voice into troubled triplets, and the King's slack hands gripped in on themselves. Was he listening?
Now the tale of the Kings who have died
In their pride
Is many, and many beside.
But the dream is the same,
So it came----
The pliant forefinger's whirling gave out a continuous boom like distant thunder amongst hills. Deena's drum throbbed a réveillé, the rebeck thrilled like a cicala--
TO KUMÂN
And he dreamt he was King
In the wide,
wide,
world----
"Enough!" The word came swiftly as Akbar turned with a frown. "The end, woman? The end?"
There was a pause; then from the very dust of his feet rose her reply:
"There is none to the dreaming of kings!"
"There is none--to the dreaming--of kings," he echoed slowly, and his eyes scanned her face curiously as he raised her from the ground. "Who art thou, woman?" he asked suddenly; then as suddenly dropped the hands he held, and said coldly: "Give her gold for her song." But once more a fresh feeling came to make him add: "Nay! not gold--let her choose her own reward--what wouldst thou, sister?"
His face, grown soft as a woman's, looked sympathetically into hers; she stood before him abashed by the quick tie that seemed to have sprung up between them, unable to realise the chance that was hers.
"Quick step!" cried Mân Singh brutally. "See you not the Most-Gracious waits? What shall it be? Gold, fal-lals, dresses--the things for which women sell their souls?"
She turned on him like a queen.
"The women who nurture such heroes as Râjah Mân Singh mayhap so sell them; but I----" here her recognition of opportunity swept trivialities before it, she drew herself up to her full height and faced both King and court, her voice ringing like a clarion.
"I claim my father's office!" she cried. "Listen, O King-of-Kings! He gave you faithful service when you came to take the crown of India. What to him was Hindu or Mahommedan? He was the King's herald! Akbar was the King! His eldest son--my brother--died to save the honour of the Râjpût chief he served before you came! And little Heera--son of his old age, begot for you, died ere his baby tongue had ceased to trip in challenging the world--for you! Lo! I have kissed the words to steadiness upon his childish lips when father grew impatient! Why was I not the son? Hid in this dustlike body lies the spirit of my race. Is it my fault that in the dark months of my mother's womb, Fate made me woman, as she made you man? Give me my father's office, O my King, and if my tongue forgets one word of all my father's lore, or if I fail in guarding the King's honour, treat me as woman then--but not till then."
The dying fall of her words left the court amazed, almost affronted. Here was a claim indeed! A claim foreign to the whole conservative fabric of Eastern society--which heaven knows had already suffered shock enough at the King's reforming hands!
But Akbar took no heed of the looks around him; he was deep in that problem of Sex which was one of the many to claim his quick interest at all times.
"The spirit of thy race is in thee, sure enough, O sister," he said slowly. "Manhood is in the woman, as womanhood is in the man--do I not know the latter to my cost? So take thy gift. Thou art the King's Châran from this day. But hearken! If thou failest in thy task, I treat thee not as woman--but as man."
He turned away, dismissing her with an autocratic wave from sight, even from thought. "Ushers!" he went on, raising his voice in command, "Sound the advance! I go. And my Lord Chamberlain, bid the travelling Englishmen attend me in the Diwani-Khas. Abul! your arm; I would speak with you about this queen--this woman who has stretched her hand out over the seas to meet mine." He gave a quick joyous laugh and stretched out his own--the true Eastern hand, small, fine, but with a grip as of wrought iron in its slender, flexible fingers. "By God and his prophets I seem to feel it here--a woman's hand close clasped to mine."
A fanfaronade of trumpets, shawms, and drums drowned his words, as with a waving of plumes, a blinding glitter of gold and jewels, the royal cortège of Akbar the Magnificent swept on its way.
"One moment!" cried Birbal to Mân Singh who awaited him impatiently, "I must find Smagdarite first."
But both the rebeck player and Âtma Devi had gone. Only old Deena remained drumming softly; a fitting accompaniment to the murmurs which rose around him, as the immediate entourage of the King disappeared.
"Yet one more insult to Islâm," muttered the Makhdûm-ul'-mulk spitting fiercely ere he spoke.
"And to honest men!" asserted a jealous old Turk who was suspicioned of having drowned more than one young wife on the sly, "for what is woman but ultimate deceit and guile?"
"What?" echoed one whose calling could best be described as court-pandar; "Why a means for man's making money withal; though the King's virtue steals many a penny out of my pocket. I tell you he is no King--and no man. Would either spend his moneys on duty instead of pleasure?"
Ghiâss Beg, the Lord High Treasurer, laughed uneasily. "The money goes nevertheless. Tôdar Mull as Finance Minister is for ever cutting down state revenues, and the King's private charities----"
"To say nothing of the civil list for five thousand women within the palace walls at whom he never looks," put in Mirza Ibrahîm sarcastically.
"Five thousand and one, my friend," laughed a man with a sinister face, "since there will be a pension now for Âtma Devi, King's Châran, unless Mirza Ibrahîm prefers to provide for her himself. I caught a lewd eye appraising her many charms."
The Lord Chamberlain frowned. "I was but following the lead of Khodadâd Khân, who hath the quickest sight of any in India for a pretty woman."
"King's pensioners belong to the King," replied Khodadâd of the sinister face, "and I meddle not with Majesty."
"So Majesty meddles not with me," remarked Ghiâss Beg, "and leaves me my quail[6] curry and my saffron pillau, it is welcome to starve an' it likes on one meal of pease-porridge a day!"
And as he rolled off, good-natured, hospitable, he felt in the heart which lay beneath his fat stomach a pang of regret that the King, in so many ways a prince of good fellows, the best shot, the best rider, the best polo player, the best all-round man and sportsman in his kingdom, should be so marvellously out of touch with his court.
But the princes, his sons, were, thank heaven, different!
CHAPTER II
For the Lord our God Most High He hath smote for us a pathway to the Ends of all the Earth.
* * * * *
And
