Part 21 (2/2)

I did not weep; I did not even send One sign of woe To follow, lest the way thou had'st to wend The harder show.

But thou? Thou shut'st the Door upon my face, Thou hid'st from me One tiny gleam of glory from the place Where thou would'st be; In this world or the next there is no trace No trace of thee!

With the swift family affection of their clan, relatives gathered round Babar in his bereavement. His paternal aunts came from Khorasan, and ere the forty days of mourning were over, a small cavalcade arrived from Tashkend. But it brought an aggravation of grief; for old Isan-daulet had predeceased her daughter by a few days. Babar's uncle, the little Khan, had also died; but beyond the fact that this deepened the Shadow-of-Death which seemed to have fallen over his young life, it brought no sorrow to the King. It was different with his grandmother. With her pa.s.sing he had veritably no feminine thing left to whom he owed affection and duty, to whom he could go for comfort and counsel.

There were his paternal aunts, of course; good creatures every one of them, especially Ak Begum, though the others always flouted her because she had not married. Which was very unkind, since anyone with half-an-eye could see it was because she had devoted her life to her fat, half-witted lame sister. Poor Badul-jamal-Begum! What an irony of fate it was that she had been called that! The ”Lady of Astonis.h.i.+ng-Beauty.” But feminine names were beyond reason. Even Ak Begum--the ”Fair Princess.” What a name for that little bird-like, dark creature who twittered and preened herself at every word.

Yet she was the only one of them who understood, who gave the young man's sore heart any comfort at all.

She came to him, looking as if no pin were out of place, so natty, with her scanty hair still braided in virginal fas.h.i.+on on her wrinkled forehead, and said in her high piping voice:

”Lo, nephew! here are violets. A man brought them from the snows. Are they not sweet? Sniff them! Thy mother was ever so fond of them.”

And Babar sniffed at them and afterwards took them to his mother's grave. Yes! The Fair Princess was certainly his grandfather's daughter; of the same blood as he was.

Still, grief must have its way, and here it was unbounded. Regret and remorse were mixed with it; and, yet once again, Babar gave way before the mental strain.

He tried to resume his ordinary life and actually started to lead his army afield, but was struck down with a sort of sleeping sickness. For days no matter what efforts they made to rouse him, his eyes constantly fell back to sleep. Yet after a time he pulled himself together again and started once more, but this time with no definite plan. Nor did he quite recover his normal health all that winter, which was spent in half-hearted attacks, and whole-hearted forgiveness of all and sundry of his enemies; for it was not his wish to treat anyone harshly. The snow lay very deep that winter in the high glens and pa.s.ses. At one place off the road it reached up to the horses'

cruppers and the pickets appointed for the night-watch round the camp had to remain on their horses, from sheer inability to dismount.

Half the army suffered, and Babar himself had to be carried back to Kabul, helpless with lumbago. Mental unhappiness always seemed to affect his bodily health. But spring comes early in Kabul and the pulse of renewed life began to beat once more in Babar's veins. By March, when the red tulips he had planted there were in full bloom about his mother's grave in the garden of the New Year, he was once more looking out from that high ground at the world beneath his feet, and straining his bright eyes over new horizons.

One thing he must do. He must marry. But this time he would choose for himself. This time he would give himself a chance of finding that new world he had seen when he was a boy in Dearest-One's eyes. Poor Dearest-One! He had had letters from her concerning their mother's death, and their pitifulness had almost broken his heart. Yet he could do nothing, nothing! She was as one dead; only not at peace like his mother.

But she also had urged marriage. Yes! he must marry, and no one should have a finger in the matrimonial pie but himself; least of all his paternal aunts. If needs be he would marry privately. The idea attracted him; he pondered over it. The question arose, in that case, whom he was to choose. Amongst the well born, those who lived in the circle of distinction as the phrase ran, it would be impossible.

Without a _confidante_ the mere broaching of marriage was out of the question.

And yet the very idea of one low born was distasteful to him.

So, as he pondered vaguely over possibilities, an idea came to him.

What of the frightened girl? Why not?

She could not be more than a year or two his senior; if that, for she had been much younger than his Cousin Gharib. And her father was dead. And she lived in a House-of-Rest. That is to say if she still lived--or if she was not married.

Bah!--he was a fool to let his fancy run so far. Still he could enquire when he went to Khorasan as he meant to do some time that summer. Meanwhile a feeling of content came to him; partly because his imagination endorsed the idea as delightfully sentimental; mostly because it postponed necessity for immediate action.

And yet, when a day or two after a missive arrived from his uncle, Sultan Hussain, begging for his a.s.sistance at Khorasan against the arch enemy and raider Shaibani-Khan who threatened an inroad, Babar felt pleased at what seemed an order from Fate; especially as the missive came by the hands of rather a quaint amba.s.sador; namely by the son of his uncle's professional Dreamer-of-Dreams. To be sure Cousin Gharib had made fun of the man's pretensions; but there was more in that sort of thing than could be accounted for by reason. Anyhow, it was a clear duty to set off at once. If Shaibani was the enemy, then, if other princes went to the attack on their feet it was inc.u.mbent on him to go if necessary on his head! and if they went against him with swords, it was his business to go, were it only with stones!

”The Most High must have a care of Kabul nathless,” said wary old Kasim. ”Look you the saying runs:

Ten dervishes in one rug Lie comfy, and warm, and snug, But two Kings upon one throne-- Such a thing never was known.

The most High's brother--and his cousin--”

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