to grow responsive.
It was like a woman's hand. Aye! it was a woman's hand stretched out as a Queen's, to him as King! Stretched out across the sea; that dim mysterious sea which he had seen once, long years before, of which he had so often dreamt since, seeing himself standing with the ebbing tide at his feet and calling across the receding waters. …
Calling for what?
For reply--always for the reply that never came!
"Write," he said suddenly, "write: Who injures them injures me, Akbar the Emperor. They have safe conduct so long as they remain in my realms."
John Newbery gave almost a laugh of relief. His part was played. The rest lay with Providence--and Commerce! England had gained a foothold in India. Let her see to it that she kept it. Aye! and more than kept it.
"There is yet one more petition," said Abulfazl hastily, as the King made as if he would rise. "The envoy from Sinde waits to bring the accession offering of the new ruler to the feet of acceptance."
Akbar sank back amongst his cushions resignedly. The province of Sinde was a perpetual thorn in his side. Sooner or later he felt it must be delivered from the tyranny of its hereditary rulers, but a Tarkhân was a Tarkhân, that is someone whom even a king would hesitate to touch, someone hedged round by strange privileges and high honours. Still annexation must come in the sequence of civilisation, so what mattered it if Bâzi committed suicide in a fit of drunkenness, if Payandâr Jân his son--poor "Wayfarer in Life" by name indeed!--had gone mad and disappeared in the Great Desert, or whether Jâni Beg or any other of the ill-doing royal house of Târkhâns had seized the reins of government.
It was a farce from beginning to end. His sympathies lay, if anywhere, with the Wanderer who had sought escape, so men said, from hereditary iniquity in the wilderness. From what? If rumour spoke true from terrors almost too horrible to be told.
So he sate indifferent while the envoy, a slight man with flowing black hair and beard, and curious dull eyes, read out from a gold-leaf besprinkled paper that Bâzi had taken the baggage of immortality from the lodging of life, that Payandâr having poured the dust of his brain into the sieve of perplexity and so removed the known into the unknown, Jâni Beg placed his unworthiness on the steps of the Throne of Virtue.
He did not even look up when the reading ceased and Birbal advanced to perform his duty of taking the missive in its brocaded bag and handing it to the throne.
But a quick exclamation roused him.
"What is it?" he asked, for Birbal stood staring at the envoy.
"Nothing, Most Excellent!" was the hasty reply, but the speaker still stared at the envoy's throat. Was it--or was it not--a smagdarite of which Birbal had caught a glimpse beneath brocaded muslin? His curiosity prevailed.
"I wait, sire," he added suavely, "for the virtuous name of this accredited of Kings."
The envoy's hand went up to his throat; he bowed gravely.
"Sufur-Dâr Khân of the Kingly House," he replied.
For the life of him Birbal could not resist another low swift question.
"And of the talisman he wears?"
The dull dark eyes held the alert ones.
"A common stone called smagdarite. If it pleases the Favoured-of-Kings, this Dust-born-Atom-in-a-Beam-of-Light resigns it."
Ye Gods! A rose-garden indeed! Birbal's bodily eyes saw the slender dark hand holding out the lustreless green stone, but his mind was lost in colour, beauty, perfume. Rose-leaves twined themselves into his brain, they sought his heart, their scent bewildered his soul, and faint and far off he seemed to hear a singing voice--
Who would have Musk of Roses must not touch the Rose. Its scent is secret; only Heaven knows How the sweet essence of a spirit grows.
"What now!" came Akbar's full imperious voice. "Must the King wait while Birbal dreams?"
The rose garden disappeared, for Birbal, taking it, thrust it hastily into his bosom, and then advanced toward the King with the brocaded bag.
"It is accepted," said the latter impatiently, signing away the offering, "the audience ends. Birbal, your arm. I lack air. This place is stifling."
The Englishmen awaiting the Lord Chamberlain to conduct them to suitable lodging looked round the fast-emptying Hall-of-Audience with the sort of stupefaction which follows on accomplishment.
"If we lose grip," said John Newbery suddenly, "'twill be the fault of metal."
"Mettle," echoed William Leedes almost sadly. "There is mettle here and to spare already, God knows. Yet must it go, since it is not of English making."
Ralph Fitch looked at him dubiously. "We be Christian men, comrade, and these but Pagans. Moreover, our commerce----"
John Newbery gave a loud laugh. "The pike and carronade for my choice, my masters! But cheer up, friend! We will do the cutting of India whilst William Leedes facets yonder pigeon's egg Echebar wore in his turban."
The jeweller looked up quickly. "Lo! I could not an' I would! There is something of steady radiance in it that would defy my tools."
So they followed their guide, catching a glimpse as they passed through the courtyards of two figures standing under the Great Arch of Victory and looking out over the purpling Indian plain. It was Akbar's favourite evening resort, and to-night he had his favourite companion, Birbal.
It was growing chill already under the massive masonry of the palaces, but it was still warm out in the open where the blistering sun had scorched all day long into the very heart of India--that dreaming heart hidden away under the wide arid levels, under the calm content of its multitudinous peoples.
The little dancing lights of the long line of booths and shops which edged the whole twenty miles from Fatehpur Sikri to Agra had already begun to glitter. The stars were lower in the sky, and only in the West, Venus hung resplendent. A haze of heat and dust from the lingering steps of homing cattle lay in quaint streaks, still faintly tinted with gold, over the distant country, and hung whiter, more obscure, and mingled with the smoke of the city, about the base of that mighty mountain of wide measured steps which recedes up and upward, climbing the low ridge of rocks until it finds pause in the vast platform whence--as springs no other in the wide world--the tall Arch of Victory thrusts itself skyward exultantly.
"'Hafiz!'" quoted the King suddenly. "'No one knows the secret! Why dost ask what happens in the Wheel of Time?' But we do ask it, Birbal! How many years is it since we two have sought the rose-essence of truth and found nothing but the scentless leaves? And yet 'tis here! I feel it, I know it!"--he touched his forehead lightly. "Strange to hunger so, after what is hidden in me, myself!"
Birbal shook his head. "What is self, my master? Purûsha gazes upon the Dancer Prakrîti, but by and by his eyes will tire of her disguises----"
"And then," interrupted Akbar, eagerly, "what then? When the object is gone, what of the subject? Answer me that, thou cold Kapilian! Nay! Birbal! I cannot believe it so. It strikes a chill to my very marrow. 'Tis warmer beneath the shelter of All-pervading Âtman holding both mind and matter in tenacious grip. Yet even that is cold to my hot life."
He
