A Prince of Dreamers Part 5

Golden it is to help The seeker after truth.

The Englishmen looked at one another. Their coin of the realm, despite its stamp "Defender of the Faith," held no such sermons.

So from the next largest disc worth just one half the _s'henser_ came these words:

I am a garment of Hope May hope be high.

and from the obverse:

G.o.d in His pleasure Gives without measure.

"May it please your Most Excellent Majesty," interrupted John Newbery readily, "we ask but this; that following the divine example, your Majesty at your pleasure may grant our request without measure."

Akbar glanced round his court tentatively, first toward his sons. The eldest, Salim, a big, handsome lad who looked years older than his age--eighteen--was asleep. Prince Murad the next, tall, lanky, cadaverous, sate sulky, indifferent. The youngest, Danyal, a mere boy of some twelve years, was carelessly munching sweetmeats. The King's glance shifted with a sigh to Birbal's face.

"Wanderers are always beggars," quoted the latter warningly.

"Has Akbar's purse no penny left as alms?" came the instant answer.

"If this slave's opinion be asked, as Keeper of the Most Excellent's regalia," spoke up Ghia.s.s Beg boldly, "I must protest against the jeweller."

Akbar's sudden laugh seemed almost an outrage on that decorous a.s.semblage. "Sure Akbar's crown can spare a gem or two? What dost thou say, O Abulfazl?"

As he spoke, he sought the wide-open, tolerant, far-seeing eyes of the man on whom, more than on all the others, he was dependent for the capable grip on possibilities which changed dreams into realities.

The eyes narrowed themselves for the moment, their gaze concentrated on that somewhat forlorn-looking group of three, awaiting the verdict.

"They come, Most Excellent," he said slowly, "by their own showing from a nation of traders. 'Tis your Majesty's axiom--a true one--that where trade flourishes justice must lie, seeing that the greater principle of mind is needed for the control over the lesser principle of gold. Yet, ere your Majesty decides, it were well that these traders be made acquainted with your Majesty's law, which while yielding due profit to the dealer, denies to him greed of unearned gain; the law demands fair, frank dealing from both parties to every contract of sale." He turned to the trio, adding courteously, "Doubtless it is also the law of your land, and of your Queen; since the fame of the justice of both has echoed here to the East?"

The three wanderers looked at each other dubiously, and Ralph Fitch muttered under his breath, "Ours is _caveat emptor_ and it works well."

Then John Newbery pulled himself together and made bold answer:

"We need no such law, for England while she trades free, trades fair.

And by that just fame of our country and of our Queen we engage to do naught unbecoming of either----"

"And to abide by my laws," put in Akbar sharply.

"And to abide by such laws!" echoed John Newbery, adding to himself, "so long as they may last."

There was a pause. Once more Akbar's hand--that true Eastern hand, loose-knit, double-jointed, small, yet with sinews of iron--fingered the Queen's letter. At all times his mind went forth joyfully to any new thing, expectant, he scarcely knew of what; and this vellum, warming under his finger-touch seemed to grow responsive.

It was like a woman's hand. Aye! it was a woman's hand stretched out as a Queen's, to him as King! Stretched out across the sea; that dim mysterious sea which he had seen once, long years before, of which he had so often dreamt since, seeing himself standing with the ebbing tide at his feet and calling across the receding waters....

Calling for what?

For reply--always for the reply that never came!

"Write," he said suddenly, "write: Who injures them injures me, Akbar the Emperor. They have safe conduct so long as they remain in my realms."

John Newbery gave almost a laugh of relief. His part was played. The rest lay with Providence--and Commerce! England had gained a foothold in India. Let her see to it that she kept it. Aye! and more than kept it.

"There is yet one more pet.i.tion," said Abulfazl hastily, as the King made as if he would rise. "The envoy from Sinde waits to bring the accession offering of the new ruler to the feet of acceptance."

Akbar sank back amongst his cushions resignedly. The province of Sinde was a perpetual thorn in his side. Sooner or later he felt it must be delivered from the tyranny of its hereditary rulers, but a Tarkhan was a Tarkhan, that is someone whom even a king would hesitate to touch, someone hedged round by strange privileges and high honours. Still annexation must come in the sequence of civilisation, so what mattered it if Bazi committed suicide in a fit of drunkenness, if Payandar Jan his son--poor "Wayfarer in Life" by name indeed!--had gone mad and disappeared in the Great Desert, or whether Jani Beg or any other of the ill-doing royal house of Tarkhans had seized the reins of government.

It was a farce from beginning to end. His sympathies lay, if anywhere, with the Wanderer who had sought escape, so men said, from hereditary iniquity in the wilderness. From what? If rumour spoke true from terrors almost too horrible to be told.

So he sate indifferent while the envoy, a slight man with flowing black hair and beard, and curious dull eyes, read out from a gold-leaf besprinkled paper that Bazi had taken the baggage of immortality from the lodging of life, that Payandar having poured the dust of his brain into the sieve of perplexity and so removed the known into the unknown, Jani Beg placed his unworthiness on the steps of the Throne of Virtue.

He did not even look up when the reading ceased and Birbal advanced to perform his duty of taking the missive in its brocaded bag and handing it to the throne.

But a quick exclamation roused him.

"What is it?" he asked, for Birbal stood staring at the envoy.

"Nothing, Most Excellent!" was the hasty reply, but the speaker still stared at the envoy's throat. Was it--or was it not--a smagdarite of which Birbal had caught a glimpse beneath brocaded muslin? His curiosity prevailed.

"I wait, sire," he added suavely, "for the virtuous name of this accredited of Kings."

The envoy's hand went up to his throat; he bowed gravely.

"Sufur-Dar Khan of the Kingly House," he replied.

For the life of him Birbal could not resist another low swift question.

"And of the talisman he wears?"

The dull dark eyes held the alert ones.

"A common stone called smagdarite. If it pleases the Favoured-of-Kings, this Dust-born-Atom-in-a-Beam-of-Light resigns it."

Ye G.o.ds! A rose-garden indeed! Birbal's bodily eyes saw the slender dark hand holding out the l.u.s.treless green stone, but his mind was lost in colour, beauty, perfume. Rose-leaves twined themselves into his brain, they sought his heart, their scent bewildered his soul, and faint and far off he seemed to hear a singing voice--

_Who would have Musk of Roses must not touch the Rose.

Its scent is secret; only Heaven knows How the sweet essence of a spirit grows_.

"What now!" came Akbar's full imperious voice. "Must the King wait while Birbal dreams?"

The rose garden disappeared, for Birbal, taking it, thrust it hastily into his bosom, and then advanced toward the King with the brocaded bag.