A Prince of Dreamers Part 25

"G.o.d's truth! It stirs the blood!" gasped Ralph Fitch. He had seen many wonders at the court of the Great Mogul, but none so germane to his temperament as this. It was a game worthy of Englishmen he thought almost prophetically; since its lineal descendant, polo, has made India bearable to generations of an English garrison. So while John Newbery's eyes wandered over the jewels of the spectators around him, and William Leedes found his attention too much concentrated on the King's figure for due grip on the game as a whole, it was Ralph Fitch, who despite distance, dusk, and dust, cried excitedly:

"He hath it again--the Sindi hath it once more!"

True enough. Through the looming medley of dust, men, horses, Khodadad (by many considered to be the best player of _chaugan_ this side the Indus), showed ahead, trundling the ball as he might have trundled an iron hoop in a hooked iron stick. But this time he had the King to contend with.

"Back Birbal! it will come back!" shouted Akbar suddenly, and Khodadad's thin lips set firmer, his wrist stiffened itself in downward pressure as just ahead he saw a faint inequality of the ground. No! the ball should not rise nor swerve, not even if the hammer-head of the King's stick lay ... so ... close ...

Ten thousand devils!

It was but a quarter of an inch, but it was enough for dexterity--and, like a lofter at a bunkered golf ball, Akbar's club was underneath--the next instant, played backhanded, the ball shot rearward to Birbal's keeping.

Khodadad riding back amongst the defeated with a wrist which still felt the forceful grapple of Akbar's, cursed under his breath. He had been bested, and everything else was forgotten for the moment in pure personal anger. The thought of revenge rose in him unhampered even by care for personal safety; for was he not--as Birbal had taunted him with being--Tarkhan? Unpunishable that is till he had told his full tale of crime. The Hindu dog might have to learn this to his cost!

The dusk had fallen. Here and there among the throng of spectators beyond the boundary ropes the twinkling light of a wandering sweetmeat-seller showed dimly amid the dust, and high on the towering palaces which backed the ground a few faint gleams from a lamp within gave outline to some latticed window, or corbeilled balcony.

"The game stands drawn," said Prince Salim, wiping the sweat from his brow. "It grows too dark for more."

"Dark! 'Tis never too dark for victory," cried Akbar gaily. "Let us have out the blaze-b.a.l.l.s, Shaiki! 'Twill be a point in thy favour, young eyes being sharper than old; so choose thy team and mine shall choose itself."

Either way they were likely players who ranged themselves in line while the blazing ball of _pilas_ wood, soaked in oil was handed to the King in the earthenware cup of a pipe stem.

He held it aloft flaring. "We play for life or death, gentlemen," he laughed, as with a bound his favourite countrybred mare Bijli, the fastest pony in the royal stable, answered to the spur.

"For life or death," murmured Khodadad giving the rein to his mount, a chestnut Sindi stallion almost oversized for the game, but savagely keen in the playing of it.

By this time a perpetual film of dust lay square over the ground showing lighter than the undimmed dusk around it, and the watching eyes of the spectators strained into it, seeing now a faint star of light as the blazing ball sped onward, now a cloud of darkness as the huddled riders followed on its track. Not all of them, however; one rider held aloof, evidently biding his time for something which every instant of growing darkness would favour. It was Khodadad, Tarkhan. A sinister indifference possessed him. If the chance came, as come it might, he had made up his mind to take it. A purely accidental collision would at least serve his purpose of personal revenge without much personal risk, his being by far the heavier horse, while its rider, of course, would be prepared for the shock.

Yes! if the chance came.

Like a skimming meteor the ball shot to the right of him and the King's voice came close on it. "Ride! Birbal, ride!"

Which of them was on the ball? No matter, thought Khodadad, either was fair quarry!

He dug his spurs into the vicious chestnut and cut across to take them on the flank.

Birbal! Yes, that was Birbal's little gray. All the better since there could be no doubt as to who would have the worst of it. The Hindu pig would at least get a fall heavy enough to send better men to Jehannum.

Khodadad's malicious chuckle ceased abruptly. A lean bay head showed close to his stirrup leather, and he realised in an instant that he was observed. Yes! he was being ridden off--ridden off by the King, d.a.m.n him!

Well! let him try! Two could play at that game!

He jagged fiercely at the chestnut's tight rein and, overborne, the bay head yielded a point. But the pace of the brute was the devil.

What right had even Kings to ride racers at _chaugan?_ If once it crept past the stirrup level ... Curse it...!

Another fierce jag overreached its mark, the vicious beast he rode threw up its head, flung out its feet, so losing half a stride, and Khodadad, beside himself with sheer temper, struck it madly over the ears with his polo-stick. That finished it. With a scream of rage and fear it plunged forward almost knocking over the smaller horse by force of its superior weight, but the next instant it was on its hind legs beating the air vainly, while the little bay at full racing stride swept under the battling hoofs. Only, however, to find itself in fresh danger. A horseman unseen till then had been creeping up on the right in support of Khodadad.

Akbar who had been giving Bijli the rein in reckless devilry uttered a sharp cry as he recognised Salim. Collision was inevitable, and the wonder as to which would suffer most flashed through the King's mind as after one vain, almost unconscious, tug, he realised the position, flung his stick from him, dug spurs to the bay and gripping it all he knew with his knees, rode straight to the crash. It came, but as it came Akbar's arm clipped his son, and borne on by the fierce impetus of Bijli's pace the two shot forward--Akbar underneath--over the bay's head to lie stunned for a moment by the fall.

The King was the first to speak. "Thou art not hurt, Shaikie?" he gasped, the breath well-nigh pommelled from him by the Prince's weighty body.

"Not I!" gasped Salim in his turn, beginning to realise what his father had done for him--"but--thou--thou art bleeding."

"From the nose only," replied Akbar cheerfully, as a crowding _posse_ helped him to rise, "it was thy foot did it--G.o.d sent as much strength to thine arm. Nay gentlemen! we are unhurt!"

The a.s.surance was needed, for already on all sides the cry had risen: "The King is down--the King is killed!" and folk were, in the dusk and gloom, pressing round a figure which still lay prostrate on the ground.

And those on the outside of the ever-thickening ring could not see that it was only Khodadad knocked out of time for the moment by that backward flung stick of the King's, which had caught him fair on the cheek bone and felled him like an ox.

Akbar walked over and looked at him contemptuously.

"Lo! Tarkhan," he said briefly to the man struggling back to consciousness in Ibrahim's arms, "ride not so--so _reckless_ again, or ill may befall thee, Tarkhan though thou be."

CHAPTER XI

Sing me a ditty, sweet singer I sue Afresh and afresh, anew and anew; Sing of the wine cup the red roses brew Afresh and afresh, anew and anew.

Sing of my sweetheart close claspt to my side Love's lips to her lips in secret confide Kisses to credit that still remain due Afresh and afresh, anew and anew.

Cup bearer, Saki! Boy! Silver-limbed, slim, Cross thou, I pray thee, my poor threshold's rim, Fill up my goblet and fill my soul too Afresh and afresh, anew and anew.

How shall the guerdon of Love's life be mine When thou deniest me the red rose's wine?

Fill up! and in thought my Beloved one I'll view Afresh and afresh, anew and anew!

Breeze of the morning that flyest so fleet, Haste thee! Ah haste thee, to her happy feet Tell her the tale of her lover so true Afresh and afresh, anew and anew.

Siyah Yamin paused, ending the song--which echoes and re-echoes through every harlot's house in India--with a gay flourish of her small fingers on the drum which had been throbbing a monotonous accompaniment.

She looked more like a piece of confectionery than ever in saffron and white and silver, and her indifferent laugh rang through the arches of her balconied room and out into the wickedest alley in Satanstown without a hint of anything in it save pure contentment. Contentment at being set free from unwelcome trammellings, contentment at being once more the Darling of the Town.

As for ato, serious old ato, with her mock heroics, she, Siyala, bore her no grudge for having supplied an excellent opportunity for dramatic effect. Of course the "memory of tears" had precipitated matters somewhat, but the denouement was foreordained. Had not she come prepared for it with her dancing clothes, her dancing feet?

Thus she lay lazily, contentedly, among her cushions and watched Mirza Ibrahim and Khodadad smoking their drugged pipes in her balcony. Her house was the rendezvous of all evil things and scarcely a plot was hatched without her knowing something of it. So, after a time she rose, silently as a carpet snake, and crept behind their backs. Then she laughed.

"Hast not hit on payment yet for thy scarred cheek, Khodadad?" she asked derisively. "Lo! it spoils thy beauty, friend, and I have a mind to pa.s.s thee off as damaged goods to Yasmeena over the way. She is not bad as a mistress, though somewhat too stout. But there! 'When the stomach's full the eye sees G.o.d.'"

"Daughter of the devil!" muttered Khodadad succinctly.

Siyah Yamin's childish face grew hard and clear as if it were carved in crystal. "Bandy no names, O Gift of G.o.d," she said disdainfully, "Who made me, made thee. Are there not ever two splits in a pea? Yet would not I sit still with a firebrand in my face." She pointed at the red mark left by Akbar's polo stick.

"Neither do we!" broke in Ibrahim angrily. "Leave us to our talk, fool. We will hit, this time, on some plan with which no woman's lack of good faith can interfere."

Siyah Yamin yawned imperturbably. "What would you?" she replied. "I am better as I am, as the rat said when the cat invited him out of his hole. Thy party purpose did not suit me. But blame me not with the luck that lies ever with the King."

"Curse him!" muttered Khodadad sullenly, and the courtesan gave another evil little laugh.