Mechanically Birbal drained the beaker, and the good liquor tingling to his finger tips, he faced his familiar world again, incredulous as ever.
"So," he said, as following the Sufi's sign he seated himself among the cushions at the other side of the supper cloth. "It is, as I thought, the Wayfarer. How many disguises hast thou O Bairupiya?[[12]] Musician? Envoy? Sufi?" then a thought struck him and he gave his little contemptuous jeering laugh, "mayhap King Payandâr also--but that he is dead."
"Aye, dead!" assented the Sufi gravely, "and the dead being but the cast-off garments of the living, count not in disguise."
"But wherefore----" began Birbal.
His host smiled. "Let me quote the King of Poets to my lord--
"Ah, soul of a man live free
Of the Wherefore, the How,
For the passing moments flee.
Drink deep of the wine cup now,
Drink deep, for He who is Wise
He hath the Seeing Eyes,
He knows the Secret that lies
In the Hows and the Whys.
"Cupbearer, yet another wine of Shirâz and scent the goblet's edge with the roses that grow beneath the vine."
The echo of the chanted song died away; then suddenly he reached out his thin brown hand--the index finger wore a ring set with a marvellous emerald, the surface of which was close covered with fine flowing hieroglyphics--and laid it on Birbal's in familiar grip.
The latter started, turned pale. "Thou art the devil,--juggler, with thy tricks!" he muttered faintly. "How didst learn the sign-manual of my race, secret, inviolate?"
The Sufi laughed. "There is no devilry to the Hindu in being the outcome of many incarnations. Mayhap in my past I have been Bhât-Bandi and my lord----" he paused. "What matters it? 'Tis but the trick of memory. Birbal forgets, this slave remembers. Aye, friend! 'tis but a trick indeed! I juggle with men's eyes, and they with their own senses."