"Your horse!" he cried, and the old servitor, a tall, bony Mahommedan, recognising Birbal instantly, recognising also the advantage of the slim Hindu in a stern chase, obeyed.
"What is it? Where goes he?" asked Birbal briefly, hands busy shortening stirrups.
"Shakîngarh--to the burning. The Most-Auspicious slept when the madwoman--she who calls herself Châran came up in the Preacher's dhooli. Two horses are aye kept saddled in the yard below. The King was on Bijli in a twinkle, and I--there was none else--scrambled on Chytue shouting for some one to follow."
But Birbal had gathered up the reins and was off. Chytue lightened by the change of riders, sweeping on at a thundering gallop, lessening the distance at every stride between him and his stable companion.
Akbar looked round to frown; then to smile. "A race!" he cried gleefully. "How now Bijli?" The mare answering to the call shot forward like an arrow from a bow.
A race indeed! thought Birbal. A lost one, too, most likely, for the gray of the false dawn was passing into primrose.
How had they managed it--they must have killed the old man; and he would be burnt at sunrise, and then Akbar's promise to the little coward of a Râni--oh! curse all women!--
Fifteen miles good, though in the far distance behind him the low, jagged ridge of Sikri loomed like a cloud. One by one the mud mounds which tell of village sites, rose out of the treeless western horizon, showed silent, lightless, smokeless in the half-light, then sank, dwindled, to join that shadow of the ridge. How many more of them must be passed before dawn ... before dawn ...
So thought the rider behind, cursing himself as he rode, for having forgotten this easy-broken promise of his King.
But Akbar, riding ahead, had forgotten anxiety in determination, and as, at a deviating curve in the track, he struck boldly across country, his every vein thrilled with joyful excitement.