A Prince of Dreamers Part 32

And below this in flowing curves:

"Watch no longer, cripple! Gulamar hath consolation if 'tis needed."

Birbal crushed it in his hand again and walking straight to the corbeilled balcony looked out. In the dawn light a confused, dark bundle as of clothes lay on the angled steps of the Arch of Victory.

The distaste vanished from Birbal's face. He stood looking down, infinite pity in his eyes, as he quoted softly:

Yea! He who made me from the clay And set my soul within it and alway.

Pities and pardons, and enfolds me ever In His beneficence. Shall I not lay My heart back in His Hand?

"He--he hath killed himself," cried William Leedes, who had followed to look also.

"Nay, she hath killed him--he painted her in his heart's blood,"

replied Birbal grimly, stooping for a closer look at the nigh empty bowl, the incarnadined brush.

"Yet I fail to see," began the jeweller, when his companion swept him into silence with a rush of contemptuous irritation.

"Fail to see? How shouldst thou see, strange-bred as thou art from the uttermost guile of India--this old, old India that was guileful long ages before thy island came into being? What canst thou or thy kind know of the bottomless deceits, the dregs of many years, the sediment of many men which must underlay the smooth levels of India?

But I, Brahmin, Indian bred, I see all; and I see here the wagging beards of Mahommedan doctors, virtuous, tradition-bound; I see the lawless desires of libertines like Ibrahim, the deep designs of Khodadad--misnamed mayhap! But under all I see the ancient harlotry of womankind. Aye! even what they call Love--misnamed again! Yea, I see the scented balcony in Satanstown where this----"

He pulled himself up and laid his hand compellingly on the jeweller's arm. "But of that hereafter. For the present keep council if thou lovest life. To you and to me only is that gem no diamond. Cut an hundred facets on it an thou wilt; but if its falseness be found out, ere _I_ will it, thou diest. Dost hear?"

Then his tone softened a little. "Stay! this scrawling must not stand to tell its tale. Water and this brush, sir jeweller, will send it flying--do this for me--and for _thyself_."

He paused, to give another look at the lad's last work. "Lo! there is genius in it, for 'tis the jade herself. Poor fool! pity he had not read the master to better purpose."

So he pa.s.sed out with studied carelessness humming as he went another bit of the wisdom of Hafiz:

Wisdom is wearisome--very!

Bring the noose of wine for its neck, Let us drink, my friend, and be merry, There's nothing to fear or to reck.

The sun is wine and the Moon's the cup; Pour the Sun to the Moon and we'll drink it up.

And be merry--be merry--very!

CHAPTER XV

_I have oft said it, and again I say That I, poor soul, did never choose my way, But like taught birds, in hooded darkness heard What was the Master's will, the Master's word Bramble or rose whate'er His order gives I take in joy--knowing the Gardener lives_.

--Jami.

Auntie Rosebody's face showed pale above her wadded pink wrapper in the light of the little cresset that was set upon the floor. Her small hand shook as she reached it out mechanically and took something that was held out to her by one of the two women who, close-wrapped in their _burka_ veils, squatted opposite to her. She did not look at this something, she simply held it fast in her closed palm.

What else could she do at two o'clock in the morning, when she had been aroused from innocent slumber to decide, in an instant, the part she would play in a conspiracy to preserve her nephew the King's Luck, and increase that of her beloved grand-nephew the Prince Salim.

Decide it! When she could scarcely gather her senses together sufficiently to understand what the woman told her: the woman with the polished Persian periods, the persuasive voice, which stamped her, what she was, courtesan. The other voice she vaguely recognised, so, after a time she challenged it.

"Thou art atma Devi, the mad fortune teller," she said, catching at any straw of reality in this whirlpool of dreams.

"I am the King's Charan" came the reply. "Therefore, as the Most Beneficent knows, his honour stands for my life."

True! There was rea.s.surance in the thought, besides that which came from the glib list of respected and respectable names that fell from the other glib mouth. Khodadad's was not amongst them, neither was Mirza Ibrahim's; for Siyah Yamin knew her company. She was too wise even to betray her own ident.i.ty and strove to keep the polish from her periods as much as she could as she talked on and on of the safety of the King, of bewitchments, of the immense value it might be to the Prince in the coming Audience of n.o.bility if luck and favour might be a.s.sured to him by the secret wearing of the talisman.

Even so much she protested, should be sufficient reason for the Most Benificent a.s.suming custody of the great diamond, even if she returned it afterward. It would be as easy to replace the false gem with the true one, as it had been to replace the true with the false. But once the bewitchment of the foreigner was broken, the King himself would likely give thanks to G.o.d and to his great-aunt. Here was her opportunity!

Poor Auntie Rosebody's eyes wandered helplessly from one _burka-ed_ form to the other. She could not even think what "Dearest Lady" would have said. Her mind held nothing but the fact that she, the Lady Hamida, and the whole harem had, but that very afternoon, discussed with tears the question of this cutting of the King's Luck, and that even Hamida had applauded her impulsive a.s.sertion that to steal the gem would be allowable under the circ.u.mstances. And now, here it was stolen, and in her very hand. It was like the Day of Resurrection!

"And the Prince will need fortune," came the glib voice, "since for these two nights pa.s.sed, he hath undoubtedly been in Satanstown with Siyah Yamin. And that angers the King. So, those who send us, say 'twere better if the King, his Royal Father, were to give him some distant post of honour--as indeed is but his right. But this can be compa.s.sed but by favour, and for this purpose the wearing of such a talisman is potent."

Aunt Rosebody groaned. Did she not know it! Were there not instances without number even in her own family of such influences? If she could only consult someone--even Hamida. But the women were urgent. Except in the safe keeping of the Beneficent Ladies, and under promise, the diamond could not be left.

Then it was that the little lady reached out her hand and took what was held out to her. After that there was but a short whispered conference, and then Aunt Rosebody was left feeling as if the whole round world was tight clasped in her small hand, while the women stole back, as they had come, protected by the Lord Chamberlain's order.

"Well!" asked Siyah Yamin, when, safe beyond the walls, speech was possible. "Art satisfied, ato, now that thou hast seen the King's Luck out of my evil hands? Ah! Fie on thee sister, for thy threats, thy unkind thoughts of poor little Siyala, who, heaven knows, has had more curses than cowries out of the business. Yet but for me and my pet thief Pahlu, who between ourselves nigh starved waiting in the empty workshop while Diswunt was making up his mind--the King's Luck would still be--where it ought to be!"

atma's face grew troubled. Ever since the deed had been done, she had, woman like, become afraid of it. It was this vague fear which had made her insist on accompanying Siyah Yamin, so that she might see for herself that the gem had been given into the hands of the Beneficent Ladies. "Think'st thou so in truth, Siyal----?" she asked reproachfully, "and yet thou hast not ceased to a.s.sure me" She broke off, then added "And but for me, sister, Diswunt's mind would never have been made up. It was I----"

Siyah Yamin burst into a low laugh as she disappeared between the curtains of her waiting dhooli. "Give him good reward, then, sister, after woman's fashion. Lo! I have given him mine already."

Something in her tone made atma stoop and hurriedly open those closed curtains that were heavy with stale scents. A glimmer of gray dawn--for it had taken time to persuade Aunt Rosebody to action--showed faintly the courtesan's face set in the white folds of the _burka_ she had thrown upward for more air. Perhaps it was a memory of the portrait thus framed which made atma repeat herself. "I wonder thou canst be so unkind to a poor lad who loves thee."

"Unkind?" echoed the courtesan with the zest of a child who kills flies. "Death is no unkindness, and they will give it him, doubtless, if he hath been unwise. For he will not blab--that I know--he loves too much!"

She was right. Even as she spoke Diswunt was seeking the Great Silence.

The wind of dawn which found his face as he fell, found her soft babyish face also; but it brought no message, told no secret.

atma stood watching the dhooli as it swung off toward Satanstown with a rising dread at her heart. And yet she had acted for the best, and when all was said and done the King's Luck was in good hands.

Siyah Yamin said the same thing to the two conspirators Mirza Ibrahim and Khodadad, whom she found waiting for her return anxiously.

"Yea! Yea! Yea!" she answered yawning. "Lord! how we apples swim! She will put it as talisman in the Prince's turban. The rest is not for me. Lo! I have done my work."

"And more!" spoke up Khodadad after a vain look at his companion to urge him to the task. "Why hast thou taken the woman atma into thy confidence? It may spoil all. Why hast thou done it, I say? For that we will have answer now, will we not Ibrahim? Thou hadst no right----"

Siyah Yamin yawned again.

"Because, fool! without her I could not work!" Then she smiled suddenly. "Lo! there is something betwixt me and old ato which mankind wist not of, and which I--understand not. But see you, gentlemen, if I need a scapegoat she is ready to hand. And if that please you not, go!

But quarrel not over such trifles in the making of plans, my friends.

Time runs short and as the proverb says,

One can hear snakes bickering, By the long tongues flickering.

So this advice I give--silence."