Part 29 (2/2)

”There!” came Ma'asuma's reproachful voice, ”thou hast driven her away, stupid!”

The young man arrested in his song looked hurt. ”But wherefore? 'Tis a good song.”

”Good mayhap,” came the thoughtless answer, ”but, see you! It reminds her of Gharib-Beg who wrote it.”

”And wherefore not?” asked Babar swiftly.

Little Ma'asuma looked scared. ”Lo! There I have told thee! and I said I would hold my tongue! Because, see you, Gharib-Beg married and left her in the old days; whether rightly as some say, or foolishly, as others, I know not; but 'twas so. She was religious for long years and when I went to the school to learn the Holy Book, we became friends.

And oh! Babar, thou wilt never know how good she was to me when I fell in love with my lord--and he with me.” The roguish face, looking more like itself than he had seen it for months, nestled on to his shoulder.

He put his arm round the slender figure and drew it to him mechanically, grateful that her words had given him time to pull himself together.

Gharib-Beg's wife! The woman he had called ”Maham--his moon!”

”So.” he said with an effort, ”she was my cousin's wife; but wherefore ... was I not told?”

Ma'asuma pouted. ”Because I did not at first. And then when she came, she would not have it--why I know not--save that mayhap, before the son was coming, I wanted thy praise for--for such things as verses.

And now, my lord must say naught. Promise me he will not, or she will be vexed.”

”I will not vex her,” he said diplomatically, and changed the subject adroitly by picking up a tiny red-silk cap half embroidered with seed pearls on which his wife had been working, and which had fallen on the path.

”Lo!” he laughed, ”is that the way to treat my son's head-dress!” And he held the ridiculous little object out on his forefinger and twirled it round. So the question pa.s.sed. But he was of too frank a nature to palliate concealment and that night when the moon had risen, he found himself once more confronting a tall, slender figure that stood, aggressively this time, against a marble pillar. But there was no swinging lamp to cast a rose reflection between them.

”Yea! Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar,” said the proud voice. ”It is even as my lord hath divined. I knew. I was the lad who brought my lord his mistress's message--which _I_ had written. It was to me that my lord gave his 'I love thee, ever, ever!' This being so, what else was there left to do, save what was done?”

The finality of her words struck Babar like a blow. He never minced matters even with himself.

”Naught,” he said gloomily. ”Naught.” Then he added, ”But now?”

The veiled figure caught him up quickly. ”Now? She must not know; she must never know.”

Babar stood still and leaning his head on his arm against the pilaster, looked out into the garden. It lay silvern, peaceful, a thing of perfect beauty, a place wherein no sinful man should walk or set foot. ”Lo!” came the sweet voice. ”I have kept--I will keep my lord's ring. It was not he who broke faith, but I.”

”The Most-n.o.ble is very good,” he said simply and left her. There was no more to say.

Had there been more, there would have been little time for it.

A hasty twinkling light showed ere long adown the palace colonnade.

Voices came in excited whispers. Her Highness, the Begum, was not well. G.o.d send it might be nothing; but 'twas the fateful month.

Fateful, indeed! All that night long Babar waited in a fever of anxiety, listening to the fitful wails, the thousand and one slight sounds of sudden, direful sickness. What were they doing to his Ma'asuma? his little Ma'asuma, his love, his heart's darling, his little one? Would he ever see her again?

The dawn came, and still he watched, still he waited. The birds in the bushes began to sing--to sing forsooth! while she lay in the shadow of death! Heartless! cruel! For she must die! so small, so slender, how could she stand out against those long hours of agony. Noon pa.s.sed and still he waited, every nerve in his strong young body wearied by imagined pain.

It was not till sun-setting that a voice roused him as he sat crouched in on himself:

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