Part 37 (1/2)
”Oh, G.o.d! Creator of the World! My soul I broke upon the Wheel of Evil sore.
Cleanse me from sin, my G.o.d, and make me whole, Else cursed shall I be for evermore.”
He felt better after thus committing his penitence to writing. So with renewed vitality, and gathering his force together as he went along, he crossed the Sind river to find the moment ripe for his emprise.
India was in a turmoil, divided by two rival claimants to its throne.
The whole country was over-run by armies, more or less independent; the whilom Governor of Lah.o.r.e at the head of one, numbering over forty thousand men, chiefly Afghans.
It broke up, however, by sheer invertebrate disintegration, ere Babar could reach it, and he pa.s.sed on, unopposed, by the lower Kashmir hills, by Bhimber and Jhelum till he arrived at Sialkot, keeping all the while close to the skirts of the mountains where retreat and safety might be found if needs be.
But now, before him, lay the wide plain of the Punjab. Here for the first time in his life, Babar faced a real galloping country where hors.e.m.e.n could, indeed, charge to some purpose. But with flat plain behind him it was necessary that the plain should be friendly. To ensure this needed delay, he had to negotiate, to threaten, to pacify.
Half-a-dozen petty chiefs had to be brought to their senses, and those senses were so dull, so rude, so provokingly stupid. What for instance could be said to a man who actually claimed to be seated in the Presence, when n.o.bles and princes of the blood-royal stood by in all humility?
Babar's language on such occasions was always frank, truthful, utterly unanswerable.
”The Most-Clement hath settled _his_ hash,” remarked the Prime-Minister with a smile, when the old ex-governor of Lah.o.r.e, having been caught, was brought before the Emperor, with the two swords which the rebel had boastfully hung round his neck as sign of unyielding opposition, still dangling under his chin. This by Babar's own order, to emphasise the trouncing which sent the old sinner away unharmed, but sadder and wiser.
”Yea!” replied the Emperor quite gravely. ”Yet I told him naught but what he deserved most truly, for I had done much for him. And, as thou sawest, he had no answer. He did, indeed, stammer out a few words, but not at all to the purpose, for what reply could he make to such confounding truths?”
”Of a surety, none,” a.s.sented his hearers, still with a smile. Folk had to smile often over Babar's frank, outspoken clarity.
So, by slow degrees, and not without many a drinking-party, Sirhind was reached; and here the Emperor's soul was refreshed by the sight of a rivulet of running water! It was almost unbelievable; and no doubt he drank a libation of something stronger in its honour.
Then, but a few miles farther on, he came upon an extremely beautiful and delightful place with a charming climate, where, perforce, he had to halt a few days if only to explore the neighbouring country which promised well. Doubtless he was close to the southern spurs of the Sewalik hills, and here, in one of the side valleys, he found himself on the bank of one of those oleander-set streams, where the b.u.t.terflies get mixed up with strange sweet-scented flowering shrubs.
One of those streams which in the dry season are beds of boulders with a half-hidden trickle of water amongst the stones; but which, in the rains, swell extremely and rush down in a perfect torrent to join that strange Gaggar river which rises forty feet in a night, and sweeps away, resistless, to a still stranger fate--to total disappearance in the sands of the Rajputana desert. A fate which must have impressed the Emperor with his keen appreciation of the poetry in life.
And here, in early March, these same flowering shrubs must have been budding, the b.u.t.terflies must have been fluttering over the new russet shoots of the maiden-hair fern; and in sheltered spots Babar's favourite Judas trees must have been in bloom.
The temptation was too great! He called another halt, and set to work, not to drink, but to make a garden; while, not to lose time, he sent out scouts and spies to bring him intelligence as to his enemy's movements. Doubtless as he laid out his favourite Four-cornered Garden, he drank success to it, and dreamt happy, if confused, dreams of stone-watercourses and bright fountains after the Kabul pattern; for he wrote and told Maham all about it. And he told her also that her son Humayon was bearing himself like a hero and had gone out with a light force to reconnoitre and disperse some wandering bands of marauders; but that he would be back again of course, for his eighteenth birthday on the 6th, when there was to be a great festival on the occasion of the first beard-cutting; such a festival as would have delighted the heart of the old grandmother Isan-daulet--on whom be peace!
And his thoughts waxed soft and young again with the remembrance of that shaving of his own--on his eighteenth birthday--on the upland meadow close to the Roof-of-the-World when there was but one real tent in his encampment, and his following had consisted of more than one and less than two hundred tatterdemalions. Times had changed; and yet he was defying Fate to the full as much as in those far away days; for against his twelve thousand troops all told, the whole strength of Northern India was gathering itself upon the plain above Delhi. That fateful plain where hundreds of thousands of men had already given up their lives in battles which for their time had decided the fate of Hindustan.
What would that fate be now?
He was not without thought; but he was without fear. He meant to win.
Meanwhile till the fateful moment of fight arrived there was the Garden! When that was fairly started, news came that the enemy had begun to advance slowly. It was time therefore to be on the move. But the broad, calm stream of the Jumna river was not to be allowed to slip past without being pressed into the service of pleasure, so, while the army held down the bank for two marches Babar sailed down in an awning-covered boat and explored many a side stream where the bottle-nosed alligators lay on the sand banks like logs, and great flocks of flamingoes, white in the distance, rose startled into flaming red clouds. And in the still evenings so cool, so pleasant, Babar, who had a genius for the comfortable, ordered aromatic confections to be served, and the party floated down stream in dreamy content, trailing their hands in the refres.h.i.+ng water and singing low-toned songs in a whisper, until, suddenly the boat touched a sandbank, and Shah-Hussan went over on his back, laid hold of Kali-Gokultash, who was cutting a melon, and both fell into the water, the latter leaving the knife he held, stuck point down in the deck!
And what is more, he refused to regain the boat, but continued swimming in his best gown and dress of honour till the sh.o.r.e was reached!
But there--a fine figure of a young man, handsomer in face than his father ever was, taller in height, yet without the latter's inexpressible charm--stood Humayon to join in the laughter for a few moments, but then to give news which ended fooling.
The advance party of Sultan-Ibrahim's army was within touch.
Babar was ready on the instant. He was out of the boat before it was moored, giving orders, short, sharp, stern.
The time for play was over.
CHAPTER II