True enough. Through the looming medley of dust, men, horses, Khodadâd (by many considered to be the best player of chaugan this side the Indus), showed ahead, trundling the ball as he might have trundled an iron hoop in a hooked iron stick. But this time he had the King to contend with.
"Back Birbal! it will come back!" shouted Akbar suddenly, and Khodadâd's thin lips set firmer, his wrist stiffened itself in downward pressure as just ahead he saw a faint inequality of the ground. No! the ball should not rise nor swerve, not even if the hammer-head of the King's stick lay ... so ... close ...
Ten thousand devils!
It was but a quarter of an inch, but it was enough for dexterity--and, like a lofter at a bunkered golf ball, Akbar's club was underneath--the next instant, played backhanded, the ball shot rearward to Birbal's keeping.
Khodadâd riding back amongst the defeated with a wrist which still felt the forceful grapple of Akbar's, cursed under his breath. He had been bested, and everything else was forgotten for the moment in pure personal anger. The thought of revenge rose in him unhampered even by care for personal safety; for was he not--as Birbal had taunted him with being--Tarkhân? Unpunishable that is till he had told his full tale of crime. The Hindu dog might have to learn this to his cost!
The dusk had fallen. Here and there among the throng of spectators beyond the boundary ropes the twinkling light of a wandering sweetmeat-seller showed dimly amid the dust, and high on the towering palaces which backed the ground a few faint gleams from a lamp within gave outline to some latticed window, or corbeilled balcony.
"The game stands drawn," said Prince Salîm, wiping the sweat from his brow. "It grows too dark for more."
"Dark! 'Tis never too dark for victory," cried Akbar gaily. "Let us have out the blaze-balls, Shaiki! 'Twill be a point in thy favour, young eyes being sharper than old; so choose thy team and mine shall choose itself."
Either way they were likely players who ranged themselves in line while the blazing ball of pilâs wood, soaked in oil was handed to the King in the earthenware cup of a pipe stem.
He held it aloft flaring. "We play for life or death, gentlemen," he laughed, as with a bound his favourite countrybred mare Bijli, the fastest pony in the royal stable, answered to the spur.