outwearied him. So that when at last the ordeal was over, and he was free to seek the women's apartments for rest, his nerves were all a-rack, his pulse fast and irregular.
He found his grandmother alone by the big coal fire. Mother and sister, outwearied also, had gone to bed; the best place, the old lady said oracularly, for sore eyes and broken hearts. And Babar felt it was better so. The company of the stern-featured, soft-hearted old woman of whose sagacity and clear-sightedness he stood somewhat in awe, would be more bracing than the tears which must come sooner or later.
People said he was like his grandmother. Was he, he wondered, as he lay prone on the sheepskin rug watching the firelight on her fine old face.
"Tell me!" he said suddenly, "the tale of thy youth--of Jaimal and the lover who was slain."
But Isân-daulet, though she smiled, shook her wise old head.
"Nay, child! Such tales do to stir phlegm. They are not meet when the humours are already disturbed."
The boy leaned over on his elbows and looked up at her.
"Like cures like by comparison! 'Twould steady my pulse to know others throbbed. Feel mine, Grandam--how it beats!"
She took the thin, muscular wrist held out to her and appraised it judicially.
"I will give thee a purge the morrow's morn," she said shortly. "That will keep thy head cooler than idle tales; there is nothing for hot boy's blood like a purge."
Babar's face showed obstinate yet whimsical. "I will not take it, nanni, if thou wilt not tell--so there! And Kings are not to be coerced, see you, by black draughts, as mere boys are. And 'tis the first boon I have asked from thee--as I am."
The ring of almost apprehension in the last words was too much for the old woman, who loved the lad as the apple of her eye. She laid her hand caressingly on the boy's hair. It was cut, Florentine fashion, to the ears, and the ends, outsweeping in a gentle curve were sun-burned browner than the rest of the dark head.
"It is little to tell, sweetheart, save that it shows how even womanhood may confound strength by being resolute. It was not many years after my lord, your grandfather, married me in my father the Khân's tents upon the Steppes. He was a bold, brave man, was my lord, and like all bold, brave ones, he fought sometimes and won, and sometimes he fought and lost. 'No battle is ended save by Death,' remember that, O! Zahir-ud-din Mahomed! And once when he lost, his women--I was one--fell into the hands of Jaimal Shaikh, his enemy. And he--low-bred hound who knew not the first principles of politeness!--did not even keep me for himself!--I was not ill-looking in those days, my child--but sent me to his officer. I, the wife of Yunus Khân, Chagatâi, of the house of Timur the Earth Trembler! Well! the fool came decked as for a bridal with blandishments and perfumes, and I welcomed him. Wherefore not? for the supper was good and he played on the lute passably. But when that was over, and we withdrew smiling to the inner room, my maids locked the door by my orders, stabbed the silly rake to death and flung his be-scented body through the window to the gutter. 'Twas its proper place."
The old voice which had gained strength and fire in the recital, dropped to cold, hard finality.
"And Jaimal Shaikh?" queried Babar unwilling to lose a word.
"He sent for me and I went. 'Why hast thou done this evil thing?' he asked. 'Because thou didst worse,' I answered. 'Because thou sentest me, the wife of a living man, to another's embrace. Therefore I slew him. Slay me also, if so it pleases thee.'
"But it did not please him. 'Take her to her husband's prison,' he said, 'and leave her there. They are one flesh indeed.' So I stopped with thy grandfather and comforted him until his star rose again. Now, get thee to thy bed, child, and see thou take the draught without demur. Remember 'God is no maker of the promise breaker.' 'Twill make thee feel sick, doubtless; but what matter if the result be good."
Babar made a wry face and laughed. "Thou hast done me more good with thy tale, revered one! Lo! I can see thy would-be lover in the gutter and my esteemed grandmother, all beautiful as a bride, peeking through the lattice for a glimpse of his corpse--"
"Go to thy bed, child," put in the old lady, delighted. "There be more than pictures for thy sight now; so may the Great Maker of Kings guard thee, his creature."
And that night Zahir-ud-din Mahomed commonly called Babar, forgot that he was King in sound, dreamless, boyish sleep.
CHAPTER II
"There's a sweet little cherub who sits up aloft To keep watch for the life of Poor Jack!"
In truth, Babar needed such a cherub in the first
