King Errant Part 42

"I came hither, Most-Clement, with the wine camels, being minded to give the benefit of my science to His Majesty and His Majesty's soldiers."

"Science!" echoed Babar hotly; "thou meanest lies."

"The stars cannot lie," began the soothsayer, but Babar in a perfect pa.s.sion of wrath had him by the throat.

"Here! guards! seize this rascally fellow," he cried, then hesitated.

"No!" he went on, loosing his hold and flinging the man from him in contempt. "Let him go! Punishment would but invite credence. But mark my words, villainous soothsayer! if any more be heard of this opposition of Mars--" He paused again and this time burst into bitter laughter. "No! Let these men sup their fill of horrors if they wish it--but they shall hear me first."

He turned to his soldiers and stretched out his right hand in appeal.

"Men! I have led you all these years. Have I led you into more danger than brave men dare face? Aye, once! for thou, O Shumshir--" his quick eye had seized on an old veteran--"wert with me even then! Aye! once at Samarkand when Babar got the worst beating of his life--when Babar fled like a rat to his hole, starved for six months and escaped with bare life--but--but not with honour--No! with dishonour!" His voice had risen and almost broke over the last word from sheer stress of emotion. "And wherefore was I beaten?" he went on more calmly; "because I fought on star-craft, because the stars lied to me. They said I would win and I was beat! So! set the snivelling sayings of that silly worm against the experience of Babar, your leader, if you will. But you will not! You will leave jugglery and devils'-craft to your foes the Pagans; for the trust of the true Moslem is in the Most High G.o.d--_Allah-hu-Akbar!_"

He gave the cry of faith from full lungs and it was echoed by the men.

For the time he had scotched fear; but only for a time. The astrologer was at worst a diversion in the long weariness of waiting, and round the camp fires the soldiers talked of nothing else.

"Lo! he is good prophet," said one; "he told my wife's sister her son would die and he did."

"And 'tis all well enough to call it devils'-craft," put in another, "but who made the stars, save G.o.d?"

"And to what use were they made?" asked a third argumentatively, "save to guide men aright? There is no other good in them."

This proposition was so palpably true to the knowledge of those days that even Babar himself had no weapon against the argument. Nor could any deny that Mars was in the ascendant in the West!

The Emperor as he sat wearied out with anger and irritation could see it for himself shining red; steadily, placidly red.

"Oh! for G.o.d's sake, gentlemen!" he said captiously when he had exhausted every argument he could think of to allay the evident alarm even of his highest n.o.bles, "let us leave it hanging in the heavens and get to Paradise ourselves. Cup-bearer! the new Ghazni wine. That may help us to forget foolery. Mayhap it would have been better to have brained the knave on the spot--but a man can but do his best."

He drained his cup to the lees, held it out for more, and called for a song.

"Thank G.o.d for wine!" he muttered under his breath as he felt the fumes rising to his brain.

Never had merriment been more fast and furious; never had Babar drunk more recklessly.

Song after song rent the night air, mingled with outcries and loud laughter; but there was sufficient decorum left for comparative silence when the Emperor himself lifted up his voice in "The Buss"; a favourite Turkhoman ditty. It had rather a quaint, plaintive tune, and a catching refrain which was duly bellowed by the others.

"He (his moustache twirled) called to her aloud, 'Give me a buss, la.s.s! Lo! your lips are red.'

She (her bright hair curled) spoke him back full proud, 'Give me a gold piece, merry sir,' she said.

'Merry sir,' she said, etc.

'La.s.s! I would give thee golden fee galore, But my purse, alas! is in wallet tan Of the saddle bag my swift camel bore, And, see you, my dear, that's still at Karuwan, Still at Karuwan,' etc.

'Lad! I would buss you, were my lips but free, Only, as you see, they won't ope a span, Mother locked my teeth! Mother keeps the key, Mother (like thy camel) 's still at Karuwan, Still at Karuwan.

Mother (like thy camel) 's still at Karuwan.'"

The endless refrain went on and on sillily, mingled with the tw.a.n.ging of the _citharas_ and boisterous laughter.

It was a roaring night, and Babar, for once blind-drunk, fell asleep at last among his cushions. The others had been carried back to their several tents, so, when he roused to the crow of a c.o.c.k he was alone save for drowsy servants.

But half-sober, he sat up and listened gravely.

"Oh, c.o.c.k!" he quoted with a hiccup. "Oh, c.o.c.k...!

"c.o.c.k, flutter not thy wings, It is not nearly day.

Why with shrill utterings Drivest thou sleep away?

Lo! in the Land of Nod, To perfect peace I'd come.

Oh, c.o.c.k! there is a G.o.d Will surely strike thee dumb, Surely--strike thee--dumb--"

He stood up, stretched with a lurch, pa.s.sed unsteadily to the doorway of the tent, raised the curtain, and looked out.

Far in the east a great drift of spent rose-leaf clouds lay softly between the lightening sky and the lightening earth.

And see! already their curled petals were catching the underglow of the hidden sun.

Babar stood still and held his breath hard, sobered in every fibre of his being, yet elate with something new that fled to heart and brain like molten fire.

A new day! A new day! A new day!

The words surged, not through him only, they echoed to the very sky.

It is not given to all, this sudden exaltation, this sudden absorption of the self into something beyond self, and Babar, the fumes of last night's wine still hanging between him and clear thought, could only realise that something had come to him; that something was irrevocably settled for ever.

"My charger, slave!" he said hoa.r.s.ely. "It--it is time I went my rounds."

It stood ready at the door; he mounted, and, after his wont, rode off alone.

The fresh cool air of a North-Indian winter dawn bit softly at his cheek and brought him knowledge of his own conversion.

Wherefore he could not tell, but he was going to drink no more. He had done with wine, for ever. All these last four or five years since he was forty, he had been cheating himself--aye! and his G.o.d too,--with lies. Now there was to be truth.

There was no special reason for this resolution; it was, indeed, hardly a resolution of his own. It had come to him with those dawn-red, rose-leaf clouds flung from some Garden of Paradise.

Wherefore it had come, he could not say. He had often seen dawn-clouds before; he had often--ah! how often--made resolutions. These were different. This resolution was not his.

"Bid a general parade be commanded at the second watch," he said on his return from his survey of the posts; then pa.s.sed into his office tents, and began his daily work of supervision.

"'Twill be to harangue us all," grumbled a fine-weather soldier sullenly, "but, King or no King, I fight not with one who wars against the fiat of the stars."

"Nor I!" answered another; and though few were so outspoken, a certain dour opposition, sat on almost every face in the great concourse of men who, in the full glare of the noonday sun, ma.s.sed themselves round the great Audience-Tent in obedience to their leader's command.

He came out from the shadow of the tent, clad in his loose white tunic, jewelless, swordless, a simple man in the prime of life; a man with a kindly, human face, but with a clear eye that seemed to see right to the heart of things. He held a crystal cup in his right hand, full to the brim with red wine.

"n.o.blemen! Gentlemen! and Soldiers!" rang out the strong mellow voice.

"All who sit down to the Feast of Life, must end by drinking the Cup of Death. Therefore it behooves all to be ready for that last Draught by repenting him of the evil he has done. Lo! I repent me of my sin. I repent me of my broken promise. Now! with the salvation of a righteous death before me, I cast away my great temptation!"

As he spoke, the crystal cup he held flew from his hand and the red wine scattered from it as it fell shivered to atoms, soaked into the dry sand leaving a stain as of blood.

"Lo! I repent," he repeated, his face afire; "who follows me?"