King Errant Part 36

His kindness was simply indescribable, and he stuck to his code of honour and morality with a certain fastidiousness. Men must carry their liquor like gentlemen, no man must be pressed to drink wine, no private house be unwillingly defiled with its use, even if the Emperor were the guest. Above all things, wine must not interfere with duty.

He would follow the advice he had had cut on the side of the little, red granite cistern among the Judas trees in the Four-corner Garden of Kabul--the little cistern that was so often filled with redder wine--he would sing with the singers and lutists:

"Sweet are the smiling Springs, Sweet what each New Year brings, Sweet is a cup of wine, Sweeter is Love divine.

Oh, Babar! Seize them all.

They pa.s.s beyond recall."

He would seize all; but he would remain a kindly gentleman.

And so--if he were to send his letter to Maham, his dear wife, his ever-sweet guardian and friend, that night, he must finish it ere going up the Pavilion-of-Spirits!

They were constant correspondents, those two, and although they had only parted from each other at the Garden-of-Fidelity a day or two before, he had plenty to say to her, both as his moon, the woman who was the chief influence of his life, and also as the head of his family. For Maham's other children having died in infancy, leaving none but Humayon in direct descent, Babar, by her advice, had married again. The youngest of three sons thus born he had made over at birth to Maham who was bringing the little Hindal up as her own. At the tribunal of his own heart, this was ever an action to be slurred over.

It had doubtless brought great grief to the real mother, a good woman who had done her duty by him in giving him children. Still it had all been settled by usual custom. The auguries had been consulted before the birth of the child, and Maham had taken the chance of its being a girl. Yet ... In good sooth that whole year, with its episode of the taking of Bajour, touched a lower level than any other in Babar's thoughts. He had been six and thirty, it was the first time he had used match-lock men or artillery, and somehow--possibly because he had begun to take drugs as well as wine--he had reverted to inherited instinct. He had been minded to emulate his ancestor Timur--he had done so ...

Three thousand infidels put to the sword!...

Babar escaped from the remembrance and palliated the action by telling himself that the Afghans were an impossible race, strangely foolish and senseless, possessed of little reflection and less foresight. What trouble had not the Yusufzais given him until he had attached them by marrying the daughter of their chief.

That, anyhow, had not been sordid. Babar recalled the whole incident with pleasure. How he had gone, disguised as a wandering mendicant to the chief's fort, during a feast, in order to spy out the land. How the Lady Mubarika--the Blessed-Damozel--had noticed the handsome beggar and sent him food from her own dish. How he had thanked her, found out she was not betrothed, and had wrapped the food she had given him in his handkerchief, hidden it in a hole in the wall, and gone back to claim her as his bride.

"I have no daughter," came back the proud answer.

"Ask her concerning a wandering mendicant," Babar replied, "and if more proof be wanted, find the food the gracious Lady gave wrapped in my handkerchief and hidden in a breach of thy fort. So let it be peace!"

And peace it had been; for the Lady Mubarika...! Could he ever forget her grace and dignity as she stood before him for the first time as a bride? When she had let slip her veil and laid her pale hands on her pale bosom.

"My lord! Remember that the whole tribe of Yusufzais sits enshrined in my heart!"

It had been fine!

No! Even though Maham had held his soul, that, and his pa.s.sionate appreciation of it, had been a gleam in a dark year. And no one had ever had an unkind word for the Lady Mubarika. Childless, reserved, quiet, she was yet a power in that household he had left behind him in Kabul. So he wrote to his moon:

"Thou hast good friends with thee. That Dearest-One and the Blessed-Damozel are as sisters to thee, is ever a consolation to me.

Also that our farewell was in that same garden where my first love died, and rose again in thee. In truth it was in its greatest glory; the flowers yellow, purple, red, springing everywhere, all mingled together as if they had been flung and scattered abroad from the full basket of G.o.d. The pomegranate trees so beautifully yellow, the fruit hanging red upon the boughs. The gra.s.s plots covered with the second crop of white and pink clover. The orange bushes so green and cheerful, laden with their golden globes. In good sooth, of all the gardens I have planted--G.o.d knows how many--this one is the crown; none could view it without acknowledging its charm. Humayon hath come to join me as arranged, though somewhat tardily, for which I spoke to him with considerable severity; nathless with difficulty, my moon, since he is thy son and the beauty, and vigour, and valiance of his seventeen years would disarm an ogre.

"Bid Ma'asuma be a good girl till my return and tell her I will keep her husband's life safe as my own; and greet little Rosebody from her father. Lo! is there aught in the wide world more captivating to a man's heart than his female children. Except perchance, my moon! his wife."

Ten minutes after despatching this, sealed and signed, by special runner, Babar was the centre of the merriment in the Palace-of-Spirits. In good sooth at that early hour, it was innocent and guileless enough. A party of men, chosen chiefly because they were of like temperament to himself, all of them distinguished by general _bonhommie_ and not a few by wit and accomplishments, all met together to enjoy themselves, sometimes with the aid of aromatic confections, sometimes with wine or spirits.

To-night it was the latter, so the fun waxed fast.

The screens of the tent had been thrown back; they could see the valley beneath them studded with fire stars.

"Look! Most-Clement!" cried Tardi-Beg. "Yonder, I swear, is the _Heft-Aurang_."

Babar bent his keen eyes hastily on the flickering lights. Aye, the _Heft-Aurang_--the Seven thrones! The thought took him back with a rush to Baisanghar, dead these twenty years; from him, memory fled to Gharib and the Crystal-Bowl-of-Life. He carried the copy Maham had given him in his bosom always, though he seldom used it. It was too small for wine! But some day--aye!--some day soon--he would keep his promise to himself and forswear drinking.

"Yea!" remarked Ali-Jan, not to be outdone, "and yonder to the right are the Brothers."

"And look you to the left, the Warrior," stuttered Abul-Majid. "His sword is somewhat crooked."

"'Tis thine eyes are askew," laughed Shaikh-Zin. "Thou never hadst a head worth a spoonful of decent s.h.i.+raz."

So in laughter, and quips, and cranks, the merriment waxed. They could most of them string verses after a fas.h.i.+on, and some of them began reciting their latest efforts. The climax being reached when Ali-Jan gravely gave a well-known couplet as his own!

"When lovers think, their thoughts are not their own, But each to each Love's communings have flown."

"Hold thy peace, pirate!" came Babar's full joyous voice. "That is Mahomed Shaikh. Thou couldst not write such an one for thy life."

Ali-Jan, who was already far gone, waggled his head. "Lo!" he said with a hiccup, "I could do--doz-shens!"

"And I." "And I," chorused others militantly, for the spirits were rising fast.

"So be it!" cried Babar, as ever the most sober of the party. "Let us all try and parody it _extempore!_ Now then, Ali-Jan--'tis thy turn first. Rise and out with it _instanter!_"

Ali-Jan rose gravely and stood swaying. "When--" he began solemnly.

"When--"

Then he subsided, gravely and solemnly. The roar of consequent laughter was dominated by Babar's joyous shout, "I have it! I have it!"

"When Ali drinks, his legs are not his own, Each seeks support and neither stands alone."

"Shabas.h.!.+ Wah! Wah! Ha! Ha! Ha!" The uproarious mirth echoed out into the still night.

"The Emperor is merry," quoth the sentries in the valley, with a smile.

"Aye! but he looks ill for all that," said an orthodox old trooper. "I saw him s.h.i.+ver yestere'en when he swam the stream in his clothes, and the water was lukewarm. Time was, not so long ago, when he would have swum an ice torrent and felt no cold; now, he hath taken a chill."

Whether the man was right in the cause thereof, he was correct in the illness. The next morning found Babar down with so severe a defluxion, fever, and cough, that he spat blood. The court physician dosed him with narcissus flowers steeped in wine, and Ali-Jan, Tardi-Beg and all the other boon companions sat with the monarch to cheer him up by laying the blame of the illness on the cold, or the heat, or what not.

But Babar himself knew whence the indisposition proceeded, and what conduct had led to this chastis.e.m.e.nt. What business had he to laugh at folk in verse for his own amus.e.m.e.nt? Still less, no matter how mean or contemptible the doggerel, to take pride in it and write it down? It was regrettable that a tongue which could repeat the sublimest productions, should lend itself to unworthy rhymes; it was melancholy that a heart capable of n.o.bler conceptions should stoop to meaner and despicable verses. From henceforth he would abstain religiously from vituperative poetry.

This excellent resolution--or something else--proved curative; and Babar was soon on the mend and was able to write the following:

"Oh! what can I do with you, flagrant tongue?

On your account I deserve to be hung.

How long will you utter bad parodies, One half indecent, the other half lies?

If you wish to escape being d.a.m.ned--Up rein!

Ride off--nor venture near verse again."

To which he appended a quatrain in his best Arabic: