Mūshteri led him to the door of the council chamber, and bade him go to his home and friends. “Alas!” said he, “I have no home—I have no friends. I have outraged the confidence of the Shāh, there is no room for me in his dominions, and even the father who taught me the lessons of hypocrisy is now ashamed of his son. I have no home but the desert—no friend but death.”
He went away, but the disappointed malice, and the hopeless future, had wrought a change in the strong man that he was powerless to overcome; he returned to his caravan which had been restored to him by the intercession of Meher and Mūshteri, but in a few days his lifeless body was found upon the plains, and his servants claimed that he had died by his own hand.
CHAPTER XXI.
MEHER AND MŪSHTERI—CONCLUDED.
THE WEDDING—A COUNCIL—ROYAL CAVALCADE—THE MESSENGER—RECEPTION.
A pavilion was built beneath the palm trees, and the fire-flies lit their signals afresh in the thickets of foliage, for it was amidst the shades of the garden that the singers were placed, whose sweetest notes were to be poured forth at the royal wedding. Within the palace, the courts were all ablaze with light and loveliness; lamps of graven silver were swinging from the fretted roof, suspended by long chains, and fed with the perfumed oils of distant lands. Their soft light fell on silken hangings and tapestries from Eastern looms, while crystal vases gleamed here and there, filled with branches of orange trees or sprays of magnolia blossoms. It was here that Meher received his royal bride, and when the ceremony was finished, the notes of music floated in through the casement, and mingled with the breath of the flowers. Still nearer seemed to come the dream-like harmonies, as the tones of pipe and lute were mingled with the voices of the singers and the musical ripple of the fountains.
Then the dancing girls floated into the bright halls, and swayed gracefully through the soft measures, and all was motion, light and jewels. Golden chains were woven in their dark hair, and silver bangles gleamed upon the shapely ankles, where little bells kept time with gliding feet. Each dancer held a dainty lute of gold and sandal wood, which answered to the swaying of her arms and the soft beat of graceful hands. And still the music from without floated through the lattice and mingled with the harmonies within. But in this festal scene Love was the honored guest. He came to rule the court and grove; his were the symphonies that breathed a richer note than all the garden singers; his were the harmonies that shaped the loyal lives, and led the happy feet along the aisles of time.
Bewildered with the beauty and love of his bride, Meher lived for weeks unheeding the lapse of time, for all the days were crowned with gold and radiant with the blossoms of love. But there came a morning when the picture of his grieving mother was forced upon his heart and mind with all its power, and he remembered that not alone to his lovely wife belonged his fealty.
They were sitting together beneath the sheltering branches of a great magnolia tree, whose creamy flowers were bursting from the green sheath of the bud, and the air was rich with fragrance. On the green bank beyond them, the peacocks drew their gorgeous trains, and birds sang in the tall trees in the distance.
The dark eyes of the prince had a look of sadness in them, and there was a cloud, the first that Nahīd had ever seen upon his handsome brow; she drew closer within the sheltering arm, and her soft, dark eyes looked anxiously into his. His own heart read her pleading question, even before her lips had framed it, and then he told her of the loving mother who was grieving her life away amidst the splendors of another court—of the faithful heart that looked longingly for his return and refused to be comforted, because he came not.
“But what can we do?” questioned the princess. “Thou canst not leave the wife to go even to the mother.”