To the general public a.s.sembling in force it was an occasion for curiosity; for something new which might pave the way to almost anything. Only the Syeds, their hawk faces cl.u.s.tering close together, their hands clutching at their sword belts, seemed certain of the future.
A burst of the royal kettledrums in the distance echoed finally over a dense crowd, packing the wide arches of the huge Hall-of-Audience, and stretching beyond them into the paved courtyard.
"If he wear the Luck still, it will be something to go by," muttered a weak-looking courtier, who by his very dress--curiously nondescript--his shaven chin and high green turban showed a desire to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.
There were many such in Akbar"s empire; men whose imaginations went so far with the King, yet whose hearts failed them before the strangeness of his dreams.
Another long, loud burst of wild music, and the King showed alone on the high raised dais, canopied and latticed at the sides with fretted marble, which opened at the back into the private pa.s.sage reserved for Royal use only. By reason of the limited s.p.a.ce in which he stood--the central archway rising but a few inches above his head--he looked larger, taller, broader than his wont, and as he glanced keenly over the packed mult.i.tude before him, he showed every inch a king. Yet he was conscious that he, alone of all his empire, saw strength, not weakness, in his readiness for reconsideration; that he, only, felt that the revocation of his order would be a greater display of kingly power than the original order itself.
Standing as he did in shadow, it took the crowd a silent second or two before it realised--what to it was a stupendous fact--that in this critical new departure of their King"s he was prepared to defy Fate.
He had deserted his luck. The tight wound turban of royalty did not show the dull glow of the great diamond.
A sort of shiver ran through the Hall, checked by the King"s voice.
"Are the suitors and the witnesses in the case present?" he asked.
Abulfazl, stepping into the wide open square kept clear before the railed dais, replied in the affirmative.
"Then proceed."
The sing-song voice of the court reader filled the hushed air, but from outside, beyond the red-toothed arches, came the morning song of many birds. The sunlight filtered in with the song, making Akbar"s attention wander. How trivial these petty questions of rights and wrongs seemed beside the great questions of Life in itself.
"Bring forward the woman. Let her swear that she is true and lawful wife."
The crowd swayed at the back. A domed red dhooli showed forcing its way to the front.
"Room! Room!" cried the ushers. "Room! Room! for the virtuous."
If it was virtuous, there was still something in the very fall of the swinging silk curtains, in the lift of the liveried bearers, which set men"s pulses a-bounding. For it was Siyah Yamin"s dhooli and she was inside. Would she unveil? Would they see her again, uttermost mistress of art, absolute owner of guile? A faint sigh of disappointment seemed to shudder through the crowd as, in obedience to order, the bearers set down the dhooli and removed the red domed cover, thus disclosing a m.u.f.fled figure which rose and salaamed low toward Akbar. Something there was of ultimate grace in the salutation, which made remembrance still more clear, and sent a pang of resentment through many of those present that this perfection should no longer be public property. A cupola of chast.i.ty indeed! screened and guarded by veiled duennas! Not one in faith, but two! It was preposterous!--Siyah Yamin! the darling of the town!
"Woman!" came Akbar"s voice, "wilt thou swear that thou art lawfully wedded to the exiled Jamal-ud-din, Syed of Barha?"
There was an instant"s pause, then a gay clear voice with a bubble of laughter in it replied:
"Yea! I swear! even though atma---- Where art thou, sister? Disguised as yon duenna, I"ll go bail!"
At her first word there was a faint scuffle, a flinging aside of a _burka_, a silver flash, and almost ere she ended the Charan"s cry rang out
It is a lie I, atma, I Give it the lie Ye Bright Ones see me die Avenge the lie!
The death-dagger of atma Devi"s race rose high in the air above the silver fillet on her loosened hair, and the next moment it would have been buried in the heart beneath the silver hauberk had not a man"s voice--not kingly at all in its hurried command--cried quickly:
"Hold her!"
As she staggered back, her balance gone by Birbal"s swift arrest of the blow, a mocking voice fell on her ear.
"Did I not tell thee so, sister! Thou art too good-looking for death!"
It had all pa.s.sed so quickly that folks were still almost incredulously craning to see, when sudden silence came to that group on the clear square before the dais. To Siyah Yamin, m.u.f.fled in her chaste veil, to atma Devi with her bare defiance, to Birbal"s eager acute face as he still held back that hand with the dagger.
"Speak! What hast thou to say?" said the King through the silence.
"This," came the reply, clear, resolute, as atma Devi drew from out her bosom a folded paper. "It was the death word of the King"s Charan."
"Take it and read," said the King, and Abulfazl stepping forward, took the paper. His practised voice sounded sonorously through the wide hall.
"Avenge the lie for which I die. Siyah Yamin is Siyala, daughter of Gokal, Brahmin, of Chandankaura, Rajputana. We are sisters of the veil. I saw her married with the Seven Steps and the Sacrificial Fire to the death-dagger of my race which grants no divorce. She is Bride of the G.o.ds for ever and ever and ever. The G.o.ds curse him who steals her from them. Ye Bright Ones avenge the lie!"
"Is this true, woman?" asked the King, sternly.
From behind the veil came the gay mocking voice, "Let her prove it."
By this time the first shock of surprise was over, and men had begun to turn to each other, questioning and appraising the validity of atma"s plea.
"And even if she can prove it, Oh! Most-Ill.u.s.trious," began Budaoni, who from his translating work was cognisant of Hindu customs, "even if this evil woman was dedicated to the G.o.ds, what then? She has read the creed, she hath become Musulman--she is duly married."
"If the Most-Ill.u.s.trious will hear me," put in Birbal bowing low--"hear me, Bhat, Brahmin, as one with knowledge and authority, I will tell the Most-Just that this is no ordinary dedication of a girl to the service of the G.o.ds. _Deva-dasis_ there be--aye! even those married to a dagger or a basil plant, on whom rests no life-long, death-long tie. But this is not of those!--Married with the Seven Steps to a Charan"s death-dagger! Accursed be he----"
"Accursed be thou, Hindu!" cried a voice from the crowd, and in an instant hands found sword-hilts and faces grew fierce.
"Sire! He is right," called Rajah Man Singh. "The woman belongs to the G.o.ds--who claims her, takes her through my body!"
"Idolater!" rose an answering sneer, "what Islam claims is G.o.d"s!"
But behind these voices in the packed ma.s.s of the crowd, men looked at each other dubiously; Hindu at Mahommedan, Mahommedan at Hindu. Should they claim this woman or let her go?
"If this slave may offer opinion," came Abulfazl"s sonorous voice above the growing clamour, "the question must wait for proof."
"Enough!" said Akbar sternly. He had been standing with bent brows staring at atma, and at the veiled figure beside her, lost in thought.
Then he turned to Birbal. "On thee, Maheshwar Rao, called by me Birbal, the burden of inquiry shall rest. Speak. As thou wilt answer to thy G.o.ds, if what yon woman"--he pointed to atma Devi--"says be true, would this marriage to the dagger hold against all others?"
Quick and sharp came the answer. "The marriage is inviolable, sacred for Time and for Eternity."
"Then there must be proof. What proof hast thou?" His voice softened slightly with the words.
atma Devi standing tall and straight flung her left arm skyward. "I have none! None; save my own word. I saw it--we were children and I cried because she left me. Yea! I remember the bitterness of my tears."
There was a sudden gay laugh from the veilings at her side, a sudden wreathing and curving of draperies, and in an instant the woman within them stood revealed; revealed, not as the late wedded bride, not even as Siyah Yamin the courtesan, but as Siyala the dancing girl of the G.o.ds. Her nut-brown body, bare save for the tiny gold-encrusted bodice following each swelling line of her bosom, rose, seductively supple, from the innumerable fulnesses of the thin white muslin skirt which after clinging close to the loveliness of curve from hip to knees, fulled out like a bursting flower weighted by its heavy banding of gold tissue. She wore no veil, but her loose flowing hair was wreathed with jasmine chaplets, and round her neck, floating with each exquisite movement of her arms, was a multi-coloured gossamer silk scarf, rainbow hued, evanescent, ever-recurring, holding in its loopings, its doublings, something of the absolute grace of a coiling serpent.
And through the wide hall packed full of men instinct with anger, malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness, there ran, swiftly, at the mere sight of her, a common admiration, a common tremor of fear and hope.
Even the King stepped back from her pure womanhood.
"Lo! Weep not ato! Wherefore should any weep; when all life is for laughter!" she said, and her polished voice sounded mysteriously sweet. "Great King! she says truth. I am Siyal beloved of the G.o.ds, beloved of the G.o.dhead in the man. I am no man"s wife. I am no man"s mistress. I am free to have and hold."
She flung both arms forward to the crowd and the rainbow scarf leaping up formed a halo round her head.