A Prince of Dreamers Part 50

The sun at last! Akbar's shadow sped before him, climbing the thorn enclosures, which at a sharp corner barred the way.

If he himself could but so override difficulties.

Ye G.o.ds! Smoke!

Bijli, at racing speed, was round the corner in a second. Before her lay a mud wall, beyond that an open s.p.a.ce, a dense crowd encircling a huge pile of wood.

As she rose like a bird to the leap, Akbar saw nothing but a smoking flaming torch in a man's hand.

"Hold!" he shouted "Akbar the King forbids it."

Bijli, over the wall, was treating the crowd, as she was given to treating a squash at _chaugan_ with kicks and bites, and an instant after, Akbar slipping to the ground, stood stern beside the pile.

There was a murmur of sheer surprise; but Akbar had no eyes for anything but the dulled, drugged, acquiescence of a girl's face as, dressed in bridal finery, she sate on the funeral pyre with an old man's head upon her lap.

"Unloose her! let her go!" came the order, bringing consternation; yet also relief. For half Shakingarh knew the greed of land and gold which led to this enforced _suttee_. Briefly, the young wife had powerful friends who would claim her full widow's share; therefore she must die.

But a buxom woman, deep-breasted, arrogant, had seized the arrested torch from her husband and was brandishing it fiercely; for being wife to the old profligate's eldest son she had everything to gain by this getting rid of a rival.

"King?" she echoed, "By thine own word only! And even so King of men only! We women claim our right! She shall not be defrauded of it! Our father shall not go to the realms of Yama unattended."

"Then go thyself, woman," retorted Akbar peremptorily. "Thy part is done. Thy b.r.e.a.s.t.s have given suck to grown sons. Hers await an infant's lips! At thy peril, fool, or on thine own head be----."

He started forward to seize the torch she was in the act of thrusting into one of the firing places that were ready filled with resins, oil, and cotton wool.

To escape him she leaped nimbly to the pyre and with outstretched arm sought another feeder of the flames. As she did so, something that had lain like a withered branch moved and shot arrow-like at her bare ankle.

"Snake! Snake!"

Her yell of ultimate fear rang out and was caught up by the crowd. The torch dropped recklessly, she was down on her knees rocking herself backward and forward.

"A judgment! A judgment! Let her burn!" The cry of the crowd merged instantly into condemnation; but Akbar had leaped after her, dispatched the cobra--which hidden in some hollow log had doubtless crept out for warmth when the first sun rays had touched the pyre--and crushing out the torch flame with his heel, had his mouth on the woman's ankle.

To no purpose. Even in that brief second the poison had reached the heart, and after a few moans of agonised fear, merciful drowsiness invaded heart and brain, she breathed slowly and yet more slowly.

Akbar stood up and looked about him dazedly. This instant response of Providence in his favour filled him with exulting awe. The almost fanatical enthusiasm for himself, for his ideals, which so often possessed him, seized on him; and Birbal, riding up in weary haste, found him the centre of an enthusiastic crowd who, granting him supernatural power, were busy subst.i.tuting a dead woman for a living girl, while the latter sate stupidly in the sunlight watching the flames blaze up round another victim with that burden of an old man's head upon her lap.

Anyhow, the promise was unbroken; but Birbal, as he rode back behind Majesty, told himself there was trouble ahead. Such incidents were not wholesome, especially when every effort must be made to keep the King down to practical politics. So little might make him break away.

"So, Shaikie, hath lost one chance of Love," said Akbar, suddenly, when after a long and silent ride, the towers of Fatehpur Sikri showed clear again.

"And Empire hath gained many chances of stability," replied Birbal drily. "With grandsons of Rajput descent, Majesty may hand on the crown, when G.o.d's time comes, in security."

"Of what?" asked Akbar swiftly. "That my dream will be fulfilled--the dream of a King." And then suddenly he almost drew rein. "The woman must be rewarded, Birbal--she who came, G.o.d knows how, to warn me. I would not have her escape reward."

"As Majesty has bidden her act Charan at the Festival to-day," replied Birbal, still more drily, "there seems small chance of her escaping notice."

The King's face broke suddenly into charming, whimsical smiles. "Of a truth, friend! I must be a thorn in the flesh even to thee; and to those others. G.o.d knows how they bear with me."

"Or how they will bear with her," acquiesced Birbal, grimly. For all his liberal culture, his boasted freedom from prejudices, he was conventionality itself in somethings, and it irked him to think of a woman masquerading as a Charan.

And yet atma Devi looked her best when a few hours afterward she knelt on the floor below the short flight of steps on the second of which the Emperor sate on the royal yellow satin cushions, while the throne, a marvel of gold and gems, occupied the highest step. Her long black hair, unbound, encircled by a steel fillet, fell like a veil over her shoulders, but left her bosom half-hidden by a man's steel corselet bare. A cuira.s.s of steel chains hanging below the corselet covered the muslins of her woman's drapery, and her shapely arms, strenuous under the weight of the huge straight sword, held hilt downward, balanced it straight as a die, steady as a rock, point skyward.

In truth, the whole scene was magnificent beyond compare. The ordinary reception was over, but there was to follow one of the great episodes of the gorgeous yearly round of splendid yet curiously imaginative festivals, which marked Akbar's court. That is to say, the Emperor having challenged his court to play chess with him, was to play the game with the living chessmen who stood duly ranged on the huge chequered board of black and white marble which still exists at Fatehpur Sikri, just beyond the flight of steps which leads downward from the Hall of Audience.

So Akbar alone, the empty throne above him, occupied those empty steps at the foot of which his challenger crouched. Opposite, on the other side of the marble board the court, a blaze of colour and gems--save for a knot or two of Ulemas in their dark robes--stood ranged; while between them, immovable as statues, waited the living chessmen. The very horses of the knights, black and white, scarce moved a muscle, and the unwieldy ma.s.ses of the elephants, which in the Indian game do the bishop's duty looked carved of stone. Black and silver, white and gold, each and all ablaze with black and white diamonds. The p.a.w.ns (peons, footmen) cased in gold or silver armour each carried a pennant in black or white velvet embroidered in gold or silver; and the great castles or forts--also of gold or silver--were worn as corselets by huge giants of men, who each held aloft a royal standard of the Rajput sun or the crescent moon of Mahommed.

Overhead the hard, blue Indian sky; as a background rose-red palace or gra.s.s-green trees; and through it all insistent, never ceasing, like the shiver of cicalas on a summer's night a low tremor of muted strings, and deadened drums.

"Challenge for the King, O Charan!" came Akbar's voice and on it, almost clipping the last sound, followed a blaring clang, as the great steel sword sweeping forward hit the marble floor. The sound echoed and re-echoed through the arches, almost confusing the wild chant borne upon it.

Ohi! the King, Challenge I bring Let every man In the world's span Do what he can To best the King.

A faint shiver ran through the crowding courtiers, and Birbal standing in a group composed of the King's greatest friends and allies, looked round anxiously. As a rule these contests were foregone conclusions.

To begin with, the King was undoubtedly the best chess-player in his dominions; then as a rule the games were generally of the most _jejeune_ description--mere spectacles of games. But to-day some new interest seemed to make the spectators' faces sharp, and though he could scarcely see how even defeat could be construed into such failure as Akbar had meant in his challenge, he felt vaguely uneasy.

"Thinkst thou they mean mischief?" he said to Abulfazl.

The latter smiled. "Mischief? not they! Mirza Ibrahim hath as ever, forwarded the schedule and the King hath seen it"--he laughed,--"'Tis an irregular opening, but the onslaught is trivial--an elephant's charge----."

He paused, interrupted by the herald on the other side who took up the challenge on behalf of the Emperor's court.

Birbal looked over to his master. He could scarce tell why, but he was not satisfied. To begin with, that master's eyes were too dreamy. Had he perchance heard that Prince Salim, seeking consolation from Love, had been found drunk in Satanstown that morning? As like as not; some of those sour-faced holy ones of set purpose had told him.

Ah! if the next few days were but over. If this Rajput betrothal had but gone so far that there was no drawing back!

How many hours yet were there before this gnawing anxiety lest he should be overreached, and the King overpersuaded, should be past?

Akbar, nevertheless, showed intent enough upon his game. He was leaning forward his head on his hand, rapidly and in a low voice, calling out each move to the figure beneath him. And, ever, almost ere the tone ended, came that clash of steel on stone, that high strident cry "Ohi! The King! peon to _rukh's_ fourth" and so on.

Yet in truth Birbal was right. Akbar was preoccupied. The morning's ride, with its hint of omnipotence, had, naturally enough, roused his physical and mental vitality to the highest pitch, and so dissociated him still further from his surroundings, and brought back the old question, "Why should he cling longer to the ancient pathways?" Being a King, accredited by G.o.d, seeing the truth clearly, why should he not cast aside old shackles, cease to attempt immortality through his unworthy sons, and achieve it for himself, by himself alone?

And something had happened that very morning which had almost driven from him all hope of one son at any rate. Not the escapade in Satanstown of which he had, of course, been informed. That was bad enough, bringing with it, as it did, scorn of a love which could so solace itself. No! it was not that! It was this: He had seen, being carried to a hospital almost lifeless, the body of a slave brutally beaten by Salim's orders, before Salim's eyes, and the sight had forced from Akbar's lips the bitter question as to how the son of a man who could not see G.o.d's littlest creature suffer without pity, could be so barbarous?

Would it not be better to give up the struggle?

All this was in Akbar's mind, as half-mechanically, working as good chess-players can with a portion of their intellect only, so that they can carry on many games at one and the same time, he marshalled his forces swiftly in these opening moves.

And now the board was clearer. Behind it on either side stood a long row of prisoners. The final onslaught was at hand.

"It is an elephant's attack" murmured Abulfazl and then checked himself--"they have changed it!" he exclaimed louder as the court herald cried.

"_Ghorah_ (knight) to _badshad's_ (king's) seventh."

"Wherefore not?" sneered one of the Mahommedan faction who stood hard by. "There be many alternatives in a game of chess."