"_Ten!_"
"Die dog!" she whispered with the kiss. "Nay, thou shalt take it."
He struggled fiercely.
_Eleven!_
"Die in mine arms, for thine untruth, traitor!"
"Help!" he choked feebly. "Harlot! let me go!"
But it was too late. The palace guard under orders for eleven, not for one, had found their quarry in the dark. Had found him in a woman"s arms, and swift daggers did their work.
There was not a quiver in Mirza Ibrahim"s body when, turning it over, they discovered by a lantern"s light their mistake and started back in horror.
"Yea, he is dead," said atma as she stood, fast held for future punishment. There was sombre menace in her voice, her eyes blazed with a cruel fire. Then she turned on her captors.
"Loose me, slaves. I carry the Signet of the King. Seek his orders concerning me."
It was true. The signet was on her finger. So releasing her, they double-guarded the door, while, with the dead body of the Lord Chamberlain as witness, they sought superior wisdom.
Left alone, atma found the old sword as solace and clasped it to her bosom. She had but killed for the King; a? her fathers had killed many a time.
CHAPTER XXVI
_"Twas in the bath a piece of perfumed clay Came from my loved one"s hands to mine one day Art thou then musk or ambergris? I said, That by thy scent my soul is ravished.
"Not so," it answered, "naught but clay am I, But I have kept a rose"s company_."
--Sa"adi
It was nigh twelve of the night, and Akbar was awake. He sate on the low divan which served him as a bed, and in a measure as throne also, when he was in camp; but there was little else about the magnificent apartment in which it stood to suggest the smallest withdrawal of luxury, still less of comfort. The walls were of the finest Kashmir shawls draped in panels between the parcel-gilt tent poles, and the floor was covered with strangely-glistening silken carpets from Khotan. A marvellous l.u.s.tre of precious stones hung from the roof, and beside the divan stood the seven-light cresset stand, the golden and gemmed scent brazier, and the clepsydra with its lotus bowl, without which the King spent no night.
He was alone for the time, though countless guards doubtless stood in the vast city of huge tents which formed the King"s camp. Weary work indeed, is it to even read the catalogue of such a camp. Of the hundreds of tents of scarlet cloth bound with silken tapes, fitted with silken ropes, some of which would seat ten thousand people. Of the great circle of double-storied screen around the "Aka.s.s-deva"
lamp--the King"s lamp that showed the way to G.o.d"s Justice. Then the dais for Common Audience with its avenue of five hundred feet by three hundred broad, and its great circular enclosure of over one thousand feet diameter. Truly the mind wavers over the tremendous size of it, and refuses to grasp the possibility of a pavilion with fifty-four rooms in it!
Such, nevertheless, was the camp in which Akbar sate alone awaiting a favoured visitor.
For he had made up his mind to see this little "Queen of Women" with whom his son was said to have fallen in love.
It was easy. She was but a child, and he the father of his people. So he had ordered Ghia.s.s Beg to bring her to the camp privately at twelve of the night, when all was quiet.
Then, he felt, he would be able to judge aright. Since what was this challenge of his but mere childishness? Everyone, even Birbal, was keen to win or lose; but if he lost or won, how did that affect the truth?
Was Love powerful enough to wean Salim from his life of debauchery?
The idea of it had not been; but the compelling force depended on the woman. Was this child of twelve----? Pshaw it was impossible.
Yet he must see her, he felt; for it was a momentous decision, not to be made lightly.
He rose, and walking over to the clepsydra, watched the lotus cup sinking with the weight of time.
So sank beauty under the weight of years.
And then, suddenly, to him came the remembrance of atma Devi. Ye G.o.ds!
if from the beginning he had had a mate such as she--a woman to whom the honour of the King outweighed the honour, nay, even the love of the man, he need not now have stood uncertain, hesitating whether to leave all, even his sons, to wallow in the mire of conventionality--to leave all, and dream out his dream of Empire in his own way. For he would have had not only sons, but heirs.
Should he so leave all? Should the morrow see the camp no more spectacle to the wedding festivities, but a real departure?
He could take her with him as an inspiration--the sudden unlooked for thought caught him unawares, left him surprised.
"The Captain of the Palace Guard without and the Chief Eunuch have urgent news," came the obsequious voice of a page.
"Bid them in," he replied, returning to the divan, almost glad of an interruption to what was disturbing in the uttermost.
"Dead!" he echoed incredulously to the news they brought. "The Lord High Chamberlain dead--by whose hands?"
"By mine, Most High," answered a trembling voice as the Sergeant of the Guard fell at the King"s feet. "We had warning that the English jeweller was to be in Mistress atma Devi"s rooms to-night at eleven.
We went. All was dark. We found him as we thought, in her very arms.
Yet when Justice was done and we brought the light, it--it was Mirza Ibrahim."
"In whose apartment?" Akbar"s voice was very cold, very quiet.
"In the Charan-woman"s, Most High! Lo! there is some mistake, doubtless. Yet she was brought in by the Mirza"s orders--she had the fairest apartment set apart for her and--and he visited her this evening--just after Majesty, so the woman said."
Akbar rose to his feet fiercely.
"What has that to do with it, slave?" he interrupted, his voice full of swift sudden anger, "go on with the noisome tale!"
"Of a truth, sire, there is no doubt lamps were lit and wine brought.
So he deserved death, and the woman too----"
"Aye!" a.s.sented the King, "she deserved it more! Didst kill her too?"
He felt outraged beyond words; every atom of his manhood rose in hot anger against the woman who had dared--aye! dared to make him think of things he had forgotten, when she herself---- Ah! it was past mere anger.
"Nay! Most High. She--she showed us the Signet of Majesty and so----"
Under his breath a curse broke from Akbar"s lips. Aye! he remembered now! He had given her the ring, and with the memory came back such an impotent flood of pure savage rage as never before in all his life had he felt. The Mogul scratched showed the Tartar; for an instant not even his ancestor Timur could have felt more bloodthirsty. The shame of it alone cried for instant revenge.
The thought brought him outward calm.
"She dies at dawn," he said quietly. "As women do who sin in G.o.d"s night. Bring her here, _then_. She shall affix the seal to her own death-warrant. Write it now, and lay it on yonder desk so that it may be ready."
"And till then, Most High?"
"Leave her where her lover died; being Hindu she may learn to follow him without fear."