"I claim my father's office!" she cried. "Listen, O King-of-Kings! He gave you faithful service when you came to take the crown of India. What to him was Hindu or Mahommedan? He was the King's herald! Akbar was the King! His eldest son--my brother--died to save the honour of the Râjpût chief he served before you came! And little Heera--son of his old age, begot for you, died ere his baby tongue had ceased to trip in challenging the world--for you! Lo! I have kissed the words to steadiness upon his childish lips when father grew impatient! Why was I not the son? Hid in this dustlike body lies the spirit of my race. Is it my fault that in the dark months of my mother's womb, Fate made me woman, as she made you man? Give me my father's office, O my King, and if my tongue forgets one word of all my father's lore, or if I fail in guarding the King's honour, treat me as woman then--but not till then."
The dying fall of her words left the court amazed, almost affronted. Here was a claim indeed! A claim foreign to the whole conservative fabric of Eastern society--which heaven knows had already suffered shock enough at the King's reforming hands!
But Akbar took no heed of the looks around him; he was deep in that problem of Sex which was one of the many to claim his quick interest at all times.
"The spirit of thy race is in thee, sure enough, O sister," he said slowly. "Manhood is in the woman, as womanhood is in the man--do I not know the latter to my cost? So take thy gift. Thou art the King's Châran from this day. But hearken! If thou failest in thy task, I treat thee not as woman--but as man."
He turned away, dismissing her with an autocratic wave from sight, even from thought. "Ushers!" he went on, raising his voice in command, "Sound the advance! I go. And my Lord Chamberlain, bid the travelling Englishmen attend me in the Diwani-Khas. Abul! your arm; I would speak with you about this queen--this woman who has stretched her hand out over the seas to meet mine." He gave a quick joyous laugh and stretched out his own--the true Eastern hand, small, fine, but with a grip as of wrought iron in its slender, flexible fingers. "By God and his prophets I seem to feel it here--a woman's hand close clasped to mine."
A fanfaronade of trumpets, shawms, and drums drowned his words, as with a waving of plumes, a blinding glitter of gold and jewels, the royal cortège of Akbar the Magnificent swept on its way.
"One moment!" cried Birbal to Mân Singh who awaited him impatiently, "I must find Smagdarite first."
But both the rebeck player and Âtma Devi had gone. Only old Deena remained drumming softly; a fitting accompaniment to the murmurs which rose around him, as the immediate entourage of the King disappeared.
"Yet one more insult to Islâm," muttered the Makhdûm-ul'-mulk spitting fiercely ere he spoke.
"And to honest men!" asserted a jealous old Turk who was suspicioned of having drowned more than one young wife on the sly, "for what is woman but ultimate deceit and guile?"