CHAPTER V
"Like to a thunder cloud that rears itself
In towering mass across the peaceful sky,
Equal in threat, until the vivid snake
Of lightning, shot--God knows from East or West!
Flashes fierce war between the blended foes,
So stood those warriors, each to each a twin
In honour, courage, indivisible."
The camp at Sikri looked West. With the ridge of red rock behind it, the wide tank to the left of it, nothing more could be desired in position. And Babar had fortified it, in addition, after his usual custom. The swivel guns, united every fifteen feet by heavy chains and backed by a deep ditch, gave security to the front, while tripods of wood similarly linked, protected the right flank. Mustapha the Ottoman had done signal service in disposing the remaining artillery according to the Turkish fashion. An exceedingly active, intelligent, and skilful gunner was Mustapha; but unfortunately Master-gunner Ali-Kool and he were at deadly enmity; so they had to be kept apart. Babar, a trifle weary, kept them so with consummate tact. He had, so to speak, lived on diplomacy for the last year. He had pursued his policy of magnanimity without one swerve, and little by little the tide of popularity had set his way.
One by one insurgent chiefs had sent in their submission, so that in this camp at Sikri were many who but a year before had been sworn foes to the Northmen.
So far he had succeeded. Alone, unaided--at any rate in thought--he had won half Hindustân, not so much by the sword as by statesmanship.
And yet on the 24th February as he stood watching the Khorasân pioneers and spademen throwing up further earthworks, he felt for the first time in his life forlorn. Perhaps the darkness of the day depressed him. It was late afternoon, and for days rain had been brewing; the heavy rain which sometimes falls in March to bring bumper crops to the wide fields.
Purple clouds hung like a pall under the sky and brought a weird, vivid glint as of steel to the stretches of green wheat. Far away on the south-western horizon this glint shimmered into a broad band of light that told where, before long, the hidden sun must set.
There, in that light, the spear-points of the advancing foe would glisten. Did they glisten now? Or was that only the shimmer of countless millions of wheat blades going forth to war against starvation?
The fanciful idea came to Babar's brain, as such quaint thoughts did come often, while he was looking over the wide, ominous plains, recognising, also, that it was not an encouraging landscape to the ordinary eye.
But nothing was encouraging. The long waiting had told upon the temper of his troops, it had given time for desertions. Then a trifling defeat to a skirmishing party had intensified the growing alarm; a well-deserved defeat, due to gross lack of judgment on the commander's part; but the rank and file could not be expected to give weight to arguments. A disaster spelt disaster to them, nothing more nor less, especially if they were afraid ...
And they were afraid.
Small blame to them! Babar himself did not view his adversary with equanimity. He admitted it. For Râna Sanka of Udaipur was true man; a fitting representative of Râjput valour. There was no need to say more. Aye! true man, though he lacked an eye, lost in a broil with his brother, an arm lost in pitched battle, and was crippled in one leg broken by a cannonball! True man, undoubtedly, though but a fragment of a warrior scarred by eighty lance and sword wounds! Babar thought of his own good luck in many a battle, almost with regret. Aye! Pagan, Râna Sanka might be--it was best anyhow to call him so to the troops--but he was worthy foe for all that, and he could bring two-hundred-thousand horsemen into the field, if need be.
Two-hundred-thousand!
No wonder the troops were timorous; no wonder their nerve was going fast. Babar, tall, lean, with clear, anxious eyes thanked God for the distraction which had come to the camp but yesterday. About five hundred persons attendant on a grandson of his dead uncle of Khorasân had arrived in the environs of the camp, and with quick insight Babar had seized the occasion to send out a numerous escort to hide the smallness of the newly-arrived force, which thereinafter figured in the order book as "important re-inforcement from Kâbul"; since by fair means or foul, the men's courage must be kept up.
And the butler who had been sent to Kâbul for wine had returned too with fifteen camel-loads of choice Ghazni!
But this was no time for drunkenness, though a goblet or two might be--must be--permissible; for of one thing there was no doubt. Never in all his life had Babar stood nearer to habitual toping. He had had a hard time of it; he had been cut off from the domestic life which had ever been his safeguard, he had had to fight fever and poison. Briefly he was overwrought. That was noticeable in the nervous restlessness of his hand upon his sword hilt as he strode about his camp moodily watchful for every sign of discontent or depression. And there were many. It seemed almost as if no one could utter a manly word, or give a courageous opinion. Save his own son Humâyon, his son-in-law Mâhdi (husband to the little Ma'asuma to whom Babar had given her mother's name) and one general, not a soul spoke bravely as became men of honour and firmness. Not one.
Going his rounds that evening a new factor for discouragement cropped up. He was passing the tents of some of his best Kâbul troops, when a voice bombastic, prophetic, met his ear.
"Lo! the stars cannot lie!" it said; "and Mars being in the ascendant to the West, it follows of a certainty that any force coming from the East will suffer disastrous defeat. Be warned, oh! warriors! The heavens cannot lie!"
Before the last words had well ended, Babar stood before the speaker literally blazing with wrath and recognising in him Mahomed Shereef, a well-known Kâbul astrologer. He was seated before a chart of the stars, and swayed backwards and forwards rhythmically, whilst before him, filling the close tent with scented smoke, burnt a brazier. Its blue salt-fed flame flared on the fearful faces of a dozen or more soldiers.
"God send thee to hell!" burst out Babar. "How camest thou hither, infamous fool?--Why didst not stay in Kâbul?"
The man--he had a pompous, self-satisfied face--was shrewd. He knew his power, and held his own.
"I came hither, Most-Clement, with the wine camels, being minded to give the benefit of my science to His Majesty and His Majesty's soldiers."
"Science!" echoed Babar hotly; "thou meanest lies."
"The stars cannot lie," began the soothsayer, but Babar in a perfect passion of wrath had him by the throat.
"Here! guards! seize this rascally fellow," he cried, then hesitated. "No!" he went on, loosing his hold and flinging the man from him in contempt. "Let him go! Punishment would but invite credence. But mark my words, villainous soothsayer! if any more be heard of this opposition of Mars--" He paused again and this time burst into bitter laughter. "No! Let these men sup their fill of horrors if they wish it--but they shall hear me first."
He turned to his soldiers and stretched out his right hand in appeal.
"Men! I have led you all these years. Have I led you into more danger than brave men dare face? Aye, once! for thou, O Shumshir--" his quick eye had seized on an old veteran--"wert with me even then! Aye! once at Samarkand when Babar got the worst beating of his life--when Babar fled like a rat to his hole, starved for six months and escaped with bare life--but--but not with honour--No! with dishonour!" His voice had risen and almost broke over the last word from sheer stress of emotion. "And wherefore was I beaten?" he went on more calmly; "because I fought on star-craft, because the stars lied to me. They said I would win and I was beat! So! set the snivelling sayings of that silly worm against the experience of Babar, your leader, if you will. But you will not! You will leave jugglery and devils'-craft to your foes the Pagans; for the trust of the true Moslem is in the Most High God--Allah-hu-Akbar!"
He gave the cry of faith from full lungs and it was echoed by the men. For the time he had scotched fear; but only for a time. The astrologer was at worst a diversion in the long weariness of waiting, and round the camp fires the soldiers talked of nothing else.
"Lo! he is good prophet," said one; "he told my wife's sister her son would die and he did."
"And 'tis all well enough to call it devils'-craft," put in another, "but who made the stars, save God?"
"And to what use were they made?" asked a third argumentatively, "save to guide men aright? There is no other good in them."
This proposition was so palpably true to the knowledge of those days that even Babar himself had no weapon against the argument. Nor could any deny that Mars was in the ascendant in the West!
The Emperor as he sat wearied out with anger and irritation could see it for himself shining red; steadily, placidly red.
"Oh! for God's sake, gentlemen!" he said captiously when he had exhausted every argument he could think of to allay the evident alarm even of his highest nobles, "let us leave it hanging in the heavens and get to Paradise ourselves. Cup-bearer! the new Ghazni wine. That may help us to forget foolery. Mayhap it would have been better to have brained the knave on the spot--but a man can but do his best."
He drained his cup to the lees, held it out for more, and called for a song.
"Thank God for wine!" he muttered under his breath as he felt the fumes rising to his brain.
Never had merriment been more fast and furious; never had Babar drunk more recklessly.
Song after song rent the night air, mingled with outcries and loud laughter; but there was sufficient decorum left for comparative silence when the Emperor himself lifted up his voice in "The Buss"; a favourite Turkhomân ditty. It had rather a quaint, plaintive tune, and a catching refrain which was duly bellowed by the others.
"He (his moustache twirled) called to her aloud,
'Give me a buss, lass! Lo! your lips are red.'
She (her bright hair curled) spoke him back full proud,
'Give me a gold piece, merry sir,' she said.
'Merry sir,' she said, etc.
'Lass! I would give thee golden fee galore,
But my purse, alas! is in wallet tan
Of the saddle bag my swift camel bore,
And, see you, my dear, that's still at Karuwân,
Still at Karuwân,' etc.
'Lad! I would buss you, were my lips but free,
Only, as you see, they won't ope a span,
Mother locked my teeth! Mother keeps the key,
Mother (like thy camel) 's still at Karuwân,
Still at Karuwân.
Mother (like thy camel) 's still at Karuwân.'"
The endless refrain went on and on sillily, mingled with the twanging of the cithâras and boisterous laughter.
It was a roaring night, and Babar, for once blind-drunk, fell asleep at last among his cushions. The others had been carried back to their several tents, so, when he roused to the crow of a cock he was alone save for drowsy servants.
But half-sober, he sat up and listened gravely.
"Oh, Cock!" he quoted with a hiccup. "Oh, Cock...!
"Cock, flutter not thy wings,
It is not nearly day.
Why with shrill utterings
Drivest thou sleep away?
Lo! in the Land of Nod,
To perfect peace I'd come.
Oh, Cock! there is a God
Will surely strike thee dumb,
Surely--strike thee--dumb--"
He stood up, stretched with a lurch, passed unsteadily to the doorway of the tent, raised the curtain, and looked out.
Far in the east a great drift of spent rose-leaf clouds lay softly between the lightening sky and the lightening earth.
And see! already their curled petals were catching the underglow of the hidden sun.
Babar stood still and held his breath hard, sobered in every fibre of his being, yet elate with something new that fled to heart and brain like molten fire.
A new day! A new day! A new day!
The words surged, not through him only, they echoed to the very sky. It is not given to all, this sudden exaltation, this sudden absorption of the self into something beyond self, and Babar, the fumes of last night's wine still hanging between him and clear thought, could only realise that something had come to him; that something was irrevocably settled for ever.
"My charger, slave!" he said hoarsely. "It--it is time I went my rounds."
It stood ready at the door; he mounted, and, after his wont, rode off alone.
The fresh cool air of a North-Indian winter dawn bit softly at his cheek and brought him knowledge of his own conversion.
Wherefore he could not tell, but he was going to drink no more. He had done with wine, for ever. All these last four or five years since he was forty, he had been cheating himself--aye! and his God too,--with lies. Now there was to be truth.
There was no special reason for this resolution; it was, indeed, hardly a resolution of his own. It had come to him with those dawn-red, rose-leaf clouds flung from some Garden of Paradise. Wherefore it had come, he could not say. He had often seen dawn-clouds before; he had often--ah! how often--made resolutions. These were different. This resolution was not his.
"Bid a general parade be commanded at the second watch," he said on his return from his survey of the posts; then passed into his office tents, and began his daily work of supervision.
"'Twill be to harangue us all," grumbled a fine-weather soldier sullenly, "but, King or no King, I fight not with one who wars against the fiat of the stars."
"Nor I!" answered another; and though few were so outspoken, a certain dour opposition, sat on almost every face in the great concourse of men who, in the full glare of the noonday sun, massed themselves round the great Audience-Tent in obedience to their leader's command.
He came out from the shadow of the tent, clad in his loose white tunic, jewelless, swordless, a simple man in the prime of life; a man with a kindly, human face, but with a clear eye that seemed to see right to the heart of things. He held a crystal cup in his right hand, full to the brim with red wine.
"Noblemen! Gentlemen! and Soldiers!" rang out the strong mellow voice. "All who sit down to the Feast of Life, must end by drinking the Cup of Death. Therefore it behooves all to be ready for that last Draught by repenting him of the evil he has done. Lo! I repent me of my sin. I repent me of my broken promise. Now! with the salvation of a righteous death before me, I cast away my great temptation!"
As he spoke, the crystal cup he held flew from his hand and the red wine scattered from it as it fell shivered to atoms, soaked into the dry sand leaving a stain as of blood.
"Lo! I repent," he repeated, his face afire; "who follows me?"
"I do, sire!" said one Asâs, the heaviest drinker in the camp, and Babar turned on him a face radiant with friendly thanks.
"That makes it less hard," he said joyously. "Thou hast more to renounce than I!"
"And I also, Most-Clement!" put in a soft grave voice. "I follow fair where Babar goes." It was Târdi-Beg, quaint, frolicsome soul, on whom the Emperor vented much of his boyish fun, and who was satisfied with one kindly glance of perfect sympathy.
"And I!"--"And I!"--"And I!" came here, there, everywhere.
Then followed a memorable, an almost unbelievable scene. From the tent behind Babar came slaves bearing great trays of silver and gold goblets, ewers, measures; strong men bearing casks and skins of wine, a smith or two with his anvil.
"Break up the gold and silver and give it to the poor, and pour the wine back to the storehouse of God!" came Babar's voice. "Where it falls shall be built a well whence travellers may quench their thirst."
For a minute or two the army watched the hammers falling, watched the red wine sinking into the sand; then it caught fire at the sight and men crowded round in hundreds to cast their wine-cups on to the pile and take the oath of abstinence. But the Emperor himself stood silent. He was thinking how glad Mahâm would be; Mahâm who had so often striven to wean him from his sin.
But after the stir and excitement of the morning, the evening closed in dark and gloomy. A few spots of rain fell, and Babar, made restless probably by the lack of his usual stimulant, decided on moving forwards to meet the enemy. Anything seemed better than inaction. This was done; but even the bustle of marching failed to rouse the men's spirits. The warnings of the old astrologer returned in greater force, a general consternation and alarm prevailed amongst great and small. Something more must be done; so once again Babar called a grand parade; but this time he held the Holy Korân in his right hand. It was many days now since wine had crossed his lips; he had felt no desire to drink, no temptation to break his oath, and yet that abstinence had told upon him physically. He was more high-strung than ever; more exalted. And so he struck even a higher note.
"How much better is it to die with honour than to live with infamy," he cried. "Lo! The Most-High is merciful to us. If we fall, we die the death of martyrs since we fight the Pagan. If we live, we live the victorious avengers of the Faith. Let us then swear on God's holy word that none of us will turn his face from Death or Victory till his soul is separated from his body. 'With fame, even if I die, I am content. Fame shall be mine! though my body be Death's.'"
The Persian verse came to him unsought, echo from his far youthful days when Firdusis' Shah-namah had been the delight of his boyhood.
But it came to him Godsent. Familiar to almost all, it, and this declaration of Holy War stirred the whole army to its heart. The effect was instantly visible; far and near men plucked up courage.
None too soon. That very evening a patrol brought in the news that the enemy was within touch.
All was bustle, for Babar was too experienced a general to engage an overwhelming foe without having some entrenched position upon which to fall back.
A day or two was occupied in throwing up earthworks a mile or two ahead, so it was not till the 16th of March, 1527, that the guns and the troops moved on to take up their position, Babar himself galloping along the line, animating the various divisions, giving to each special instructions how to act; giving almost to every man orders how he was to behave, in what manner he was to engage.
It was the last opportunity he was to have of bringing the personal equation to bear upon his force, since ere they had settled into camp, the great moment, awaited for six long weeks was on them. Without loss of time the Emperor sent every man to his post, the lines of chained guns and waggons was linked up, the reserves withdrawn from the front--their great strength was ever a special feature of Babar's generalship--and there was nothing more to be done save await the onset.
Humâyon commanded the right. Mâhdi Kwâja, Ma'asuma's husband, the left, Babar reserving the centre for himself. Once again, his plan was to force in the enemy's wings and so create confusion. But ere this could be done, his own wings had to withstand attack.
At half-past nine in the morning, a furious charge of the flower of Râjput chivalry almost shook Humâyon's force. His father was on the watch, however; reserves came up speedily, and Mustapha's guns from the right centre were brought into action. Despite their deadly fire, fresh and fresh bodies of the enemy poured on undauntedly, and Babar saw his reserves dwindling; for the attack had been equally fierce on the left. Now, therefore, was the moment of effort. Now something must be done or nothing. The battle had raged for hours; now it must be decided one way or the other.
"Flanking columns right and left, wheel and charge!" came the order. "Guns in the centre advance! Cavalry charge to right and left of matchlock men! Wings to follow suit if they can! Now then! Master-Gunner Ali-Kool! let us see if thou canst whip Mustapha!"
"The Most-Clement shall see!" yelled the old man; and, uncovered by the charging cavalry the big guns with their huge stone balls began on their task. The battle was now universal and the unexpected movements, made all at the same moment, had the desired effect upon the enemy. His centre was thrown into slight confusion.
Babar set his teeth. "Reserves to the flanking columns! And steady, steady, in front!--no rushing--close in--close in."
But this was no battle of an hour or two as at Pâniput.
Step by step the gallant Râjputs disputed the way of that steady boring. They made repeated and desperate attacks on the Emperor's centre in the hopes of recovering the day: but all were received bravely, steadily, without one waver. How could there be one with that marvellous general behind, sitting his horse like an oriental Napoleon, cool, collected, unarmed, ready of resource, of reserve?
By this time one of the flanking columns had got round to the enemy's rear; the Râjputs were forced into their centre. Briefly, Babar had won the battle on his own settled lines. By sunset, the brave defeated, still numerous, had nothing left to them, but to cut their way as best they could through those encircling, suffocating arms and so effect what retreat they could.
But the victory was final, it was complete. When the moon rose that night it shone upon multitudes of gallant dead. Râna Sanka had himself escaped, though severely wounded; but never again was he or any other of his family to take the field against the Moghul power. They had learnt to fear the Northmen.
The enemy being thus defeated, parties were sent after the fugitives to prevent their reforming. Babar felt, vaguely, that he was guilty of neglect in not going himself, but he was thoroughly spent and weary of bloodshed. He had gained his point; he had proved himself the better man of the two, and for the present that was enough for him. So, after riding a few miles in pursuit, he turned to reach his own camp about bedtime prayers.
At the door of his tent a dim figure showed, and profuse gratulations on victory rose out of the darkness in a well-remembered and bombastic voice.
It was Mahomed Shereef the astrologer. This was too much! Babar, wearied as he was, poured forth a perfect torrent of abuse. No word was too bad for the miserable fool. But when he had thus relieved his heart, he suddenly began to laugh.
"Lo!" he said, "thou art heathenishly inclined, perverse, extremely self-conceited and an insufferable evil-speaker. Yet art thou also an old servant. Therefore, see here!--the Treasurer shall give thee a whole lakh of rupees, so that thou go to the devil out of my dominions. Never, my friend, let me see thy ill-omened face again! All's well that ends well."
Indeed as Babar laid his head on the pillow that night as undoubted master of India, his one regret was that he could not have had a personal tussle with his brave and honourable adversary.
He had been worth beating.
And he had been beaten--effectually.