Take to the garden thy carpet of prayer
Wait, and watch how at God's command
The daffodils girdles of green prepare,
How sentinel straight the cypresses stand.
Forget thyself in the Path-of-Life
Plunge for a second in God's own Sea,
And the Seven Tides of the Water of Strife
Will never encompass thee.
--Hafiz.
"Lo! I have prayed," said Auntie Rosebody, captiously, "and I have watched, but naught has come of it save a brow-ache. Truly Ummu, at my age, piety is fatiguing and 'tis better to trust the senses God gave than seek a new gift from him. Belike He is tired of old Gulbadan, and would as lief she took her rest decently in death like the rest of her generation. One cannot expect Him to count an old woman as worth so much to the world as a young one."
Little Umm Kulsum looked shocked.
"Nay, Auntie," she began, "are we not taught----"
"Taught," echoed the old lady tartly, "aye, we are taught much that is not true and more that is no use to us when we lose our way. But there! it serves me right! None lose themselves on a straight path; so mine--nay!--it is mine, child, not yours--hath been crooked, that is the truth. But I have made up my mind. The diamond shall go back to the jeweller from whom it was taken, for 'tis my belief that his Majesty the King knows naught about it. When I came from morning prayers and found him paying his respects to the Lady Mother, my conscience was exalted to the edge of confession and I began, as one does begin, to skirt round the subject--I never could abide, like my revered father--on whom be peace--to go head foremost into cold water. But the fount of my penitence soon ran dry in the parched desert of his ignorance. 'Tis useless telling a blind man that you have stolen his spectacles! So I gave over, came hither, and ordered a do-piâza with double spice of onions to it, for I was sick with fasting. And it hath cleared my brain. The diamond shall go back, and I will trust the red madwoman as thou didst suggest last night. For his Highness the Most-Auspicious spoke of her this morning to Lady Hamida, and bid us all look out to see this Châran--forsooth!--at the Durbar to-morrow! Truly my august nephew hath a wit like a camel's cantrip; it leaves one uncertain whether to laugh or to weep! But he must hold her faithful, so I will write a letter to the Feringhi in a feigned hand, appointing time and place for restoration. This she shall take; and afterward I will lay strict oaths on her, such as not even a woman could evade, and she shall have the stone, and bring back receipt therefore. So that settles it, and may God forgive silly old Gulbadan!" She frowned fiercely. "Yea, grand-daughter, that is the sting in the scorpion's tail! For once Khânzâda Gulbadan Begum hath been a fool! She hath acted without counting the cost."
So, secretly and in haste, Âtma Devi was sent for and shewn into the little corbeilled balcony overhanging the lofty outside wall of the palace, where there could be no eavesdroppers save the purple pigeons that cooed and strutted on the wide cornices.
"The diamond!" she said incredulously. "Oh! Beneficent Ones! it is not stolen! Or rather it hath been given back. My lord Birbal must have replaced it, for the King knows naught about it."
"'Tis my lord Birbal who knows naught about it, foolish one," said Auntie Rosebody, peremptorily, "for he sent it back here safe sewn in the Prince's turban. Lo! unbeliever, look, and see if I lie."
Her small henna-tinged palm went into her bosom, and there, like a huge dewdrop among rose leaves, lay the gem.