Love lives not in a garden of roses,
Root nor bough nor the young green shoot,
Bud nor chalice the perfume encloses
Of Love lying lowly at Love's own feet.
For Love is the Rose, Love is the Star
Love is the heart of things near and afar,
And afar--and afar--and afar!
Mihr-un-nissa shook her head, as the whispering descent began again. Of a truth Love was far, very far, away.
[CHAPTER XVII]
Yet when from off the table of God's grace
He gives what each may carry to their place
Satan draws nigh, "Even for me" he says
"A portion has been portioned in God's ways."
--Sa'adi.
The Most Illustrious, the Mighty in Power, the High in Pomp, the Exalted in Splendour, the Father of his People, the Conqueror of the Age, the Pole Star of Faith, the Sun of the World, Jalâl-ud-din Mahommed Akbar, Great Mogul, Emperor of India, sate enthroned on a dais which had been erected for the purpose of the festivities on the uppermost terrace of the Palace Gardens.
The violet blackness of the sky above him was ablaze with stars, as only an Indian sky can blaze, when the dust held in the atmosphere has been laid by recent rain. And, to the infinite relief of the town and all concerned in its welfare, rain had fallen--fallen in torrents, suddenly sharply, during the later hours of dawn, leaving every tank full, every street washed clean under the vivid blue sky which the storm seemed to have washed also.
Relief had come from heaven, but no one looked at the stars, for the blaze below held all eyes. A circle of Bengal lights so arranged that the King's head should show against them, shed veritable sunlight on his golden throne and on the white-robed figure that sate on it; for, as ever, Akbar was dressed with studied simplicity. True, the Benares muslin with its fine stitched edging of silver had taken years in the loom, the ropes of pearls he wore over it were worth a king's ransom, but there was no note of colour anywhere, and the turban, guiltless of all ornament save the heron's plume of chieftainship, showed dull without the calm radiance of the great diamond. Yet all things centred on the man who sate enthroned, because it was his thought, his imagination which had inspired the whole marvellous spectacle that was being held in the terraced garden surrounded by distant half-seen palaces.
And it was marvellous, indeed! The dais (behind which in darkest shadow rose the latticed vantage ground of the court ladies) was semicircular, round-fronted and was superabundantly lit by that crown of twelve Bengal lights (representing the twelve solar months) which hung like a halo round the man who claimed to be the Sun of his World. A big claim, but in this instance it was made with such magnificent straightforwardness, such clear perception of all that the claim entailed, as to disarm criticism. This dais, some ten feet high, rose from a semicircular round-fronted plinth which was lost in shadow, partly because of a projecting eave which prevented the light from above striking on it, and partly because seven equi-distant lights (representing the seven days of the week and in varying colours showing the tints of a rainbow) were so cunningly set in shades round the dais that their light left the plinth in darkness and shot out, in ever widening rays, through the garden, growing less and less distinct until at its farther end colour seemed lost in a general mist of light.
And in six of these rays, red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo, violet, widening with the light, sate, in ordered rows, on the red side the Hindus and Buddhists of the court, upon the violet side the Mahommedans, the Jains, the Jews. Only the central green ray, compounded of these two factors blue and yellow remained empty, showing nothing but a narrow marble walk bordered on either side by wide water ways, out of which fountains shot high into the still, dark air; shot, illumined so far by the lights, then, rising high above them, mere ghostly shadows on the darkness, to fall again in drops that grew iridescent as they fell.