"Bards of a feather flock together," sneered Budaoni, alluding to Birbal"s own minstrel birth. Abulfazl who was close behind his enemy turned on him courteously.
"Mayhap he and my brother Faiz, Hindu and Unorthodox poets-laureate, being disappointed of a worthy colleague from your sect _Mulla-jee_, are seeking one--amongst women!"
There was a laugh, and Budaoni turned aside scowling, with a murmured "May G.o.d roast him!" It was his favourite wish for the unorthodox.
Meanwhile a red dress showed through the bevy of protesting ushers and the next moment a group of three persons was standing before Birbal.
One the woman who had sung, the other the _rebeck_ player whose fine careworn face had shown cameo-like against her glowing colour, the third an old man almost hidden by his big drum.
The woman was past her first youth, but she was still extraordinarily handsome, and her dark eyes, full of some hidden thought, looked defiantly into Birbal"s.
"I am the King"s bard--the King"s champion," she said in a low rapid voice, "I have come to sing to him."
Birbal bowed with a half-disdainful sweep of both hands.
"Those who know atma Devi as the daughter--the _daughter_ only--of her dead father, may disclaim her right of succession. Birbal does nothing so--so unnecessary! Akbar has no need of your pedigrees to-day, madam!
The King listens to no one--not even to your servant! Let the lady pa.s.s out again, ushers!"
For an instant atma hesitated. Then her eyes sought the _rebeck_ player"s and Birbal"s followed hers instinctively. There was nothing unusual in the musician"s thin face save its excessive pallor; in that he looked as if he had been dead for days. For the rest he was clean shaven to his very scalp, and wore no headdress; nor much of dress below that either. Birbal"s swift downward glance paused in a moment at something attached to a skein of greasy black silk which the man wore, talisman fashion, about his throat.
What was it? A stone of some sort roughly smoothed to a square, and of a dull green uneven texture like growing gra.s.s. No! it was like leaves--like the rose leaves in a garden, and those faintly red specks were the roses. Yes! it was a rose garden. How the perfume of it a.s.sailed the senses, making one forget--forget--forget--
"_Oh! rose of roses is thy scent of G.o.d?
Speak rose, disclose the secret!" "Foolish clod, Who knows discloses not what"s sent of G.o.d_."
The quaint old triplet seemed afloat in the air and atma"s voice to come from beyond something that was eternally unchanged, inevitable.
"Has the seedling no need of the root; does the flower not nurture the fruit?" she chanted, her eyes still upon the _rebeck_ player.
Birbal looked at her, caught in the great World-Wisdom which poets see sometimes in the simplest words.
"She says truth," he murmured to himself. "She says truth!" Then with a light laugh he turned to Abulfazl. "Shall we let her pa.s.s? At least she can do no harm."
"Nor any good," broke in Man Singh hotly; "and it will but strengthen her madness! What! a woman to claim a Charan"s[5] place--to give her body to the sword?--her honour to the dust for the King"s? Psha! Bid her go back to her spinning wheel!"
[Footnote 5: The Charan bard and champion is a hereditary office held very sacred by the Rajputs.]
Abulfazl smiled largely. "Lo! even Rajput manhood lives in the woman for nine long months--none can escape from the dark life before birth.
Yea! let her pa.s.s in, Birbal--she can do no harm."
"Nor good," persisted Man Singh stoutly.
Birbal"s shoulders moved once more. "I would not swear," he answered airily, "since Akbar is not of the common herd. Go then, good mad soul, and sing thy pedigrees, and you,"----he paused pointing at the quaint green stone. "What call you that, musician?"
The _rebeck_ player paused also, keeping his eyes downward submissively.
"They call it smagdarite, Excellence. It comes from Sinde."
"Sinned or no sin," echoed Birbal gaily, "the devil is in it. But "tis a good name. Pa.s.s on Smagdarite! Stay"--here the old man half-hidden by his drum essayed to follow--"whom have we here? Old Deena the drum-banger! In what vile stew of Satanstown didst spend the night, villain?"
Thus apostrophised, Deena"s comically wicked, leering, old face hid itself completely in a salaam behind the drum, and came up again puckered with pure mischief.
"That is a question for the virtuous Lord Chamberlain, Mirza Ibrahim,"
he replied, demurely.
The sally was greeted with a boisterous laugh, and Mirza Ibrahim--whose fine clothes dispersed a perfect atmosphere of musk--scowled fiercely. For Satanstown, as ultimate exile of all the bad characters of the city was in his charge, and report had it that he pursued his duty of inspection with more than usual a.s.siduity.
"Sit thou here then, by Smagdarite," continued Birbal, recovering from his laugh, "and drum from a distance, lest thou be utterly d.a.m.ned for deserting honourable company. Hark! she begins!"
atma had by this time sunk to the ground beside the King. Her flimsy scarlet skirts curved about her like overblown poppy petals. Her dark eyes, full of fire, were fixed on the unconscious figure so close beside her, and, under the slow circling of her lissome forefinger the little drum held in her left hand was beginning to give out an indescribably mysterious sound like the first faint sobbing of air before an organ pipe breaks into a note.
From the distance, almost unheard, came the m.u.f.fled throbbing of old Deena"s drum, and the thin thread of the _rebeck_, light yet insistent like a summer gnat; both kept to the same stern delicacy of rhythm.
The singer"s voice, high and clear, rose on it almost aggressively--
Hark! and hist!
To the list Of the kings who have died In their pride, To the wide, wide, world.
MiRUN-KHaN!
Lo! He dreamt he was King!
But he died In his pride To the wide, wide, world.
SO HIS SON SULiMaN
Dreamt the dreamings of kings Till he died In his pride To the wide, wide, world.
SO THE DREAM WAS JEHaN"S!
And he dreamt he was king Till he died In his pride To the wide, wide, world.
The rhythmic background broke with the singing voice into troubled triplets, and the King"s slack hands gripped in on themselves. Was he listening?
Now the tale of the Kings who have died In their pride Is many, and many beside.
But the dream is the same, So it came----