King Errant Part 48

And he flung out his right arm as he had been used to fling it out when leading on his soldiers to some desperate charge--"Come!

gentlemen," he said, command in every word, "let us lose no more time.

It is precious. I will give my all--may G.o.d be merciful!"

The sick room was hushed. Humayon lay motionless, unconscious, on a low bed set in the middle of the bare, s.p.a.cious corridor. A physician sat to one side holding his patient's wrist, so appraising, minute by minute, the fluttering battle between Life and Death. On the other side knelt the poor mother; all unveiled, for they had sent for her, thinking the supreme moment was at hand, and she had no thought for anything save her dying son. Her right hand was stretched out in helpless appeal over the loved form which seemed to take up so little room amongst the quilts. But her left hand was held fast, consolingly, under the folds of a white veil which shrouded another female figure close behind her; for Mubarika-Begum, the Blessed-Damozel, was ever to the fore in sickness or in trouble.

But Babar did not notice either of them. He stepped swiftly to the head of the bed and stood looking down on the face of his dying son.

Almost it seemed as if he were too late; as if Life had already unfolded her wings and fled. Then, with eyes literally blazing with inward fire he stretched out his hands, trembling with nervous strain, and began his prayer of intercession.

"O G.o.d Most High! If a life may be exchanged for a life, and they tell me it is so, then I, who am Babar, give mine for his, who is Humayon!

Let my strength bear his weakness."

"Husband! No! No! Not that--" moaned Maham, awakened to a sense of what was pa.s.sing. But the figure behind her bent forward and whispered in her ear--

"Let be, sister! Canst not see that G.o.d's mist clouds his brain from this world. Lo! Maham, both thy dear ones stand before the Throne. Let G.o.d decide!"

And with a low sob, Maham fell on her outstretched arms; she said no more; she felt nothing save that cool, tightening clasp of sisterhood upon her hand.

The hot sunshine streamed in upon the floor, the distant sounds of life outside were dulled to a low murmur as of bees, and on it came softly-hurried steps, as Babar, with clasped hands, circ.u.mambulated the bed solemnly. That he knew was the ritual of sacrifice. Round and round patiently, his voice rising above the low sobbing of a faithful friend or two ...

"On me, kind G.o.d! be all his suffering. May all my strength be his. I gave him life once, Most-Clement! Let me give it to him again! Let my strength be his weakness; his weakness my strength."

Over and over again; over and over! The fire dying out of the man's eyes with the nervous strain, until his very steps hesitated--"On me be his suffering! On me! on me!" Then suddenly, through the room, thrilling every soul in it, a woman's sobbing ghost of a shriek!--

"He moved! His hand moved--I felt it."

Babar swayed towards the voice. "I have prevailed," he muttered. "I have borne it away--" threw up his arms blindly, staggered and fell in a dead faint on to sobbing Tardi-Beg's breast. The rest crowded round, awestruck, curious.

"He is dead--G.o.d hath accepted the sacrifice," they said.

The face of Babar's best friend worked; of that, who could say, but for the present it was not true.

"Not he!" he cried roughly. "Give him air! 'Tis but the strain on him, and what that has been all these years, fools do not know. Here, slaves! Carry him to his chamber! Nay! Madam Mother! there is no cause for anxiety! H'st! no noise, you there, lest you disturb the Prince who in good sooth seems coming to himself!"

And it was true. The nameless change which comes to a fever face when the crisis is pa.s.sing showed clear upon Humayon's.

"Her Royal Highness had best stay with the invalid," went on Tardi-Beg, "I can attend the Emperor in this pa.s.sing indisposition."

But a veiled white figure rose quietly. "I go with His Imperial Majesty," said Mubarika-Begum. "There is no fear, sister; as the gentleman says it is but a fainting fit. The Emperor hath been over-anxious."

So when Babar came to himself, which he did rapidly, he found the Blessed-Damozel bending over him.

"My son?" he asked faintly.

"The prince is better," she replied. "The fever hath gone--he will recover."

Babar gave a sigh of relief and turned his face to the wall.

Possibly the strain had been too much for him, coming as it did after long years of steady, hard work. Perhaps he had worn himself out with sheer, restless energy. Doubtless those ten years of drink, possibly even the four of total abstinence, had something to say to this premature break-down; for in years he was but forty-eight. Yet, deny it as they would, it was soon evident to all, that he had lived through the tale of heart beats allotted to him by Fate.

Humayon, with the speed of youth, recovered and came to his father's bedside; but Babar never rose again. Perhaps he would not have done so if he could, for he had a made a promise. He had given his life to G.o.d in exchange for his son's, and there was an end of it.

But he was quite cheerful. Only to two people did he speak openly of coming death. One was Tardi-Beg who stayed with him night and day. To him he spoke lightly, almost jestingly, of his long desire to follow his example and become a _darvesh_.

"For years--aye! three years--I have desired to make over the throne to Humayon and retire to the Gold-Scattering-Garden! What gay times we have had there, friend, with the flowers, and the birds, and the children--and our own wits! Now shall I retire to Paradise, and G.o.d send it be as innocent, as guileless."

And to Mubarika he talked of his beloved Kabul and his mother's grave.

"Lo! thou shalt lay me there, lady, for the others have children, and thou dost love thy Kabul also!"

Then he lay and looked at her with kindly questioning eyes, until he said, "It hath come to me at times, that I did thee a wrong in taking thee, a young girl, from thy tribe. Say, is it so? I would have the truth."

Then she spoke softly. "Yea! it is so, Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar Emperor of India. Yet was the wrong righted long ago. By sacrifice comes life. And my people have lived in peace."

"As we have," he said half-appealingly.

She laid the hand she held on her forehead. "As we have, my lord."

But there was one other wrong about which he was not so satisfied.

Before death came he wanted to restore Hindal to his mother. And Hindal did not come. He had started from Kabul but had been delayed by marriages in his tutor's family.

"I must see him," complained his father. "Write and bid him come at once. I need him sorely."

It was the one bitter drop in the cup which he drank contentedly, smilingly. He held an audience every day, laughing and joking with his old friends over past times, and when evening came he would sit with some woman's hand in his and talk of little things.

Sometimes it was his most reverend of paternal aunts, sometimes it was even poor Astonishingly Beautiful Princess. And little Ak-Begum brought him posies of violets, or, best of all, Dearest-One would sit, her hand in his, and both would be unable to say anything because their thoughts reached so very, very far back.

And there was always a joke when Maham gave him his medicine in the Crystal-Bowl-of-Life. It had found its proper use at last, he said: for this it was neither too big nor too small.

So the days slipped by.

"Why does not Hindal come? Where is he?" he said fretfully, one evening; and they told him that the boy had reached Delhi and would be with him in a day or two.

"Who brought the news?" he asked, and when they said it was the tutor's son who had come on in hot haste to re-a.s.sure the Emperor, he bid them bring the messenger up, and a tall, half-grown lad appeared.

"Thy name," asked Babar faintly.

"Mir-Bardi," replied the youth.

The dying man laughed, his old boyish laugh. "Master Full-of-fun," he translated, "a good name for the companion of my son. Say! how tall hath Hindal grown?"

The lad hesitated. "Lo! I wear a coat the Prince bestowed on his servant. The Most-Clement can judge by that."

"I cannot see," murmured the sick man impatiently. "Come hither, boy, that I may feel how tall my son hath grown."

So with fluttering fingers the hand that had once been so strong felt the brocaded coat.

"It is well," he said at last, "but I would that I had seen him. I wanted to give him back to his mother myself."

All Christmas Day he lay but half-conscious.