He was resting on cushions behind the shrine and the light from its little lamp showed him, long, lank, listless. But the wide eyes in which burnt the dull fires of the Dreamgiver, recognised the visitor, and the man who had been King of Malwa roused himself to give salutation with stately ceremonial courtesy, and motioned Birbal to a seat beside him. As the latter sank into the cushions they gave out a scent of roses, and swift memory--swiftest of all for perfumes--made him look round hastily; but the roof showed no sign of other living soul.
"It is good of my lord to come so far and so late," murmured Bayazîd. "In what can I help my Lord?" The words came drowsily. He seemed in danger of falling asleep once and for all.
"I came to see Payandâr, King of Sinde," said Birbal sharply. If that did not rouse the besotted fool nothing else would. The result was, in its way, excellent. Bayazîd sate up instantly and laid his hand on Birbal's arm.
"What of Payandâr?" he queried, his face working. "What of the Master of Love? Does he indeed live, as some folk say?"
"That Bayazîd should know, better than some folk," replied Birbal dryly, "since he was to have supped here to-night."
"To-night" echoed Bayazîd. "Nay, not to-night, or she would have told me. She knows the Secret now!"
Birbal laughed lightly. "As we shall all know it--or not know it some day! As Payandâr knows it also, since he died in the desert."
A sudden bitter exaltation came to the half-seen haggardness of the face, the voice rang almost militantly.
"Aye! in the desert, driven thither as we dreamers of love are driven ever, by lust--man's lust! Lo! thou knowest of my own seven happy years--of my songstress who sang of love--of the viper who slew her and slew the King in me. Ohí Rupmati, Rupmati! Were it not that thou comest to me ever in the song of birds, in the breeze of the night, in God's sunshine and in his flowers, I too would seek the desert and save myself from the deadly companionship of my kind. So I wait for thee and thy broken lute." He sank back into his cushions stilled by the very violence of his emotions; but after a while his voice went on more and more drowsily. "That the world knows. All know the tale of Bayazîd and Rupmati. But who knows the story of Payandâr? Shall I tell it as she told it me? How he loved a Rose in a garden of roses; naught but a gardener's daughter--and he a Prince of the Tarkhâns. What do the Tarkhâns know of Love? But he knew. He loved her--aye! though he was Heir. So, vile utterly, his father betrayed him. A bastard younger brother did the deed one night in the Garden of Roses, and when dawn came the Rosebud had been plucked, despoiled! He left Kingship, and died mad in the desert--so they say! But Love cannot die. Even in the Wilderness there is a Rose Garden ready for it. So he took the Rosebud thither, plucked, despoiled, soiled, bruised, and broken. And out of Death came Life. Out of Lust came Love, though the child was a crippled thing, despoiled, spoiled, bruised, and broken by its birth. But Death came also to the Rosebud in the Rose Garden of Love, amidst the perfume of roses. Is it not even now in the air? Is not the darkness full of the Essence of Love. Ohí, Ohí Rupmati! let me hearken to thy broken lute."
Was it fancy, or mingled with the faint sighing of the night wind amongst many leaves, and the fainter rush of the sliding river was there a sound as of jangled music?