The Great Mogul Part 25

"Ohe," she wailed, with a very pleasing pout, "how have I offended your lordship, and who talks of robbery where a free gift is intended? Tell me, you whom they call Hathi-sahib, see you aught amiss in taking the only valuable articles I can presently bestow?"

"Please G.o.d!" said Roger, "we shall set you and your gems safe within the walls of Burdwan ere we turn our faces towards Calcutta, and that is all my friend Walter meant by his outburst."

Her eyes fell until the long lashes swept the peach bloom of her cheeks, for the physical difficulties of the journey, instead of exhausting her, had added to her beauty by tinting with rose the lily white of her complexion.

"Is that so?" she murmured, and Walter, who knew that she questioned him, said instantly:--

"No other thought entered our minds."

"It is well. I shall retain my trinkets a little while longer, it seems."

She laughed quietly, with a note of girlish happiness in her mirth that he had not caught since the day of their first meeting in the Garden of Heart's Delight.

"Now that you have repaired my imagined loss," she said, "will you not be seated again, and tell me something of your country. I have heard that women there differ greatly from us in India. Are they very pretty?

Do they grow tall, like Sainton-sahib?"

Here was a topic from which their talk might branch in any direction.

Soon Walter was telling her of his mother, of life in London and the North, while a chance reference to his father led up to the story of Dom Geronimo's crime, and the implacable hatred he bore towards even the son of his victim.

Nur Mahal followed the references to the Jesuit with close interest.

When Mowbray would have pa.s.sed to some other subject she interrupted him, and clapped her hands as a signal to one of her women, whom she bade summon Jai Singh, the Rajput chief of her guard.

"What was the story you heard on the road as we returned to Agra?" she asked when the rissalder stood before her. "It dealt with certain Christian priests who dwell in that city, and with others at Hughli, if I mistake not."

"A dervish, who sought some grain, maharani, told us that Jahangir was privately minded to seize all the black robes because they encouraged the Portuguese traders to greater boldness. He ever counseled the great Akbar to that effect, but the Emperor, his father, was too tolerant towards the Feringhis to listen to him. Now, said the dervish, Jahangir would make all the men good Mahomedans and send their young women to the zenana."

"You hear," she said, as Jai Singh saluted and disappeared. "Jahangir is opposed to strangers, and it is quite probable he harbors some such project, which he has discoursed with the _moullahs_, being anxious to win their favor."

"But the crow was standing by his side when we went to the palace," put in Roger.

"That may well be. If this man spoke evil against you, Jahangir would listen, though his own purpose remained unchanged. I had this in my mind when you spoke of going to Calcutta."

"When you spoke of sending us thither to-morrow, you mean," cried Walter.

"I should have warned you," she replied, but her hearers saw another purpose behind her words, because anything in the shape of a disturbance on the Hughli rendered it very necessary that they should tarry at Burdwan and avoid the river route until the trouble was ended.

Again, a sense of distrust welled up in Mowbray's breast, but Nur Mahal's soft voice allayed it.

"It must not be forgotten," she said, "that affairs at Agra may cause the King to forego the folly he contemplates. Khusrow, his brother, has many adherents, and if Jahangir, as I am told is true, devotes his waking hours to wine and dissolute companions, he shall not long retain the throne his father built so solidly."

Both men recalled Sher Afghan's words. How strange it was that his wife, who had not quitted the walls of Dilkusha during the few hours of her recent tenancy, should be so well informed as to events in the palace.

Walter laughed.

"If I could not see your face and hear your voice," he cried, "'twere easy to believe it was the Diwan, and not his incomparable daughter, who spoke with such wisdom."

"Incomparable! It is an idle word. Who is incomparable? Not I. a.s.suredly there is a maid beyond the sea whose attractions far outweigh mine in your estimation, Mowbray-sahib. Nay, seek not for some adroit phrase to flatter and mislead. Men tell me I am beautiful, but there never yet was rose in a garden which the next south wind did not help to destroy while fanning its budding rival into greater charm."

She spoke with a vehemence that caused Roger, who followed her poetic Persian simile with difficulty, to believe that Walter had said something to vex her.

"What ails thy tongue to-night, lad?" he cried in English. "It is not wont to rasp so harshly on such fair substance."

"You disturb my comrade," said Mowbray, glancing covertly into the girl's eyes. "He thinks I have offended you."

She flung a quick glance at Sainton, and laughed. Some pleasant quip was on her lips, but, in that instant, the hoof-beats of horses, hard ridden, came to their ears. In the present state of the fugitives, the sound was ominous. At once the men were on their feet. Mowbray bade Nur Mahal retire to her tent, an order which she was slow to obey, and then betook himself to the disposal of his small force, lest, perchance, the distant galloping signaled the approach of pursuers. The night was dark but clear, the only light being that of the stars, and it was strange indeed that any party of horse should ride with such speed over a broken road.

It was essential that the nature of the cavalcade should be ascertained before it was permitted to come too close. Flight was not to be thought of, owing to the condition of the horses. If the newcomers were the Emperor's minions the only way to avoid capture was to show a bold front and strike first.

Rissalder Jai Singh was ordered to mount and ride forward with two sowars to bring the party to a halt. If they were strangers, of peaceable intent, he would courteously request them to pa.s.s, after explaining the necessity of the precautions taken. Were they the King's men, he was to demand a parley with their leader, failing which, he and his companions must turn and ride at top speed towards the village, giving the defending force, stationed under a clump of trees on both sides of the road, an opportunity to ambush the enemy on both flanks.

It was a hasty scheme, evolved so hurriedly that Jai Singh cantered off while as yet the invisible hors.e.m.e.n were quarter of a mile away. Mowbray and Sainton, adjusting their sword-belts, stood on the road between their men and listened for the first sounds which should indicate the reception given to the rissalder.

Suddenly Roger said: "Lest harm should befall Nur Mahal, is it not better that you should take a couple of horses and lead her to some point removed from the track? Then, if this force overwhelms us, you have a chance of escape, whereas the presence of one sword more or less will make slight difference to the odds."

"Did I think you meant what you have said, you and I should quarrel,"

retorted Walter.

"Sooner would my right hand quarrel with the left. Yet my counsel is good. Whilst one of us lives she is not wholly bereft, and you are the lad of her choosing. I' faith, if she showed me such preference, I'd take a similar offer from thee."

"You are not wont to antic.i.p.ate disaster, Roger, nor yet to frame such clumsy excuse."

"I have never before been so mixed up with a woman. Argue not, Walter, but away with her. I'll strike more freely if I ken you are safe. It is good generalship, too. She is the treasure they seek, and she should not be left to the hazard of a rough-and-tumble in the dark."

"Then let her ride alone if she be so minded. We have fought side by side too often, Roger, that we should be separated now."

Sainton's huge hand reached out in the gloom and gripped his comrade's shoulder.

"Gad, Walter," he growled, "thou art tough oak. Least said is soonest mended, but the notion jumbles in my thick head that Nur Mahal will surely be a quean, and that thou art fated to help in her crowning.

Hark! What now?"

They heard Jai Singh's loud challenge, followed by the confused halting of a large body of horse. The clang of arms and the champing of bits came to them plainly. The distance was too great to distinguish voices at an ordinary pitch, but it was reasonable to suppose that Jai Singh was conversing with some one in authority.

They were not kept long in suspense. A few hors.e.m.e.n advanced slowly, Jai Singh at their head.

"Sahiba!" he called, when close at hand, "there is one here who would converse with your Lordships in privacy."

Although the fealty of a Rajput to his salt can never be doubted, there was a chance that Jai Singh might have been deluded into an exhibition of false confidence. Walter, therefore, ordered his little force to march close behind Roger and himself, but when he saw that Jai Singh and the two sowars were accompanied by only one man he knew that his suspicions were not well founded.

The stranger was the Chief Eunuch of Jahangir's court, and the mere presence of such a functionary betrayed the object of the pursuit.

He dismounted and salaamed deeply.

"Praised be the name of Allah that this undertaking nears its close!" he cried, his queer, cracked voice rising and falling in irregular falsetto. "Seldom have men and never has a woman ridden so fast and far during so many days. Had not those whom you left on the way a.s.sured me that you were truly before me, I had returned to Agra long since, though my head might have paid the forfeit of a fruitless errand."

The Chief Eunuch, important official though he was, commanded little respect from other men. Even the manner of Jai Singh's announcement of his presence betrayed the contempt with which creatures of his type were held. So Walter said, sternly enough:--

"The length of the journey might well serve to condense thy speech. Hast thou brought some message from the Emperor? If so, out with it."

"Honored one, I am charged to escort the Princess Nur Mahal back to Agra, where, sayeth my Lord, the King, she can dwell in peace and content in her father's house."