CHAPTER IX
"Death makes no Conquest of this Conqueror,
For now he lives in Fame."
"Then there is no hope to save Death," said Babar sternly. He stood, his face blanched, amongst a group of Court-physicians, professional prayer-makers, astrologers, sorcerers; frail reeds at which anxiety caught distractedly in its despair. And they were all silent save a priest who mumbled of God's goodness. Prayer remained, said the unctuous voice.
But that strong human heart was almost past petitions; it craved something more tangible.
"Is there naught to be given--naught that I could do to make God listen from His High Heaven? Naught that would mayhap soften His hard heart?" he asked sharply: he was thinking of a ransom: many a soldier had had to offer one; he, himself, had given a dear one--once....
Some of those who heard, looked at each other. This death to them meant little; but here was an opportunity for personal gain that could do no harm to anyone. So they whispered among themselves, and greed grew to some of the faces that encircled the man, to whose face it had never come, once, in all his life. For Babar had been giver, not taker. He had lavished all things on his world; he had been spendthrift even in forgiveness.
"Is there naught, gentlemen?" he asked drearily.
Then the chief-preacher spoke. "It hath been written, and is, indeed, approved, that in such times of stress some Supreme Sacrifice to the Most High may be effectual--"
"But it must be Supreme," put in a coarse-faced reader of the stars, his mind busy with money, "a small gift will not suffice--"
"Aye," added another voice. "Look, you! It must be the most precious possession of a man; that which he holds dearest. In this case I would suggest--"
But Babar, who was standing, his back to the light, held up his hand for silence.
"Then I give my life," he said quietly, but his voice rang strong and firm; for he had come straight from his interview with Mahâm and her words had roused every atom of his marvellous vitality.
"Yea! I give my life--for sure there is naught that a man can hold more precious."
Absolute surprise kept his hearers silent for a moment. The very suggestion in one so instinct with life, made it incredible; then dismay came to some faces, disappointment to others.
"Your Majesty!" began his faithful servant, the Wazîr swiftly--"Our Emperor's life is too precious--"
"Naught is too precious, friend, to save Humâyon!" came the equally swift reply.
"Yea! the Wazîr is right," palpitated one who saw money slipping through his fingers. "Some lesser thing, yet still supreme, might be found. What of the Great Diamond--"
"No stone can outweigh my son's life. No! I offer myself to God--it is all I have." The strong voice rang firmer than ever.
"But the offering must be dear to both parties," put in a pompous voice. "And since, by the generosity of the Emperor, the diamond in question--whose value represents they say one day's revenue of the habitable world--was bestowed upon the Prince Humâyon, it fits in double manner the circumstances--"
Babar turned in quick reproof and scorn to the speaker. "Knowest thou so little of love, friend? Lo! I am dearer to my son than many diamonds. Could he speak now--" Babar's voice almost broke--"he would say, 'I am not worth the price of thy life, my father, for it is all the world to me.' But he cannot speak! He is in the grip of Death, so I have my say!"
And he flung out his right arm as he had been used to fling it out when leading on his soldiers to some desperate charge--"Come! gentlemen," he said, command in every word, "let us lose no more time. It is precious. I will give my all--may God be merciful!"
The sick room was hushed. Humâyon lay motionless, unconscious, on a low bed set in the middle of the bare, spacious corridor. A physician sat to one side holding his patient's wrist, so appraising, minute by minute, the fluttering battle between Life and Death. On the other side knelt the poor mother; all unveiled, for they had sent for her, thinking the supreme moment was at hand, and she had no thought for anything save her dying son. Her right hand was stretched out in helpless appeal over the loved form which seemed to take up so little room amongst the quilts. But her left hand was held fast, consolingly, under the folds of a white veil which shrouded another female figure close behind her; for Mubârika-Begum, the Blessed-Damozel, was ever to the fore in sickness or in trouble.
But Babar did not notice either of them. He stepped swiftly to the head of the bed and stood looking down on the face of his dying son. Almost it seemed as if he were too late; as if Life had already unfolded her wings and fled. Then, with eyes literally blazing with inward fire he stretched out his hands, trembling with nervous strain, and began his prayer of intercession.
"O God Most High! If a life may be exchanged for a life, and they tell me it is so, then I, who am Babar, give mine for his, who is Humâyon! Let my strength bear his weakness."
"Husband! No! No! Not that--" moaned Mahâm, awakened to a sense of what was passing. But the figure behind her bent forward and whispered in her ear--
"Let be, sister! Canst not see that God's mist clouds his brain from this world. Lo! Mahâm, both thy dear ones stand before the Throne. Let God decide!"
And with a low sob, Mahâm fell on her outstretched arms; she said no more; she felt nothing save that cool, tightening clasp of sisterhood upon her hand.
The hot sunshine streamed in upon the floor, the distant sounds of life outside were dulled to a low murmur as of bees, and on it came softly-hurried steps, as Babar, with clasped hands, circumambulated the bed solemnly. That he knew was the ritual of sacrifice. Round and round patiently, his voice rising above the low sobbing of a faithful friend or two ...
"On me, kind God! be all his suffering. May all my strength be his. I gave him life once, Most-Clement! Let me give it to him again! Let my strength be his weakness; his weakness my strength."
Over and over again; over and over! The fire dying out of the man's eyes with the nervous strain, until his very steps hesitated--"On me be his suffering! On me! on me!" Then suddenly, through the room, thrilling every soul in it, a woman's sobbing ghost of a shriek!--
"He moved! His hand moved--I felt it."
Babar swayed towards the voice. "I have prevailed," he muttered. "I have borne it away--" threw up his arms blindly, staggered and fell in a dead faint on to sobbing Târdi-Beg's breast. The rest crowded round, awestruck, curious.
"He is dead--God hath accepted the sacrifice," they said.
The face of Babar's best friend worked; of that, who could say, but for the present it was not true.
"Not he!" he cried roughly. "Give him air! 'Tis but the strain on him, and what that has been all these years, fools do not know. Here, slaves! Carry him to his chamber! Nay! Madam Mother! there is no cause for anxiety! H'st! no noise, you there, lest you disturb the Prince who in good sooth seems coming to himself!"
And it was true. The nameless change which comes to a fever face when the crisis is passing showed clear upon Humâyon's.
"Her Royal Highness had best stay with the invalid," went on Târdi-Beg, "I can attend the Emperor in this passing indisposition."
But a veiled white figure rose quietly. "I go with His Imperial Majesty," said Mubârika-Begum. "There is no fear, sister; as the gentleman says it is but a fainting fit. The Emperor hath been over-anxious."
So when Babar came to himself, which he did rapidly, he found the Blessed-Damozel bending over him.
"My son?" he asked faintly.
"The prince is better," she replied. "The fever hath gone--he will recover."
Babar gave a sigh of relief and turned his face to the wall.
Possibly the strain had been too much for him, coming as it did after long years of steady, hard work. Perhaps he had worn himself out with sheer, restless energy. Doubtless those ten years of drink, possibly even the four of total abstinence, had something to say to this premature break-down; for in years he was but forty-eight. Yet, deny it as they would, it was soon evident to all, that he had lived through the tale of heart beats allotted to him by Fate.
Humâyon, with the speed of youth, recovered and came to his father's bedside; but Babar never rose again. Perhaps he would not have done so if he could, for he had a made a promise. He had given his life to God in exchange for his son's, and there was an end of it.
But he was quite cheerful. Only to two people did he speak openly of coming death. One was Târdi-Beg who stayed with him night and day. To him he spoke lightly, almost jestingly, of his long desire to follow his example and become a darvesh.
"For years--aye! three years--I have desired to make over the throne to Humâyon and retire to the Gold-Scattering-Garden! What gay times we have had there, friend, with the flowers, and the birds, and the children--and our own wits! Now shall I retire to Paradise, and God send it be as innocent, as guileless."
And to Mubârika he talked of his beloved Kâbul and his mother's grave. "Lo! thou shalt lay me there, lady, for the others have children, and thou dost love thy Kâbul also!"
Then he lay and looked at her with kindly questioning eyes, until he said, "It hath come to me at times, that I did thee a wrong in taking thee, a young girl, from thy tribe. Say, is it so? I would have the truth."
Then she spoke softly. "Yea! it is so, Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar Emperor of India. Yet was the wrong righted long ago. By sacrifice comes life. And my people have lived in peace."
"As we have," he said half-appealingly.
She laid the hand she held on her forehead. "As we have, my lord."
But there was one other wrong about which he was not so satisfied. Before death came he wanted to restore Hindal to his mother. And Hindal did not come. He had started from Kâbul but had been delayed by marriages in his tutor's family.
"I must see him," complained his father. "Write and bid him come at once. I need him sorely."
It was the one bitter drop in the cup which he drank contentedly, smilingly. He held an audience every day, laughing and joking with his old friends over past times, and when evening came he would sit with some woman's hand in his and talk of little things.
Sometimes it was his most reverend of paternal aunts, sometimes it was even poor Astonishingly Beautiful Princess. And little Ak-Begum brought him posies of violets, or, best of all, Dearest-One would sit, her hand in his, and both would be unable to say anything because their thoughts reached so very, very far back.
And there was always a joke when Mahâm gave him his medicine in the Crystal-Bowl-of-Life. It had found its proper use at last, he said: for this it was neither too big nor too small.
So the days slipped by.
"Why does not Hindal come? Where is he?" he said fretfully, one evening; and they told him that the boy had reached Delhi and would be with him in a day or two.
"Who brought the news?" he asked, and when they said it was the tutor's son who had come on in hot haste to re-assure the Emperor, he bid them bring the messenger up, and a tall, half-grown lad appeared.
"Thy name," asked Babar faintly.
"Mîr-Bârdi," replied the youth.
The dying man laughed, his old boyish laugh. "Master Full-of-fun," he translated, "a good name for the companion of my son. Say! how tall hath Hindal grown?"
The lad hesitated. "Lo! I wear a coat the Prince bestowed on his servant. The Most-Clement can judge by that."
"I cannot see," murmured the sick man impatiently. "Come hither, boy, that I may feel how tall my son hath grown."
So with fluttering fingers the hand that had once been so strong felt the brocaded coat.
"It is well," he said at last, "but I would that I had seen him. I wanted to give him back to his mother myself."
All Christmas Day he lay but half-conscious.
"Baisanghâr," he said faintly, when Dearest-One leant over to kiss him. And when Mahâm begged him with tears to drink his medicine, he did so with a smile, then thrust the cup into her bosom and whispered--
"Lie there, friend, and bring her comfort."
Towards evening he roused and sent for his nobles, and for Humâyon.
"To you I leave my son," he said; "fail not in loyalty to him. And to you, my son, I commit my kingdom, and my people, and my kinsfolk. Fail not in loyalty to them."
After that he lay silent, with wide-open, smiling eyes. That was his farewell to splendid life.
Night was passing to dawn when the end came.
Black fell the day for children and kinsfolk and all. They bewailed and they lamented. Voices were uplifted in weeping. There was utter dejection. Each passed that ill-fated day in a hidden corner.
* * * * *
On a hill-side above the town of Kâbul there lies a garden planted long years ago by a man who loved his world.
Thither a new world comes to make holiday. The man himself has gone. As the white marble slab that looks up into the cloudless sky says shortly:
"Heaven is the Eternal Home of the Emperor Babar."
But his spirit remains in the endless Spring of leaf and flower, in the happy vitality of the Children who still lay flowers to cover the words of hope.