A Prince of Dreamers Part 58

"Sit thee down again, King's Charan," he said almost with a smile.

"The King was not to know. Aye! but he does know, so silence is of no avail. He knows all--how the Luck was stolen for the Prince Salim, and how he, deceiving his father----"

atma gave a little cry and crept closer, almost as it were consolingly, to his feet.

"He is but young, my liege, he did not think," she pleaded. "Truly he loves his father--there is no cause for pain----"

In the slight pause Akbar's eyes showed suspiciously as if they held sudden tears. "Not so spoke she who told me," he said, his voice bitter. "Yet she also was woman!"

atma's slow brain busy over that "she" broke in on the silence.

"Was't Khanzada Gulbadan or Umm Kulsum?" she asked navely.

Akbar frowned quickly. "I wist not _they_ were in the scandal," he said quite petulantly. "But what matters it if all the world knew--save only the King! Leave that alone, for G.o.d's sake, and tell me truly what lay between thee and Ibrahim?"

To him so near desire, that was the fateful question.

To her also, for dimly she saw ahead. "Silence is best," she said obstinately. "It does not injure Truth, _whose hiding place is immortality, whose shadow, death_."

The well-worn quotation fell from her lips like the juice of poppy, restful, soothing, opiate; but Akbar was in no mood of acquiescence.

He bent hastily and seized her by the wrist, fiercely, tenderly. All his blood was stirring in him as it had not stirred for years.

"I tell thee thou shalt answer! I, the King, command thee, Charan. Nay I, Jalal-ud-din Mahomed Akbar, as man, command thee as woman. Tell me the truth----"

She shrunk back--looked into his eyes, whence peace and dignity had fled, leaving naught but man's pa.s.sion--then gave a little sob, feeling her effort had failed. He was man, not King.

"Yea! I will tell thee, Jalal-ud-din Mahomed Akbar!"

So she told him dully, piteously, of her treachery concerning Diswunt, of her immediate repentance, of her much searching. Of the Wayfarer and his strange gift that she wore even now around her neck and how it had helped her, until as she spoke a scent of fresh roses seemed to fill the tent where those two sate hand in hand; for the grip on wrist had slackened and her fingers now lay in his willingly, confidently.

Then she told him of Mihr-un-nissa and the Beneficent Ladies, of the false gems and the true one hidden in a harlot's bosom, until interest growing in Akbar's eyes, she forgot herself in her story, as she told of the Mirza and his uttermost deceit. Her very hand withdrew itself unnoticed as she described the fly's foot upon the paper which had altered the hour, and her voice rang defiant as she gave her challenge for the Truth. So, instinct with the mere drama of the deed, she sprang to her feet and made as if she flung the goblet, curving like a comet, into the night. And Akbar sate and watched her with ever growing admiration as, action by action, she followed her own words.

It became breathless, palpitating--the seven lamped cresset--the chiming gong--even the long-drawn kisses----

Akbar's cheek paled--this was more than womanhood--this was his dream of it----!

"Die dog! Die for thine untruth!"

Her pa.s.sion had risen to its height; she staggered, for it was Akbar whom she found within her clasp.

But it was Akbar who held her close, as men hold women whom they love, who strained her to his breast, murmuring, "Nay! thou shalt live, live for thine uttermost Truth."

The excitement died from her face in a moment, she drew back from him in deadly fear.

"My liege--my liege--not so--it cannot be--for pity sake, my liege."

"Cannot?" he echoed with an exultant laugh. "Wherefore can it not be.

Am I not the King?"

"It is because the Most High _is_ the King" she began--"Remember, my liege--the death warrant."

He had forgotten it; but he pa.s.sed rapidly to the desk whereon it lay.

"That is easy remedied," said he seizing on it and making as if he would tear it up.

"Hold!" she cried peremptorily.

"Wherefore?" he asked as peremptorily.

She drew herself up to her full height. "Because I am keeper of the King's honour, and I forbid it."

"Again, wherefore?" Checked in his immediate intention his temper rose.

"Does my liege forget," she said and her voice was calmness itself, "that it is not yet Dawn? That to destroy that paper is failure?--that the King's enemies will triumph? It is not yet Dawn and _that_"--she pointed to what he held--"belongs to To-day."

There was an awful silence. Akbar stood blinded by the truth. It was as she had said; to annul the death-warrant was to confess failure.

So, after a time his voice--or was it not his voice--sounded through the tent.

"It is not sealed. Thou hadst the ring--therefore it doth not count"

She had taken a step or two nearer to him as if to beg the paper of him, now she shrank back as from a snake, frozen with fear.

"What!" she whispered and her voice was close on tears. "Shall Kingship stoop to Craft--Leave that to the King's enemies."

But Akbar was past reproach; pa.s.sion had mastered him and his hands instinct mobile with fierce life, met and parted again and again until the death-warrant torn to shreds lay in his clasp a mere handful of waste paper. "Lo!" he cried joyfully, "Let Kingship go! Jalal-ud-din is man--he will reap man's harvest of love."

He flung what he held from him with the action of a sower who sows.

The light sc.r.a.ps of paper hung in the air for a second then fell steadily, softly, like seed grains. Some of them fell on atma's white star-sewn skirts.

She stooped slowly to raise one and hold it up menacingly.

"Not a grain of the sheaves of life is stored by one who has trod The furrows and fallows of pa.s.sion, and sown no seed for G.o.d."

But Akbar had drifted too far from philosophy for such h.o.a.rded wisdom.

He was back beside the speaker his arm around her.

"It is idle, atma I tell thee naught shall stand between us. Let Kingship go--thou art my Queen!"

She fought frantically against him and his claim.

"Sire, bethink you, if the challenge be lost?"

"What care I--thou lovest me--dare not to say thou dost not----"

"Yea! Yea! I love thee oh Jalal-ud-din," she cried pleading with him, for himself, "but thou art the King. Thy faith must not fail."

"My faith in thee will never fail," he replied, "naught else matters."