CHAPTER V
The world-revealing cup of the King Jamsheed Counselled the King in his pleasures and in his need.
--Firdusi.
The Prince Salîm, despite all efforts of his friends, accepted his father's reprimand in dutiful fashion. Truly Akbar--may he be accursed!--hath a very devil of persuasion in him for those he loves."--The scribe's hand paused in its swift swooping over the Persian curves, and he looked up for an instant with all the evil of his handsome face concentrated into an expression of bitterest antagonism. Then he turned his head, listening ere he went on with his news-letter.
"So far little has been gained. Yet the poison works. The prince, grown older, than his brothers--who are themselves coming on for rebellion--resents this leading, as of a young colt, and will ere long assert himself. Already he is fit for intrigue; by and by it may be for murder. And Akbar once gone--by what means God knows!--Salîm will be our tool. Thus the dead to-day brings forth another to-day, and so we (more especially this Mote-speck-in-the-Light, Dalîl, of the Kingly House, Tarkhân, who waits in unmerited exile for his Lord's service expectant of his Lord's recall) hope, knowing that all God's strength dwells not in one man's body. Meanwhile the King's action in this matter hath stirred up the whole city. Ere noon Jamâl-ud-din left, accompanied by a goodly gathering of his clan all incensed at the sentence of exile passed on their captain. He hath gone to his relatives of Bârha and will doubtless rouse them to resistance. But the jade Siyah Yamin hath done more for our cause than any, since I have but now returned from seeing her leave-taking; for the baggage hath elected to follow her lawful spouse. Truly 'tis said 'A torn ear clamours for more earring!' Half the town were at the heels of her palanquin wherein she sate veiled like any cupola of chastity, but full of an evil tongue. Truly it was a sight to set pumpkins a-sinking and mill-stones a-floating, since none knew what to make of it, with the light men gathering up the flowers she flung, and the light women praising her in jest for her fidelity. But it hath done our cause good service, and the King may repent him of his virtue ere long. Thus remaineth matters at this present. Whilst I, Dalîl, knowing that straight fingers hold naught, crook mine in the service of the Head of my House, Mirza Jâni Beg, looking for reward. This goes by the hand of Sufardâr, envoy, whom I await this day past, but----"
In the act of writing the words "who comes not" the scribe paused again. This time there was no doubt of a sound presaging interruption, and the writer, thrusting the papers under a fold of his embroidered shawl took up a lute which lay beside him, and leaning back amongst the scented cushions began to strum a love song and sing in a high tenor voice:
Oh! Love! I am caught in the snare
Of the scented net of her hair
Oh! Love! I am stricken dead
With hunger for her, and with drouth
Her foot is upon my head
Would my kisses were on her mouth.
"A merchant selling essence of rose by my Lord's orders," said an obsequious dwarf extravagantly dressed; one of the smartest deformities in fact to be found in the service of the young nobility of the court. His cunning face, full of almost malignant comprehension, had been overlaid with servile admiration as he had waited for the song to end.
"Let him enter," came the yawning reply, "and, Yahéd, close the doors on us. The lamp flickers in the evening wind!"
The song went on lazily--
Oh! Love! I am held by the power
Of her bare brown bosom-flower
Oh! Lo/ve! I am lost in the mesh!
In the very thought of a sip
At the nectar of soft warm flesh
And the touch of her lip.
Then the door closed, and he turned swiftly on the figure which had entered.
"So, at last! I have been awaiting thee these four-and-twenty hours. And wherefore was there no due notice of arrival? Lo! my liver dissolved when the arch-heretic, Abul, spoke at the King's audience of an envoy from Sinde. For aught I knew Jâni Beg might have failed to secure the crown. It was a relief to see thy face--but how came all this Sufardâr?"
He spoke as one having authority, but the supposed merchant answered sulkily as he unwound his close-draped shawl, so disclosing, in truth, the slender spareness and the high pallid features of the envoy from Sinde.
"If thou canst tell me how it came about, Oh! Dalîl Tarkhân of the House of Kings," he said, "thou knowest more than I, the companion of thy youth; since I know naught. A blank as of death lies behind me from the time we encamped at noon yesterday, five miles beyond the city."
The whilom scribe looked cynically at the dull opium-drugged eyes.
"A blank!" he echoed. "How much of the Dream-compeller goes to make that for thee now a days, Oh! Sufar?"
Those dulled eyes lit up with sudden fire. "No more, I swear to God, than the noon-day pellet of twelve years agone. Thou knowest the old Tuglak tombs about Biggâya's Serai? The tents were late and it was hot, so I slept in one of them----"
"Curse thee! Sleep where thou willst," interrupted his companion impatiently, "but give me the packet. I must answer it, if answer be required." He held out his hand, scented, manicured, be-ringed like any modern lady's.
The envoy's face showed uneasiness. "If thou wouldst listen, thou wouldst learn," he said vexedly. "I slept and dreamed. Then I woke; but it was to to-day, not to yesterday."
"But thou wast at the Audience--for I saw thee! Aye! and I wondered what Birbal, the heretic pig, had to say to thee as he kept the King waiting."
The envoy shook his head slowly. "It is a blank; and hearken, Mirza sahib, the packet hath gone!"
"Gone!" echoed the other again, his face paling at the thought of Akbar's ever-swift punishment for treason. "Thou hast lost the letter; and this tale of forgetfulness----"
The envoy from Sinde leant forward and laid one warning finger, slender, almost emaciated, on his companion's well-kept hand. "'Tis no tale, but a mystery. The packet was ever in my girdle cloth, and left not my side day nor night. None knew of it. And I remember nothing of my sleep, except my dream." He shivered and looked round apprehensively. "It was a dream of nigh thirteen years ago--of--of a rose-garden, Mirza Dalîl! Oh! thou mayst laugh, but I curse the day that ever I took a part in that damned work of thine. It comes between me and my prayers."
Mirza Dalîl laughed airily. "It comes not between me and mine; but then I am Tarkhân. There must be nine deadly sins ere even earthly punishment be thought of, and I am but at my seventh; or stay, is it eighth? Truly I know not and it matters not. But this tale of thine--What says thy retinue?"
The envoy's face fell.
"They say I woke as ever, and gave the orders for the audience but I remember naught, save----"
"Turn thy forgetfulness toward rose-gardens, opium-eater!" interrupted the man he called Dalîl
