"Nay," objected the Rajput, "that is a teaching of helplessness to which I cannot subscribe—the pitiful excuse of the coward who folds his hands in the hour of danger, or of the self-indulgent weakling who yields to seductive temptation because his heart inclines to seize the pleasure of the moment even when his conscience counsels otherwise. I hold that man is the master of his own fate. Most assuredly have I been the master of mine," he added with a proud smile, his fingers closing significantly on the handle of a dagger at his belt.
"Be it so," answered the astrologer. "But as Allah knows everything that is to happen, so must it happen."
"Which does not forbid the exercise of my own free will," argued the Rajput. "The Supreme Being, the presiding power of creation, call him Allah if you will, understanding my heart as he understands all things, knows beforehand what choice of action I shall make at the moment of an emergency. But that still leaves me responsible for the deed which I elect to do. Such is my understanding of destiny. It gives fore-knowledge to God, but leaves free will to man."
"From all of which I do not dissent," rejoined the astrologer. "It is only the ignorant or the base that makes kismet the excuse for helplessness or for wrongdoing. But as the stars under which a man is born influence that man's acts, then does the reading of the stars guide us as to what the future has in store."
"I know little about your stars," replied the Rajput. "But let us have the story," he added, crossing his hands on his knees in an attitude of expectancy. The astrologer, saluting his audience generally with a bow of acquiescence, thus began:
"By your courtesy let me first explain, as necessary to the understanding of the tale which is to follow, that I am from Persia, from the city of Teheran, where for many generations my ancestors were profound students of astrology, some of them famous men because of their skilful divinations, with reputations that reached even to Stamboul. For thither in my early boyhood to the court of the Sultan of the Osmanlis was my father summoned, and him I never beheld again. It was from my aged grandfather that I learned my first lessons in astrology—about the twelve houses, the ruling star of each day, the coming and the going of the planets, their conjunctions and oppositions, and the influences they exercise on men's lives. I learned with avidity, and was an apt pupil, for at fifteen I had begun the practice of my profession, casting horoscopes and reading the nocturnal heavens with constant care, understanding also the flight of birds and the cries of wild beasts of the jungle.
"Yet at that time was my mind assailed with grievous doubts. I often caught myself wondering whether the stars did really rule the fates of men. And with this inward questioning a restless spirit grew upon me. I longed to see more of the world—to enlarge the sphere of my observations. Just then I chanced to hear some gossip in the bazaars about a great expedition that was getting ready at Kabul to descend upon Hindustan. The hunger of adventure seized me, and was not to be denied. Despite the tears and implorings of my family, I set forth on foot for Afghanistan, a stripling; in my hand the staff I used in my divinations, in the bag slung at my side a single change of raiment. Money I had none, but my ability to read the stars I knew well would earn me a livelihood wherever I might wander.
"With my adventures during the next two years this story has no concern. It is enough to say that, after many vicissitudes of fortune, I found myself installed as astrologer in the court of a Moslem prince, sovereign over an extensive region in Kashmir.
"My lord was a man of noble heart and of high mental gifts. He ruled over his people not by fear of the sword, but by absolute justice, which he himself personally administered, every day holding audience so that grievances, even those of the most poor, might be heard and wrongs redressed. And his royal duties were shared by his wife, who, although she might sit behind the screen of the women's quarters, none the less shared in the counsels of state, and contributed words of wisdom in the direction of affairs.