Birbal gave another of his comprehending glances toward his master, another of his habitual slight shrugs of the shoulder.
"Perchance he wearies of skill! The doubt will come to all of us at times, Sir soldier, whether aught avails to check the feeblest worm Fate sends to cross the path! But ask Abulfazl there, he stands closer in council to Akbar than I."
There was a slight suspicion of jealousy in his tone as he turned toward a burly, broad-faced, clean-shaven man whose expression of sound common sense almost overlaid the high intellectuality of his face.
"What ails the King?" he answered, and as he spoke his light brown eyes, scarce darker than his olive skin, were on Akbar with all the affection of a mother who glories because her son has outgrown her own stature. "Can you not see that he fears death?"
"Death!" echoed Mân Singh, hotly. "Since when? There was no fear of death in Akbar when he, my father, and I--each guarding the other's head--rode down that cactus lane at Sarsa when the spear points were thick as the thorns!--nor when at Ahmedabad he sounded the reveille to awaken his sleeping foes--though they outnumbered him by four to one--because it was not regal to take them unawares--nor when----"
Abulfazl laughed, a fat chuckling laugh which suited his broad open face: "Lo! I shall have come to thee, stalwart and true, when I run short of incidents for my poor history of this glorious reign. Yet none knows the Most Excellent's reckless bravery better than I. But 'tis to his dream he fears death, Mân Singh,--his dream of personal empire that is bound up with this thirst-stricken town, founded for the heir of his body! And this fear of the force of fate comes upon him at the Nau-rôz[[2]] always, since both father and grandfather died ere they were fifty; and Prince Salîm----"
"Curse the young cub," broke in the Râjpût angrily, "what of him now?"
"Only the old tale," replied Shaikh Abulfazl gravely, "drunk----"
"Oh! Let the young folk be----" interrupted Birbal bitterly, as he passed on. "'Tis God gives us our sons; not we who make them. Mayhap some of us might have found better heirs through the town crier!"
Abulfazl looked after him pityingly. "It wrings him too, with Lâlla, his son, ever in the Prince's pocket. Such things are tragedies, and I thank heaven that my father----"