"Three minutes more, friend!" said Sumbal boastfully, "and thou shalt see what thou wilt see. Slave! the port fire, quick. I will give the signal. Lo! What is up?"
A rattle of musketry rose on the still air of dawn, and an artillery man leaned over the low embrasure to see better into the intervening valley.
"Some one escaping," he said with a yawn, for he had been up half the night. "Lo! he runs like a hare! But they will have him, for sure."
"Quick," called Sumbal, "we will silence their noise. The portfire, I say. I will fire old Thunderer myself."
The man carrying the flaming flashlight handed it to his superior, but in so doing by some mischance it dropped, and in the dropping went out!
"Fool!" cried Sumbal pa.s.sionately. "Are we to stand insulted here without reply while thou fetchest another? Put him in irons, sergeant, and bring light at once!"
But the grave, silent Rajput was watching the runner. "He is but a boy," he said slowly, "yet see how he runs. And they have hit him, for he staggers. Yet he comes on. He must bring news, friend, for sure!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "_I stay my hand while I count ten--no more._"]
"News!" echoed Sumbal contemptuously; "we have half a hundred such runaways coming in every day. It is no news that King Humayon is better liked than k.u.mran. Lo! hast thou it at last?" He s.n.a.t.c.hed the portfire from the sergeant and went toward the gun.
"Stay one moment, friend!" said the grave and silent man with sudden command in his voice. "A moment"s hastiness may bring disaster.
Discretion is better than valour. Yonder boy brings news--he waves his arms--he shouts! Stay at least till we can hear what he says."
Sumbal laughed. "Bah! But, see you, I stay my hand while I count ten--no more."
"One! two! three! four!"
The artillery men, amused at the race, leaned over. "He runs well!--He will win!--He will lose!--He climbs like a hill cat!"----
"_Five! six! seven! eight! nine!_"
And now, unintelligible from sheer breathlessness, Roy"s voice is heard.
The grave, silent Rajput leaps out to meet him.
"_Ten!_"
Sumbal"s hand swings the portfire to the breech.
Roy sees it, throws up his arms wildly, and with a cry--
"The bastion! The bastion! The Heir-to-Empire!" falls headlong into the Rajput"s arms.
"What did he say?" asked the master fireworker, pausing half surprised, half angry.
But the Rajput was too busy tearing aside Roy"s flimsy, bloodstained waistcoat to answer.
"Something about the bastion and the Heir-to-Empire, master!" said the sergeant doubtfully. "Mayhap "twould be as well to wait till we can see more clearly. k.u.mran," he added in a lower voice, "would stick at naught----"
Sumbal hesitated, then put down the portfire and walked over to the fallen lad, beside whom the stranger was kneeling.
"He is not dead! He is not dead!" said the grave, silent Rajput, looking up, his face working, the tears streaming down his bronzed cheek. "My master is not dead!"
"Who?" asked Sumbal, uncomprehending.
"I knew it must be he!" went on the man exultantly, even in his grief.
"None could do that sort of thing save a Sun hero! My Master! my King!
See, here the race mark on his breast! The sign of uttermost truth! My Master! My King!"
But Roy did not hear himself called thus. He did not even know for days afterwards if he had succeeded or if he had failed; for a wound just above the heart, close to the sign-mark of his race, very nearly carried him off into the Shadowy Land where all things are remembered, yet all are forgotten.
But he _had_ succeeded. He had saved the Heir-to-Empire"s life that dawn, and a day or two afterwards k.u.mran, daily more hated for his cruelty, had escaped, and the soldiers, rejoiced to get rid of him, flung open the gates of the Bala Hissar, thus ending Prince Akbar"s adventures.
But when Roy came to himself Mirak was sitting beside him and Down was purring on Bija"s lap; Bija, who had just returned from India with Queen Humeeda in time to console the Heir-to-Empire for all he must have suffered during the few days he was left alone with cruel Uncle k.u.mran.
How much he had suffered no one knew, and the little fellow refused to say anything about it. It was a way he had when the luck went against him. So, just as he had remarked when he had fallen down the ravine, when the white cat and the black dog first came to him, that he had "tumbu-down," so now he simply said that it wasn"t "very comfy," but that Tumbu had come to see him more than once. And this was possible, for you may be sure that once he allowed the Afghan sentry to rise, Tumbu, being a wise dog, never went near him again. Therefore he _had_ to find his old master.
And Foster-father, Foster-mother and Head-nurse were all there, the latter greatly subdued for the time, and in her grat.i.tude to Roy inclined to give him some of the t.i.tles she was wont to bestow on little Prince Akbar.
For there was no doubt whatever that the lad was the rightful Rajah of Suryamer, whom wicked rebels had exposed in the desert to die, who had been found and kept alive by wandering goatherds and had finally been discovered when unconscious from sunstroke by the royal fugitives.
And out of this arose the only sadness of the happy May days when the little party once more journeyed out to Babar"s tomb towards evening to sit under the _arghawan_ trees and watch the sunset.
Of course Dearest-Lady was not there, but all the others were a.s.sembled, and Down, the cat, purred as loud as ever, while Tumbu, the dog, frolicked round even more like a golliwog than before. But it was not the absence of the Khanzada Khanum which made faces thoughtful at times.
She, they knew, was at rest, and they laid flowers for her beside those they gathered in memory of Firdoos Gita Makani--on whom be peace!
No! it was the knowledge that Roy could not remain with them. So soon as he was strong again he must go back to his mother, go back to a people who, tired of rebellion, were longing for their old rulers.
"You see, brother, I am a King," said Roy sorrowfully, "and Kings cannot always do what they like."
"Do you think they ever do, _really_?" asked the little Heir-to-Empire gravely, "for I don"t."
And here we come to the end--for a time at least--of Prince Akbar"s adventures.
Now, if you want to know how much of this so-called veracious story is really true, I cannot quite say.
Did some one like Roy _really_ tell the master fireworker that the Heir-to-Empire was hung over the battlements of the bastion? If some one did not, how did the master-fireworker find it out? And he did; indeed, in the history books he takes great credit to himself for _having_ found it out. But then he was a boaster.
Then did Dearest-Lady really bind k.u.mran by an oath not to harm the Heir-to-Empire until she returned?
If she did not, then why did she, an old, frail woman of seventy, go out into the wilderness just as winter was coming on, and why did not cruel k.u.mran kill the Heir-to-Empire when he had him in his power?
These are all questions; but what is certain is that Baby Akbar did go through all these adventures before he was five years old.
So good-bye, brave little lads! Good-bye, stout old Foster-father and kindly Foster-mother! Good-bye, worthy Head-nurse with your strings of t.i.tles, and good-bye, dainty little Bija! Good-bye also to grinning Meroo, to purring Down, and frolicking Tumbu!
And for those other three whose memory remained--Old Faithful, Dearest Lady, and the Great Emperor, Firdoos Gita Makani, who all helped the little prince to safety, what of them?
"Heaven," as the marble slab among the tulips and violets of the Garden-of-the-New-Year says,
""Is their eternal abode.""