King Errant Part 44

In fact verses and gardens were his greatest amus.e.m.e.nt that hot weather, much of which he spent at Dholpur where he was busy laying out pleasure-grounds and building palaces. He had disbanded most of his troops until the rainy season was over, and sent his n.o.bles to the several districts a.s.signed to them. Thus he was left alone to fight out the temperance battle by himself. It did not agree with him evidently, for twice he nearly succ.u.mbed to sudden illness; but he brought religion to bear on the question with a grave simplicity all his own, and kept feasts and fasts with the strictest orthodoxy.

Even here, however, he could not be quite conventional; for, never since he was eleven, having held the Festival of Ramzan two years running in the same place--a fact which gives testimony to his unsettled life--he could not make up his mind to break through the usage. So he ordered a fine camp to be pitched at Sikri, and deserted his capital.

Thus the months sped by bringing disappointments and minor pleasures.

The news which came to him that Humayon--Humayon the magnificent, the darling of his heart--had on his way through Delhi broken open the treasure-houses there and marched off Kabul-wards with their contents, hurt him extremely. He had never expected such conduct from him, so he wrote him a letter containing the severest reprehensions, and thereinafter fell ill for seventeen days. It was not so bad a fever, however, as that which seized on him in October after he swam the Ganges at Sambal, in order to ride alone (having separated from his people by a finesse--for no reason at all) to Agra. He lay half-delirious then for nigh four weeks, his brain busy all the time with versifications.

He only recollected one of them, however, when at last, a mere skeleton of a man, he rose from his bed. He set it down, however, to show how bad he had been.

"My fever grows each day, My slumber fades away, My pains go on increasing-- My patience is decreasing."

He laughed over the doggerel, as he sat joyously eating fruit once more, and reading a letter which told him that in a month's time two of his paternal aunts would actually pay him a visit. They had come south with little Ma'asuma whom her husband was taking to Etawah.

He was full on the instant of preparations. An architect was sent for and orders given for a special palace to be decorated for their reception. He himself, pa.s.sing rapidly through convalescence went out to meet them in a boat above Secunderabad. It was a most joyful meeting, and Babar hugged the old ladies as they had never been hugged before. It was almost unbelievable, this delight of family life once more. To hear their shrill voices, with the beloved Turkhi accent, prattling away about the dear loved ones in Kabul was almost too much for him. But they bewailed his looks and chattered of old Chagatai recipes for deer's broth and mares'-milk cheeses till he shut his eyes and tried to believe they were his dearest mother and his revered grandmother at Andijan and that he was still King of the valley at the extreme limit of the habitable world, and not Emperor of all India.

Then he opened them and took in and loved the quaint old-fas.h.i.+oned dresses and everything about them that was unlike the gorgeously ugly East which in his heart he loathed. But it was his, and it would be his son's and his son's son's; so there was no more to be said.

Nevertheless the meeting accentuated his dislike to India and he found it necessary to put something into life to make up for its lack of real interest. He had taken the t.i.tle of _Ghazi_ or "Defender of the Faith" after his victory over Rana Sanka. Now he felt that another Holy War against the heathen might bring the lacking zest to life. It might, anyhow. But he failed to see it clearly in the Crystal Bowl which Maham had given him. He used it chiefly as a divining cup now; or rather as a sort of scrying crystal into which he would look, and dream dreams.

But he never saw anything in it save his own thoughts. He could not, however, after his illness, summon up sufficient energy to start this Holy War that winter, and so another hot weather found him still at Agra. It was his third spent alone in a country he disliked fervently.

But the gardens he had planted were growing up, the flowers he had gathered from far and near were blossoming. Kabul, over the river, now bore some faint resemblance to its namesake. Here he held a grand festival for his veteran soldiers. There were not many now who had been with him since as a boy he had wandered over the upland alps at Ilak; and it was fitting they should be singled out for distinction.

It was a fine feast indeed. Babar sat in a small octagonal pavilion on the river bank, and before the repast was served, sports and games were displayed on an island just opposite. Here, there were fights between furious camels and elephants, ram fights and wrestling matches. Meanwhile the presents were being given. Vests and rich dresses of honour, besides gifts of other value were bestowed, while Babar, always at his best as bountiful _entrepreneur_, had many a smile and jest, many a kindly remembrance of past days to give with the other presents. Then came food, Hindustan jugglers and acrobats who did surprising tricks; besides many dancing-girls who performed outlandish dances. Finally, towards evening prayer time, a great quant.i.ty of gold and silver and copper money was scattered amongst the crowd and there was a precious hubbub and uproar.

Altogether it was like the light-hearted old Kabul days and Babar felt the better for it. So, the cool setting in once more, he started on his Holy War against the Pagan; but, though he tried hard to take an interest in it, somehow it fell rather flat. He was more struck with the beauty of Rajputana than with the virtue of exterminating the idolaters who lived there. A country where there was abundance of running water, small pretty lakes, where little spots of rising ground afforded beautiful sites for houses, and where the houses in existence were beautiful and capacious, of hewn stone wrought with great skill and labour, was not a country to devastate. So he came back again, to work on annexation with the pen instead of by the sword, and to receive three more paternal aunts who came crowding to claim his boundless hospitality.

They, however, brought sad news from Kabul. Little Faruk, the son he had never seen, was dead. There was a piteous letter from Maham all blistered with tears. The child had never been strong--surely G.o.d's judgment must be on her that all her children died--but he had gone to play with his little brothers and sisters in Paradise. So there was none left now but Humayon, whom G.o.d preserve; Humayon who was looking these days for a child of his own. G.o.d send it were a son. Not that it would matter much to heartbroken Maham. And scribbled underneath the flourish of a signature were these words: "If my lord desireth another son let him take another wife. I am accursed."

Babar wept over this postscript more than over the rest of the letter.

He was very sorry, of course; but the Child was but an abstraction to him, while the thought of his Dearest-dear's grief was bitter indeed.

He wrote her the most loving of letters, begging her not to hurt him by such words. Even had he not had, by her forethought and kindness, other sons, Humayon would have satisfied him. Humayon was a son of whom anyone might be proud; so handsome, so courtly, so brave.

And by the same messenger he sent congratulations to the new-made father; for by this time the news of the birth of a grandson had been brought by special runner.

"To Humayon," he began, "whom I remember with such longing to see him again, health."

It, also, was the most loving of letters. "Thanks be to G.o.d," he wrote, "for giving to you a child, to me a comfort and an object of love. You have called him Alaman--the Protected of G.o.d--May G.o.d protect him and bestow on thee and on me many years made happy by the name and fame of Alaman."

He went on to tell his son gently but firmly that indolence and ease suit but ill with royalty. Did not the poet say:

"The world is his who gives himself to work; Inaction is no fellow to ambition; In wisdom's eyes all men may find repose, Save only he who seeks a King's condition."

And then, with a certain pathetic bitterness, he told him that for two years he had had no direct news of his son, though in the last letter the latter had complained of separation from his friends.

"It is but ill manners in a prince," he wrote, "to complain of this, seeing that if one is fettered by situation, 'tis ever most dignified to submit to circ.u.mstance. Truly there is no greater bondage than that in which a King is placed, and it ill becomes him to grumble at inevitable separations."

So, with perhaps a vague sense of injury, he remarked that though Humayon had certainly written him letters and that with his own hand, he could never have read them over, "for had you attempted to do so,"

he wrote--and the letter is still extant, "you must have found it absolutely impossible. I did, indeed, contrive to decipher your last, but with great difficulty. It was excessively crabbed and confused; a real riddle in prose! Then, in consequence of the far-fetched words you employed, the meaning is by no means very intelligible. You do not excel, I know, in letter writing, but if in future you would write unaffectedly, with clearness, using plain words, it would cost less trouble both to the writer and the reader."

Babar himself was at the time in a distinctly literary mood, for as a demonstration of joy on the birth of Humayon's child and the marriage of Kamran, one of Babar's other sons, he sent--in addition to other lavish presents--two copies written in his own Babari hand of all the translations and original poems he had composed since coming to India.

And this was no small task, for in his last attack of serious illness he had set himself to translating into verse a religious tract, as a curative measure. It had not, however, proved very successful, though in his ardour he had composed on an average, fifty-two couplets a day.

For he still suffered continually from fever and often from dysentery.

In fact, though he could still swim over the Ganges in three and thirty strokes, take breath and swim back again in like number, he was beginning to realise that life was pa.s.sing. Surely, by now, he had set his foot with sufficient security upon the throne of India to warrant his sending for those dear ones who were never very far from his thoughts and resuming the happy, simple family life which suited him best.

He pondered over this question for some months. It meant, of course, a delay in his own return to Kabul. But that was inevitable. Hindustan was not yet sufficiently settled to allow of his absence. Divided in his mind between intense longing to see his native country again, and his ideal of kingly self-denial, he hesitated; until news of discord in the Royal clan decided him, and he wrote to Kwajah-Kilan, the Governor at Kabul, to take instant steps to start the Royal Family for Hindustan. His letter told his old friend that the affairs of the country had been reduced to a certain degree of order; ere long he hoped to see them completely settled. Then without losing an instant of time he would set out, G.o.d willing, for his western dominions. "My solicitude to visit Kabul again is boundless and great beyond expression. How is it possible indeed that its delights could ever be erased from the heart? How is it possible for one like me, who have made a vow of abstinence from wine, to forget the delicious melons and grapes of that pleasant region? Very recently some one brought me a single musk-melon. While cutting it up I felt myself affected by so strong a sense of loneliness, and of exile from my beloved country that I could not help shedding tears even as I ate it."

So, after giving minute instructions on various subjects, especially as to the planting of trees at a place called the Prospect, and the sowing of beautiful and sweet-smelling flowers and shrubs, he went on to detail his own experiences in reconciling himself to the desert of penitence. "Last year my desire and longing for wine and social parties were beyond measure excessive; to such an extent, indeed, that I have caught myself shedding absolute tears of vexation and disappointment. (For G.o.d's sake do not think amiss of me for this.) In the present year, praise be, these troubles are over. This I ascribe (in part) to the occupation of my mind in the poetical translation of a tract; of which no more at present. Let me advise you, too, to adopt a life of abstinence. Social parties and wine are doubtless pleasant, in company with our jolly friends and old boon companions. But with whom can _you_ enjoy the social cup? Truly if you have only s.h.i.+r-Ahmed and Hindai for the companions of your gay hours and the jovial goblet, you cannot find any difficulty in abstinence."

This, Babar felt, was unanswerable. So far as he was concerned he knew that drunkenness in the company of blockheads had been no better than sobriety. And he was not born to suffer fools gladly.

After he had taken the irrevocable step and sent for his Dearest-dear, he went out and looked at the stars before settling himself to sleep, telling himself that he felt years younger at the very thoughts of seeing them all again.

After four years! four long years. They would not have changed, of course; to him at least they could never change. But how about himself? He had grown gaunt and grey. Still at heart he was young--Aye! as young as when he had first bidden the Crystal Bowl bring him the whole, not the half of Life.

Well! he had had his share. And there was Canopus hanging in the south!

"All hail _Soheil!_"

CHAPTER VII

Good old St. Martini patron of the drunk!

Lo! in thy summer thou givest potent draught To warm our c.o.c.kles ere the world be sunk In winding sheet of snow. This is thy craft, O cheerful saint! to give ere the year dies A euthanasian drink of cloudless skies.

There was no question as to the youth of the man who on Midsummer Eve A. D. 1529 was riding post haste from Kalpi to Agra, a distance of close on a hundred miles, to meet his wife and children. He sat his horses, laid out along the sandy sun-bitten roads, as only a Chagatai Turkh could do, and when he flung himself from his last mount at midnight in the Garden-of-the-Eighth-Paradise, he had indeed pa.s.sed beyond the Seventh-Heaven-of-Happiness.

It seemed simply incredible that before many hours were over he should see Maham again. Maham, his moon, his more than wife!

It was no joyous festival to him, this Eve of St. John; but surely in some occult fas.h.i.+on, the youth of all Christendom as it rejoiced with garlands and merry shoutings and dances, must have reached him in far India. Perhaps--since there is no limit to such unconscious influences--the immemorial festival of summer that has been held since the world began, added its quota of perennial life to the vitality that was still ready to leap up at any stimulus.

Certain it is that in this, the commencement of this St. Martin's summer of his life, Babar needed no pity for spent power.

He had been delayed by storm and wind and rain. Only a few days before he had had an awkward experience which might have resulted in serious injury. He had been sitting, writing, in his tent at past midnight when the clouds of the rainy season broke, and there was suddenly such a tempest, and the wind rose so high that it blew down the pavilion, with the screen which surrounded it, on his head. He had had no time even to gather up his papers and the loose sheets that were written; so they all got drenched. However, with much trouble they were picked up here, there, everywhere, and set to dry in a woollen cloth over which carpets were thrown. But he had had to put a jesting postcript to Maham's letter to say the blisters were not tears. They wrote to each other constantly, these two, and letters from Maham made ever a red-letter day in the Diary which Babar kept.

But now this was over! There would be no more need for writing, since she was within a few miles of Alighur where, G.o.d willing, he meant to meet her so soon as he had seen that all things were in order for her reception at Agra.

Never was there such a fussy host as he showed himself.

"Truly, nephew Babar," snorted Khadijah, his chief paternal aunt, when he cavilled at some domestic arrangement in Maham's private apartment, "I am woman and I ought to know. If men, and especially Kings, were to do their own work and leave such things to those who understand, 'twould be better."