A Prince of Dreamers Part 38

Akbar, who had just reached the narrow marble pathway, stopped dead and looked round him sharply.

"The reservoir!" he cried, "the reservoir above!"

His instinct was right. The rain of dawn had found some weak spot in the masonry and the next instant, bursting its hidden way beneath the dais and hurling great blocks of marble before it, a huge volume of water rose spurtling into the air.

"Run for it, Shaikie, run for it! Leap from the platform!"

The cry came not one moment too soon. Keeping within bounds by the very force of its onward impulse, the great wave of water, which would have hurled them down the marble cascade, but just touched their heels, as choosing different sides they leapt to safety.

Leapt turbanless, their ill-fitting head-dresses having tumbled off at their first start.

The general shriek of horror at the impending catastrophe subsided into confused babels of relief centring round the Prince on the left, the King on the right. So none noticed two men one on the right, one on the left of the wide central waterway who instantly started to race two half-floating half-sinking objects which, swept over the cascade by that wild impulse of flood, were now unsteadily swirling down to be engulfed under the low archway leading to subterreanean pa.s.sages. And neither Khodadad nor Birbal had eyes for anything save the prize of that race.

A sudden swerve to the left taking the Prince's turban with its talisman almost within reach of the enemy, decided Birbal. He paused a second. Then his low forward dive gave him a yard or two, and he rose to find his hand and Khodadad's both clutching at what they sought.

But his was the nearer.

"Not so fast, Tarkhan-jee," he jibed breathless, unable to resist retort, even in that moment of stress. "Beware stealing or thy list of crime is full! This is my master's."

Then the current caught him and hurled him almost helpless to the other side. Half a yard farther and he would have been sucked down into the archway, but a thin arm clutched at him and the clutch held.

A brief struggle and he stood beside the _rebeck_ player, gazing at him stupidly, but half conscious of who he was. Only for an instant however; the next he faced Khodadad who, backed by Mirza Ibrahim was scowling at him across the water.

"Your pardon, gentlemen," he gasped politely, as before their very eyes, he calmly searched for and tore out the talisman which Umm Kulsum and Aunt Rosebody had sewn so deftly into the folds of Salim's turban? "but I would fain see if this be my master's headdress given him in brotherhood by his son. Yes! of a surety it is. It will be kept, messieurs, the appointed time, and returned in due course--with the talisman--by all the G.o.ds! with the talisman--I wot not if it be a true or a false one--to those who gave it."

With that he turned on his heel regardless of the volley of curses from over the water.

But he rounded fiercely on the _rebeck_ player's sardonic request to be remembered in that he had saved the master's life.

"Thou art the devil, juggler," he said and there was real fear in his voice. "Get thee gone, since, before G.o.d, I know not who thou art."

A laugh followed him.

CHAPTER XVIII

_Longing for the Unseen as never one Longed, pa.s.sionate, for Seen; remembering none From dawning to the setting of the sun Save Secret Things unheard, unseen, unwon No man shall know, till this world's life is done_.

--Sa'adi.

"I would have sent for thee," said atma softly, "but there was none to send. The whole town was away at the festival--so I stayed." She sighed almost fiercely in her regret at having been let and hindered, though her eyes were tender, as she gazed down on little Zarifa who lay in the Wayfarer's arms. It was bare dawn, and, in the shadow of the wall one could but just see the perfect outline of the sleeping face that nestled close to his pallid mask.

"She fails fast, methinks," added the woman in a lower tone.

"Aye! she fails--at last," echoed the man's voice. As if to give them both the lie, the whispered words brought a sudden smile to Zarifa's face. Her eyes opened full of swift desire, her whole deformed body pressed closer to the breast on which it lay, and there was unmistakable appeal in the soft curved cheeks, the curved waiting lips. The Wayfarer answered it instantly and laid his to hers.

The kiss was long; his mask came up from it with a certain repulsion of expression, at once tender and cruel.

"Yea, it is true! She nears womanhood, and what hath she to do with its blessing, or with its curse," he muttered, looking at the face, which, satisfied, had sunk to sleep once more, a smile still hovering over it; then he laid the misshapen bundle of humanity he held--so small, so helpless, so apart from everything save limited life--on the string bed, whence he had taken it, and covered it gently with the quilt; for the air of dawn was chill.

atma stood looking down on the beautiful face, feeling a hot anger rise in her heart against all mankind.

"Thou didst never love her mother, or thou wouldst not speak so," she said scornfully.

The Wayfarer, who at the parapet was watching the slow growth of dawn, turned on her swiftly. "Not love her, woman?" he echoed pa.s.sionately, fiercely. "That G.o.d knows! It is her father that I hate--it is for him I wait!"

"Her father? Art _thou_ not then----?" began the Charan in surprise, but the _rebeck_ player had recovered his calm monotony of manner.

"Her father truly," he said, "since of Love I brought her into the world, of Love I care for her, of Love I give her Love."

As he spoke his fingers were busy about his neck, and atma seeing him stoop over the sleeper, saw also that he left something in the ghostly half-seen folds of the white quilt.

"What is't?" she asked curiously, stooping also, conscious of a certain unreality in what had pa.s.sed, in what was pa.s.sing. She had sate up all night beside Zarifa, unable to leave her, unable to get a message sent to summon any one; and so, unable to hear what was happening, when so much might happen.

The nervous tension of that night of waiting, of watching had been great; yet she had forgotten it when in the false dawn the Wayfarer had suddenly appeared. Since then she had been absorbed, as he was, in the child--this child of Love!

Ye G.o.ds! What was it that exhaled roses? The whole air was full of their scent--her very eyes seemed to see them, crowning the sleeping head, hiding the scant contour of the deformed body: and to her, ignorant in a way, yet from her birth familiar with mystical thoughts, credulous of all mystical things, the sudden inrush of unreality brought small surprise but quick curiosity, and she caught imperatively at the Wayfarer's hand.

"Who art thou, Lord!" she asked simply. "In the name of this Rose of Love tell this slave."

The man drew back from her touch resentfully; his face grew more human, less deathlike, and atma watching it wondered at the change in it, and asked herself, if this were indeed the poor musician who played for the chance hearers of the bazaars.

"Thou hast spoken a compelling word, sister," he said, "so thou shalt be told. But guard the secret if thou lovest--any! I am Payandar--whether king or hind matters little. Mayhap I am both, since I am Love incarnate and Hate incarnate. That is Spiritual Love which knows not s.e.x, and Earthly Love which lives by it. And I--doubtless thou hast heard the tale, told as a legend--I loved one who was to be my wife. But she whom I held sacred, my brother, of wanton wickedness, dishonoured. Yonder child is his--so the Earthly Love that is in me still, despite the Rose Garden of the wilderness, waits till the measure of his iniquity shall be full. It will not be long."

He stretched his hand out menacingly, and turned to go.

"Thy brother?" she echoed, "who----"

He stopped her with a sudden wild gesture.

"Ask not that, fool!" he cried pa.s.sionately. "Lo! thou art very woman, cleaving to the detail, seeing naught of the spirit. Thou canst not even see that I have lied? I tell thee she _is_ my child--the child of the sins which I, Tarkhan, inherited even as he did--the child of many sins that are in me, even as they are in him."

He stooped over the sleeper and kissed her on the forehead.

"Master!" said atma tremulously as she saw him cross to the door.

"Must thou go? I have waited long--and now----"

"There comes one who will bring thee news, and I will be back ere long," he answered, and even as he spoke a voice full of importance, breathless with hurry, came from the stairs.

"Mistress atma! Mistress, I say. G.o.d send she be not out, or, if mischief come of it, I will be double d.a.m.ned for double treason."

The next instant old Deena the drumbanger, his drum hitched to his back like a huge hump, hustled the departing musician at the door and flung himself blubbering at atma's feet.

"Lo! chaste pillar of virtue! said I not ever ill service was as the feeding of snakes--one never knows but when one has to turn on them rather than that they should turn on thee," he began tumultuously, "but I have come! Yea! old Deena hath to remember his soul and if mistress Siyah Yamin----"

"Siyah Yamin! What of her," queried atma sharply even as she added, "Speak, lower, fool! Thou wilt disturb the child."