behind the courtiers who circled round him at a respectful distance. Beyond them the fun of the fair commenced; bursts of laughter, a hum of high-pitched voices, the tinkling of wire-stringed fiddles, the occasional blare of a conch, with every now and again the insistent throbbing of a hand drum, and a trilling song--
"May the gods pity us, dreamers who dream of their godhead"
And over all the hot yellow sunshine of an April afternoon in Northern India.
"The King is in his mood again," remarked one of the courtiers vexedly. He was Mân Singh, the Râjpût generalissimo, son of the Râjah Bhagwân Singh who had been Akbar's first Hindoo adherent, who was still his close friend and soon to be his relative by marriage. The speaker was in the prime of life, and the damascened armour seen beneath a flimsy white muslin overcoat seemed to match his proud arrogance of bearing. The courtier to whom he spoke was of a very different mould; small, slender, dark, with the face of a mime full of the possibilities of tears and laughter, but full also of a supreme intelligence which held all other things in absolute thrall. He gave a quick glance of comprehension toward his master, then shrugged his shoulders lightly.
"He sighs for new worlds to conquer, Mirza-rajah," he replied, with a faint emphasis on the curious conglomerate title which was one of the King's quaint imaginative efforts after cohesion in his court of mixed Hindus and Mahommedans. "You Râjpût soldiers are too swift even for Akbar's dreams! With Bengal pacified, Guzerât gagged, Berhampur squashed and the Deccan disturbances decadent, His Majesty is--mayhap!--busy in contriving a new machine to turn swords into wedding presents."
He gave an almost sinister little bow at this allusion to the coming political marriage of the Heir-Apparent, Prince Salîm to Mân Singh's cousin; a match which set the adverse factions in the court by the ears.
Mân Singh laid his hand on his sword-hilt and frowned.
"If Birbal could speak without jesting 'twere well," he said, significantly. "Those bigoted fools"--he nodded toward a group of long-bearded Mahommedan preachers--"may howl about heretics if they choose, but we Râjpûts know not how to take this mixed marriage either; for in God's truth the Prince is not as the King, but an ill-doing lout of a lad--so Akbar has no time for moods. He needs skill."
Birbal gave another of his comprehending glances toward his master, another of his habitual slight shrugs of the shoulder.
"Perchance he wearies of skill! The doubt will come to all of us at times, Sir soldier, whether aught avails to check the feeblest worm Fate sends to cross the path! But ask Abulfazl there, he stands closer in council to Akbar than I."
There was a slight suspicion of jealousy in his tone as he turned toward a burly, broad-faced, clean-shaven man whose expression of sound common sense almost overlaid the high intellectuality of his face.
"What ails the King?" he answered, and as he spoke his light brown eyes, scarce darker than his olive skin, were on Akbar with all the affection of a mother who glories because her son has outgrown her own stature. "Can you not see that he fears death?"
"Death!" echoed Mân Singh, hotly. "Since when? There was no fear of death in Akbar when he, my father, and I--each guarding the other's head--rode down that cactus lane at Sarsa when the spear points were thick as the thorns!--nor when at Ahmedabad he sounded the reveille to awaken his sleeping foes--though they outnumbered him by four to one--because it was not regal to take them unawares--nor when----"
Abulfazl laughed, a fat chuckling laugh which suited his broad open face: "Lo! I shall have come to thee, stalwart and true, when I run short of incidents for my poor history of this glorious reign. Yet none knows the Most Excellent's reckless bravery better than I. But 'tis to his dream he fears death, Mân Singh,--his dream of personal empire that is bound up with this thirst-stricken town, founded for the heir of his body! And this fear of the force of fate comes upon him at the Nau-rôz[2] always, since both father and grandfather died ere they were fifty; and Prince Salîm----"
"Curse the young cub," broke in the Râjpût angrily, "what of him now?"
"Only the old tale," replied Shaikh Abulfazl gravely, "drunk----"
"Oh! Let the young folk be----" interrupted Birbal bitterly, as he passed on. "'Tis God gives us our sons; not we who make them. Mayhap some of us might have found better heirs through the town crier!"
Abulfazl looked after him pityingly. "It wrings him too, with Lâlla, his son, ever in the Prince's pocket. Such things are tragedies, and I thank heaven that my father----"
"If Abulfazl has time for gratitude to his Creator"--broke in a voice polished to the keenest acerbity--"can he not find a better subject for it than mere man, even though the man be his father?"
Abulfazl turned in perfect good-humour on his bitterest enemy, the rival historian Budaoni, who, as opponent-in-chief of all reforms, still wore a beard, while his green shawl and turban showed him an orthodox Mahommedan.
"Not so, Mulla-sahib," retorted the Shaikh carelessly. "I will leave the remark as a Shiah[3] sin for you to chronicle in your Sumi[4] fashion."
So saying, he also passed on to stand beside the King, and, as Birbal had already done, strive to rouse him from his dreams.
"My liege!" he said, "the deputation from the English Queen----"
For an instant Akbar looked at him, resentfully; then the despotic finger raised itself, and Abulfazl fell back to join Birbal in failure.
From behind in the circle of the courtiers came an airy laugh.
"Will you not try, Oh! most learned! to rouse him with religion, since politics and art have been given congé, or shall I, as pleasure, fling myself into the breach?" said an overdressed noble with a handsome evil-looking face as he bowed ornately to the group of long-bearded Mahommedan doctors who held themselves together in contemptuous condemnation of all things.
"Where God sends meditation, Mirza Ibrahîm, He may haply send penitence also," replied their leader, the Makhdûm-ul'-mulk. "For that, we men of God wait with what patience that we can."
"I would we could rouse him," murmured Birbal, standing apart, "the generalissimo said true. He has need of all his skill--and yours, Shaikh-jee."
"Mine has he ever," replied Abulfazl, simply; and it was true. No lover was more absorbed by his mistress than he by Akbar and Akbar's fortunes. He was obsessed by them.
So as they stood, those two faithful friends and counsellors of the one man whom they held dearest upon earth--yet in a way unfaithful, distrustful of each other because of unconfessed jealousy--there came to them close at hand throbbing through the hot yellow sunshine that seemed to throb back in rhythm, the sound of an hourglass drum, and a high trilling voice--
"May the gods pity us, dreamers who dream of their godhead."
"It is Âtma," muttered Birbal to himself. "What seeks the madwoman now?" And he strode back to where on the outskirts of the circle of courtiers some disturbance was evidently going on.
"Let her pass in an' she will," he called to the ushers, angrily. "When will men learn that fair words fight women better than foul ones. I will dismiss her."
"Bards of a feather flock together," sneered Budaoni, alluding to Birbal's own minstrel birth. Abulfazl who was close behind his enemy turned on him courteously.
