Part 30 (1/2)

”My lord has a daughter.”

He was on his feet in a second, setting the idea aside as trivial.

What was son or daughter to him beside his dearest dear?

”She?” he asked breathlessly.

”My lord had best come and see,” replied the kind, sympathetic voice; he recognised it faintly, but it made no impression on him.

The small room was hot and close; full of smoke also from a useless fire hastily lit up. And Ma'asuma lay covered by endless quilts. But it was Ma'asuma herself who lay there peaceful as if already dead; but her face was alight with feeble smiles. Only for a moment, however; then the curly, goldy-brown head turned restlessly on the pillow.

”I am sorry--” she murmured, ”I--I wanted it to be a son, but--but--”

the voice trailed away into weaker sobbing.

”Hus.h.!.+ silly one!” said Babar gently, his heart in his mouth as he noted her looks. ”What G.o.d gives is best. If she is like thee she will be all I need.”

A small trembling hand fluttered out to a corner of the coverlet.

”Like me. I know not. Babar! What wilt thou call her, when I am gone?”

The words cut him like a knife, because he knew they were true; there was something which told him that the dearest thing on earth to him was fast slipping from his grasp. Yet the simplicity of his nature kept him calm.

”I will give her her mother's name,” he said quietly.

Ma'asuma sighed with content and was silent for a s.p.a.ce. Then after a while her voice, weaker than ever, rose again, a low, monotonous voice that told of ebbing strength.

”Babar! who will nurse my child? Give her not to strange women. Lo! I never loved strangers; nor dost thou, thou, dear heart. Foster-sister where art thou? Send the strangers away and the slaves, and come close. I want thee.”

One wave of Babar's hand cleared the little room, and once more came that faint sigh of content.

”That is nice. Only thou, and I, and she, and little Ma'asuma--all the folk I love in the world. That is right.” For a moment she seemed to sleep, and when she opened her eyes there were dreams in them.

”Set the window wide. I would see the sunset,” she said in quite a strong voice and when the red light flooded into the little dark room she lay in it peacefully.

”Will it not mayhap hurt?” whispered the tall figure in white.

”She is past hurt,” whispered Babar back. His heart was as a stone. He could not have wept, he could not even feel grief.

”Thy hand, my heart,” came the voice feeble again, ”and thine, sister--how warm they are and mine grow so cold--so cold. Yet that matters not. I am only--only the Kazi.” The ghost of a flickering smile hovered over the lips that, in the monotonous Arabic drawl of the professional priest, began on the opening sentences of the Mahomedan wedding service.

The man and the woman standing instinct with Life, looked helplessly at each other and instinctively drew apart.

Ma'asuma's violet eyes seemed to strive with coming darkness. ”Don't,”

she murmured. ”It is not kind! Look you, I cannot see; and my hands are so weak. Be quick or I shall not hear. Say it quickly and then there will be peace, then I shall have given my lord a son--then we shall all be at rest. It is the last thing--”

There was a second of silence and then Babar's clasp on the hand he held beneath that small chill one tightened, and his voice rang clear.

”Before G.o.d I take this woman to be my wedded wife.”

And swift on the words came a woman's voice, ”Before G.o.d I take this man to be my husband, the father of our son.”