King Errant Part 41

"And so did I.

"Next morning I held a court, and the miscreants being questioned, detailed the whole circ.u.mstances of the plot in all its particulars.

The master-taster was ordered to be cut in pieces; the cook flayed alive; the female slave to be shot by a matchlock. The ill-fated lady I condemned to be thrown into custody for life: one day, pursued by her guilt she will meet with due retribution in penitence.

"Since then I have lived chiefly on antidotes and lily-flowers, and thanks be to G.o.d! there are now no remains of illness. But I did not fully comprehend before how sweet a thing life is. As the poet says:

"'He who comes to the Gate of Death knows the value of Life.' Truly when this awful occurrence pa.s.ses before my memory, I feel myself involuntarily turn faint; but having overcome my repugnance even to think of it, I write, so that no undue alarm or uneasiness might find its way to you. G.o.d has, indeed, given me a new life. Other days await me, and how can my tongue express my grat.i.tude. The ill-fated lady's grandson Ibrahim had previously been guarded with the greatest respect and delicacy; but when an attempt of so heinous a nature was discovered to have been made by the family, I do not think it prudent to have a son of the late King in this country. So I am sending him to my son Kamran, away from Hindustan. I am now quite recovered."

This was true, but the nervous shock remained. Babar had been close to death in its most sordid form. To die like a poisoned rat was to him, with his breezy, open-hearted love of frankness in all things, a horrible fate. His repugnance even to think of it was real; but he hovered between two methods of forgetfulness--the drowning of thought in the wine-cup, and the anodyne of repentance and forgiveness. Deep down in his heart, he felt himself foresworn in not having kept to his promise of reform when he was forty; but he could not make up his mind to take the plunge and give up wine. It was, he told himself, the only comfort in that cursed country, the one thing that made life possible.

With its help, even fever and ague were bearable.

It was, therefore, in the midst of drinking bouts, that news came which roused him to other activities. It had never needed much to change the habitual toper into a clear-sighted man of arms. And never, in all his life, had news of such significance brought Babar up with a round turn.

Rana Sanka of Udaipur was on the move. The quarrel could no longer be put off. The fight for final supremacy was nigh at hand.

The news came when the Christmas rain was just over, and Babar, exhilarated as he always was by the freshened verdure of trees, the sudden start into growth of the wide wheat fields, was heightening his enjoyment by a feast over the river in "Kabul," which day by day under his fostering care, showed more and more likeness to the sponsor country. Humayon was back from a successful expedition and was of the party; no kill-joy, his father thought fondly, though he drank no wine; not from scruples but from lack of liking.

It was, of course, a wonderfully innocent and guileless party. No coa.r.s.e jokes, no scurvy tricks. But the most of them were incontestably drunk, and even Babar's strong head was fast becoming fuddled when the special messenger arrived. Canopus was shining away like a moon in the South, and Babar looked at it gravely, yet truculently.

"Gentlemen!" he said solemnly, and it was all he could do not to hiccup. "Draw your s-s-words, gentlemen. We have to fight a--a--dam-ned--p-pagan--to--to-morrow. Meanwhile I'll sing you a song:

"Account as wind or dust The world's pleasures and pain.

Be not raised up or crushed By its good or its bane.

As a mere throw of dice Is the life of a man.

Fortune goes in a trice, Just a flash in the pan.

Take then a cup of wine, Drink it down to the dregs, And don't grumble or whine, 'Tis but the fool who begs."

His voice failed him when he had got so far. He sat solemn-drunk gazing at Canopus, wondering how many years ago it was since he had first seen it from the top of the Pa.s.s.

How clear, how cold the night-air had been. How the star had sparkled!

How the glad life in him had answered to the thrill of that distant, heaven-sent, throbbing light ...

Well! The night was as clear, as cold now. The stars?--how they sparkled and shone, all colours like jewels ...

Yes! all things were the same except himself ...

"Gentlemen!" he said suddenly, rising unsteadily to his feet, "I give you leave. I--I go to my bed."

But he was up before dawn next day to see Ali-Kool put the final touches to the great gun he had been making. For, after all, the casting had been a success, needing only a little alteration to make it perfect. In the afternoon it was tested, and threw one-thousand-six-hundred good paces, which was not so bad.

And all Agra was in a turmoil of preparation for the coming march; but there was so much to be done that a few days pa.s.sed before Babar, at the head of all his available troops, moved out in battle array to occupy the rising ground at Sikri, where the huge tank promised abundance of water. He had been in a fever of impatience to get there, lest the Pagans, also seeing its many advantages as a camping ground, might forestall him. But the 17th of February found him preparing for the biggest battle of his life in the very place where his grandson Akbar was, in after years, to build his Town-of-Victory.

It was just a year since Babar had entered India. Now he was faced by the strongest man in it, and the fight must be to the bitter end.

Yet he could not resist the seduction of an aromatic comfit before he threw himself, outwearied, on his camp bed. But he said his prayers before he took it, and tried to forget that long-made promise that forty should see him sober.

CHAPTER V

"Like to a thunder cloud that rears itself In towering ma.s.s across the peaceful sky, Equal in threat, until the vivid snake Of lightning, shot--G.o.d knows from East or West!

Flashes fierce war between the blended foes, So stood those warriors, each to each a twin In honour, courage, indivisible."

The camp at Sikri looked West. With the ridge of red rock behind it, the wide tank to the left of it, nothing more could be desired in position. And Babar had fortified it, in addition, after his usual custom. The swivel guns, united every fifteen feet by heavy chains and backed by a deep ditch, gave security to the front, while tripods of wood similarly linked, protected the right flank. Mustapha the Ottoman had done signal service in disposing the remaining artillery according to the Turkish fashion. An exceedingly active, intelligent, and skilful gunner was Mustapha; but unfortunately Master-gunner Ali-Kool and he were at deadly enmity; so they had to be kept apart. Babar, a trifle weary, kept them so with consummate tact. He had, so to speak, lived on diplomacy for the last year. He had pursued his policy of magnanimity without one swerve, and little by little the tide of popularity had set his way.

One by one insurgent chiefs had sent in their submission, so that in this camp at Sikri were many who but a year before had been sworn foes to the Northmen.

So far he had succeeded. Alone, unaided--at any rate in thought--he had won half Hindustan, not so much by the sword as by statesmanship.

And yet on the 24th February as he stood watching the Khorasan pioneers and spademen throwing up further earthworks, he felt for the first time in his life forlorn. Perhaps the darkness of the day depressed him. It was late afternoon, and for days rain had been brewing; the heavy rain which sometimes falls in March to bring b.u.mper crops to the wide fields.

Purple clouds hung like a pall under the sky and brought a weird, vivid glint as of steel to the stretches of green wheat. Far away on the south-western horizon this glint shimmered into a broad band of light that told where, before long, the hidden sun must set.

There, in that light, the spear-points of the advancing foe would glisten. Did they glisten now? Or was that only the shimmer of countless millions of wheat blades going forth to war against starvation?

The fanciful idea came to Babar's brain, as such quaint thoughts did come often, while he was looking over the wide, ominous plains, recognising, also, that it was not an encouraging landscape to the ordinary eye.

But nothing was encouraging. The long waiting had told upon the temper of his troops, it had given time for desertions. Then a trifling defeat to a skirmishing party had intensified the growing alarm; a well-deserved defeat, due to gross lack of judgment on the commander's part; but the rank and file could not be expected to give weight to arguments. A disaster spelt disaster to them, nothing more nor less, especially if they were afraid ...

And they _were_ afraid.

Small blame to them! Babar himself did not view his adversary with equanimity. He admitted it. For Rana Sanka of Udaipur was true man; a fitting representative of Rajput valour. There was no need to say more. Aye! true man, though he lacked an eye, lost in a broil with his brother, an arm lost in pitched battle, and was crippled in one leg broken by a cannonball! True man, undoubtedly, though but a fragment of a warrior scarred by eighty lance and sword wounds! Babar thought of his own good luck in many a battle, almost with regret. Aye!

Pagan, Rana Sanka might be--it was best anyhow to call him so to the troops--but he was worthy foe for all that, and he could bring two-hundred-thousand hors.e.m.e.n into the field, if need be.

Two-hundred-thousand!

No wonder the troops were timorous; no wonder their nerve was going fast. Babar, tall, lean, with clear, anxious eyes thanked G.o.d for the distraction which had come to the camp but yesterday. About five hundred persons attendant on a grandson of his dead uncle of Khorasan had arrived in the environs of the camp, and with quick insight Babar had seized the occasion to send out a numerous escort to hide the smallness of the newly-arrived force, which thereinafter figured in the order book as "important re-inforcement from Kabul"; since by fair means or foul, the men's courage must be kept up.

And the butler who had been sent to Kabul for wine had returned too with fifteen camel-loads of choice Ghazni!

But this was no time for drunkenness, though a goblet or two might be--must be--permissible; for of one thing there was no doubt. Never in all his life had Babar stood nearer to habitual toping. He had had a hard time of it; he had been cut off from the domestic life which had ever been his safeguard, he had had to fight fever and poison.

Briefly he was overwrought. That was noticeable in the nervous restlessness of his hand upon his sword hilt as he strode about his camp moodily watchful for every sign of discontent or depression. And there were many. It seemed almost as if no one could utter a manly word, or give a courageous opinion. Save his own son Humayon, his son-in-law Mahdi (husband to the little Ma'asuma to whom Babar had given her mother's name) and one general, not a soul spoke bravely as became men of honour and firmness. Not one.

Going his rounds that evening a new factor for discouragement cropped up. He was pa.s.sing the tents of some of his best Kabul troops, when a voice bombastic, prophetic, met his ear.

"Lo! the stars cannot lie!" it said; "and Mars being in the ascendant to the West, it follows of a certainty that any force coming from the East will suffer disastrous defeat. Be warned, oh! warriors! The heavens cannot lie!"

Before the last words had well ended, Babar stood before the speaker literally blazing with wrath and recognising in him Mahomed Shereef, a well-known Kabul astrologer. He was seated before a chart of the stars, and swayed backwards and forwards rhythmically, whilst before him, filling the close tent with scented smoke, burnt a brazier. Its blue salt-fed flame flared on the fearful faces of a dozen or more soldiers.

"G.o.d send thee to h.e.l.l!" burst out Babar. "How camest thou hither, infamous fool?--Why didst not stay in Kabul?"

The man--he had a pompous, self-satisfied face--was shrewd. He knew his power, and held his own.