A Prince of Dreamers Part 31

"So even Birbal hath superst.i.tion! But listen! Stay, I will tell thee common truth. I go nightly to swing up the palace wall to Akbar's balcony. Wherefore? Because, my lord, I pa.s.s not far from a certain window where Mirza Ibrahim and Khodadad Khan hatch conspiracies; and there is an iron stanchion by the side of it with which even a swinging dhooli may find rest--and listen! Dost understand? So I hear all, even their hours of meeting; and I am spy, a man of many faces--as thou knowst. I was there but now--and the diamond is stolen.

I meant when I bid thee come hither, simply to warn thee, since to thy charge----"

Birbal rose then, his eyes full of impatient disregard for the trickster, the juggler--the man who pretended to supernatural knowledge, and found it--or said he found it--by common spying!

"Why dost thou tell me?" he asked quickly. "Thou sayest thou art friend to Akbar. Thou art no friend of mine."

There was a pause; a faint hesitancy came to the shadowed face before him, as of one who, playing many different parts, finds them mixed up in general confusion. Suddenly he seemed to grip himself, the real man behind so many disguises of the unreal.

"Yet are we both friends of Akbar's aim, that is Unity. Thy hand, Birbal! let us swear troth for that!"

That slender, brown, outstretched hand with the green glint of the emerald on its index finger seemed to have a compelling power.

Birbal's sought it and the result was startling. The man whose whole life was one long claim for individuality, realised in a second that so far as his impact on that clasping hand was concerned, he had lost all sense of personal touch. Flesh seemed made one with Flesh, with all things.

"_Tat twam asi_" ("Thou art that!")

The fundamental creed of the East overwhelmed him as he stood. Then suddenly he was alone again.

Alone in the darkness, save for the faint glimmer of the toothed arches that gave on the shadowy gloom of overhanging trees and sliding river.

"Wayfarer!" he called. "Wayfarer!" "Juggler! Where art thou? Sufi!

Spy!"

But there was no answer. He stood for a moment dazed; then he felt his way for the stair, and called again. A steady snore came in return.

The drowsy servant he had questioned on entering was evidently now fast asleep.

No wonder! he told himself as he made his way outward to his waiting rath. The whole place was full of dreams; the very roses in the garden had lost their scent through slumber. As he pa.s.sed down the garden path, he caught himself yawning, though his mind was broad awake.

Therein lay the puzzle--the body slept, the soul----

He turned at the outer archway to give a last look at the palace. To his intense surprise it was ablaze with lights from bas.e.m.e.nt to roof, and standing in a balcony of the second story which gave on the sliding river, he could see quite distinctly, a figure looking out over the gleam of the water. The face, melancholy beyond words, was deathly pale, and seen in profile only, looked like a cut cameo. Its drooping eyelid half hid the l.u.s.treless eye, the long black hair, escaping from the high green turban outlined the narrow contour of forehead and cheek, then fell in ringlets on the sloping shoulders, green clothed, and hung, as was the turban, with festoons on festoons of emeralds.

The light struck them; they shone coldly green, incomparably clear.

The emeralds of Sinde surely! No other regalia held----

As the thought flashed to Birbal's mind, the lights flashed out and he was left to the scentless darkness of the garden, to a half muttered curse at the untrustworthiness of his own senses when in the grip of-- of what?

As the trotting bullocks made their way back to Fatehpur Sikri, the puzzle of what had held him recurred again and again, even amid his turmoil of thought regarding the diamond. The tale he had heard could scarcely be true--he had seen the gem safe, but a few hours back; yet the fact that such a conspiracy was on foot was quite credible, and might necessitate still greater care, and at once.

The gray dawn was breaking into day, when, having roused William Leedes without ceremony and carried him to the Hall of Labour, they entered the sentinelled laboratory to find the diamond gleaming as ever on the lathe.

It was a relief. Birbal sate down on the jeweller's stool and breathed again. Despite his incredulity he felt that his whole being, mind and body, had been impressed by the mountebank's manner. He had actually allowed it to overcome his reason.

William Leedes, still but half awake, in utter ignorance of why he had been brought thither, stood for a while stupidly, awaiting a remark.

Finally he ventured to ask what was required of him.

"What?" echoed Birbal lightly, recognising with his usual craft, that the less said about his fear the better. "Only that the King is eager to know somewhat of the second facet."

The jeweller's face fell. "Therein lies the puzzle," he said "and I have not yet solved it. The thickness of the stone is great--almost too great, and to cleave it would be to remove, mayhap, too much. Yet without it to find true axis--the sun as we call it in the trade--is a problem that defies at present my geometry."

"Hast tried Aljebr?" asked Birbal, roused instantly to interest. "Show me thy work, sir jeweller, mayhap I can help."

Pa.s.sed master as he was in the Eastern science of Algebra, they were soon at work with signs and figures.

"That comes more nigh it," said William Leedes, hopefully taking up a small style and going to the lathe.

"Were I to make this point the axis and----" the lathe spun round, then stopped suddenly as he bent to look closer.

"It--it scratches," he murmured, too astonished for bewilderment.

Birbal was by his side in a second, had wrenched the gem from its holding and had it at the light.

A scratch indeed!

In an instant his subtle mind followed the trail unerringly. The trick of a false diamond which he and Abulfazl had urged upon Akbar had been played here. But how? Who was the culprit? His knowledge of humanity, of the world and its ways, instantly exculpated the Englishman from implication in the theft. But had he been careless? That was a point for inquiry; but now, this instant moment, what was to be done? what had best be done?

"Sit silent on yonder stool and work out thy problem, fool!" he said in a whisper to William Leedes, who stood gaping, ready to burst out into speech when it came back to him, "and leave me to work out mine.

This is no diamond. 'Tis a false gem made, I swear by Pooru; but to whose order? And for what purpose?"

He paced the little workshop, every fibre of his keen wit vibrating to the tense pressure of his thought. Then he laid his hand suddenly on the amazed jeweller's shoulder.

"When didst thou leave it--only for a moment? Speak truth."

But William Leedes brain had already begun to work slowly.

"Diswunt!" he said mechanically, "he showed me."

The next minute they stood looking round the painter's empty studio.

Through the corbeilled balcony they could see the miracle of dawn being enacted, but in the wide, cool, airy room was nothing.

"What did he show thee?" asked Birbal menacingly. For answer William Leedes threw back the door. It fell into its place with a clang of chain upon staple, leaving disclosed no hunting scene; that had been fiercely rubbed off, leaving gray clouds upon the whitewashed wood; but on this indefinite background, limned in with large lines and splashes of a curious scarlet was the figure of a woman. A woman standing, her feet moving in a rhythmic dance, her scarf floating in serpentine curves.

"Siyah Yamin!" cried Birbal under his breath, and stooped to read a legend, dashed in roughly--with the brush, apparently, that still stood half immersed in a bowl, where lingered dregs of the same curious ghastly crimson scarlet pigment with which the portrait was limned.

It was only a verse from Hafiz.

Each man has his gift; to one a cup of wine, to another the heart's blood; so ask not life from the picture on the wall.

The man of wit, of intelligence beyond most, stood looking at the picture in silence. Then he bent to pick up a sc.r.a.p of crushed paper which lay before it.

As he smoothed it out his face was a study in distaste which grew to quick sympathy as he read. It contained but a few words from Sa'adi:

Wide is the s.p.a.ce 'twixt him who clasps his love And he who watches for her door to move.