A Prince of Dreamers Part 4

The polished Persian periods of the translation--the original of which, drawn from its brocaded bag, lay before the King--fell mellifluously from Abulfazl's practised lips; the final cadence of the farewell holding in it a certain sense of finality.

Some of the audience yawned; surfeited with the magnificences, the festivities of this New Year's Day, both minds and bodies were attuned to sleep in the present, not to dreams of the future.

Outside the wide rose-red arches of the Hall of Audience; a rose-red sunset was flaring in the west. Over the wide plain of India the growing shadows were obliterating the familiar life of millions on millions of men.

So there was silence; a second, as it were, of breathing s.p.a.ce. Then, suddenly, a gong struck, echoing through the arches and over the purpling plain beyond them, in rolling reverberations.

One of the three Englishmen who stood in worn doublets and hose awaiting the reply to their Queen's letter shivered slightly. It sounded to him like the knell of some doom. Whose? Theirs, or the King's, who, with face suddenly alert, rose, and standing, looked down the central aisle. The a.s.semblage rose also, more or less alertly, and all eyes followed the King's.

So, cleaving the hot evening air, which seemed the more heated by reason of the fierce blare of many colours, the dazzling glitter of gems which came with that sudden uprising, the sound of boys' voices singing a wild, wavering chant was heard. Then far away down the pathway of Persian carpeting two tiny babyish figures showed, heading a procession of lighted tapers. Boy and girl, they were naked save for the wreaths of roses with which they were bound together, and for the filmy gossamer veil, spangled with diamond dewdrops, which, just reaching their foreheads in front, trailed behind them on the floor.

The first footsteps of the following choristers almost touched it, as they advanced slowly, twelve of them in single file, each bearing a ma.s.sive golden candlestick containing a flaring camphor candle. The smoke of these drifted backward, lit up by the white light to fantastic curves, and rested like a pall over the procession.

The Englishman who had shivered, crossed himself devoutly as he stepped back to let it pa.s.s. He felt as if some corpse lay there, lifted high above the world, shrouded by that trailing fume of light.

And now the wailing chant of the "Dismissal of Day"--discordant to English ears--steadied to something vaguely reminiscent of the Kyrie in Palestrina's Ma.s.s of Pope Marcellus, as the procession formed itself into a semicircle about the throne, the two tiny figures, girl and boy, tight hand-clasped, solemn, wide-eyed, standing together at the King's very feet.

Come Night! Our day is done Keep thou the Sun Safe in the West Lulled on thy breast For day is done.

Our light its course has run The West has won Lo! G.o.d's behest Is manifest Our course is run.

His Might and Right are one Plaint have we none Come darkness blest Give us thy Rest Our day is done.

The words fell lingeringly, and with the last, each chorister bent toward his taper and softly blew it out, the tiny children drew the gossamer veil over their faces and, bending to kiss each other, turned, still solemn, wondering, wide-eyed, to head the retreating procession which pa.s.sed, silently and in shadow, whence it came.

Was it merely the swift extinction of those twelve brilliant tapers symbolising the Hours-of-Light which brought a sudden sense of darkness to all the pomp and magnificence? Or was it only because outside the rose-red arches the sun's last rim was just disappearing beneath the western horizon? Or on that memorable evening when the English grip first closed upon India did some shadow of future fate fall to intensify the solemnity of the Dismissal of Day?

It may well have been so.

"Read that portion again," came Akbar's resonant voice in the pause which ensued, "which says '_with more wordes we should require it_.'"

If there was pride in his tone there was arrogance in most of the faces around him. Their owners had already prejudged the case, and were ready with denial. On Akbar's, however, was only the quick curiosity with which he met all new things, and a not unkindly personal interest for the three adventurers whose bold blue eyes gave back his curiosity unabashed, and whose worn doublets, shabby and travel-stained, appealed directly to one who, like Akbar, was desert-born and hardly bred.

"'_We are greatly eased of that burden and therefore wee use the fewer and lesse words_.'"

The phrase seemed to satisfy, and Akbar held up his despotic forefinger.

"Your names," he said briefly, adding to the clerkly figures who sate in their appointed places on the floor at the extremities of the small semicircle centred on the throne, the equally despotic word, "Write!"

"John Newbery, merchant," replied the tallest of the three, who was also unmistakably the leading spirit. As he spoke he made an obeisance which showed him not absolutely unversed in Eastern etiquettes.

"Your home?" put in Akbar quickly. There was a half-defiance in the answer:

"Aleppo. My purpose is trade." Something in the face, however, belied the latter profession for it showed the restless energy of the born wanderer to whom gain of gold is as nothing to gain of experience and of power.

"Is there then not trade enough in the West?" came the swift question.

"Trade and to spare mayhap, your Majesty," replied John Newbery, "but not enough for Englishmen. We live by trade."

A faint stir of distaste rose from amongst the n.o.bles, and Man Singh muttered under his breath. "A Rajput lives by his sword--would I had it in some wames I wot of!"

"And you?" continued the King, turning to the next adventurer. He was shorter, broader, and had an open face, matched by his bluff, frank manner.

"I am one Ralph Fitch by name, may it please your Majesty, citizen and trader of London town."

The answer pa.s.sed the muster of Akbar's mind, and he repeated the same question to the third traveller.

Older by some years than his companions, his whole appearance suggested a more courtly breeding than theirs.

"May it please your Majesty," he said, dropping on one knee, "if indeed that be the proper form of addressing the mighty Jelabdim Echebar, Emperor of Cambay, I am one William Leedes, a jeweller.

Native of England, educated at Ghent and Rotterdam. I have cut gems for royalty"--his eyes fixed themselves on the almost rough translucence of a huge diamond which Akbar wore ever in his turban as a fastening to the royal heron's plume, and then he paused to draw something from his breast--"like this, my liege."

He held out betwixt finger and thumb a small rose-cut diamond. Even in the growing dusk of the Audience Hall it showed its hundred pinpoints of light welded into one bright flash, and a low guttural "wah" of admiration ran through the immediate circle round the throne. Akbar took the stone between finger and thumb also, and as he looked his eyes clouded instantly with dreams.

"A hundred suns where there is but one," he said, absently; "'tis like a many-sided life!" Then he held the jewel out toward Birbal, the young Princes, Abulfazl, Budaoni, and others of the inner court who were craning over to see it.

"'Tis better cut," he went on, "than the little one Padre Rudolfo showed us. Where did you learn the art?"

"At the fountain-head, my liege," replied William Leedes; "of old Louis de Berguein's son at Ghent."

"And you could cut such gems here?"

"Given the stones. 'Tis diamond cut diamond----"

"In all things!" interrupted Akbar, with a sudden smile. Then he turned to John Newbery.

"And what do you bring us in exchange?" he asked.

"Gold; and all that gold brings with it," was the ready reply.

Akbar shook his head. "We have gold and to spare already!

Purse-bearer! Set forth the immortal money that they may see we lack it not."

In the brief pause, during which an old courtier stiff with age and brocade fumbled in a netted bag and set out a row of coins on an embroidered kerchief, Akbar sate silent, fingering the vellum of the Queen's letter, absorbed in thought.

"All is prepared, Most Excellent," pet.i.tioned the purse-bearer.

"Read out the legends, O Diwan!"

In obedience to the order Abulfazl, stepping forward, raised the first huge disc which contained a hundred pounds worth of pure gold, and read aloud from about the plain stamped semblance of a rose, these words:

I am a golden coin May golden be my use.

So from the obverse, where it encircled a lily, came this couplet: