"And the faithless wife?" asked the Rajput. "What became of her?"
"Nay, do not presume to judge her," protested the astrologer. "Judgment is for Allah. When Mirza Shah returned from his victorious charge, it was to find his sultana dead on the roof of the women's quarters. She had seen her son—yes, her son, her own flesh and blood, although not her husband's—pounded to death under the elephants' feet. So the unhappy mother had pierced her breast with a dagger, and, by her side, similarly self-slain, lay the serving woman who had miscounselled her to wrongdoing, yet, as I could quite well comprehend, from motives of sincere affection, to safeguard for her her husband's love and to give her the joy of motherhood for which she craved.
"Mirza Shah lived and ruled well for five-and-twenty years longer. He remained to the end a childless man: Allah had decreed it so. But he ever revered the wife who had loved him so well, for she had sinned because of her very love for him, nor had she persisted in her sin. Mirza Shah built to her memory a splendid mosque, and these are the words engraved on her tomb beneath the central dome, showing how her virtues were esteemed and her one act of wrong was forgotten:
"'Before my tomb, O stranger, stay thy way,
Reflect on fate's inexorable decree;
But yestere'en I was as thou to-day,
What I am now to-morrow thou wilt be.
Right good the grave for those whom good deeds bless,
Gentle the rest of them who tried to spread
Around their lives the balm of gentleness.
Trustful in God repose the worthy dead.
For such as they the living need not weep—
Their death is only faith-abiding sleep.'
"By her side now lies her husband, at rest and in peace, for only death brings true rest and peace. And even now, after many years, I am on my way to pay a pilgrimage to the tombs of that truly noble man and his good—aye, his worthy—spouse, for, as I have said, let no man take upon himself to judge her. Allah alone can search the hearts of men."
IV. THE SPIRIT WAIL
TOLD BY THE MERCHANT
"Allah alone can search the hearts of men," said the hakeem, slowly and reflectively repeating the words with which the astrologer had closed his tale. He was a man of venerable appearance, with flowing, white beard that descended to his waist. And yet, although his face was furrowed with the lines of old age, his eyes were wonderfully youthful in their contemplative calm.