How many hours yet were there before this gnawing anxiety lest he should be overreached, and the King overpersuaded, should be past?
Akbar, nevertheless, showed intent enough upon his game. He was leaning forward his head on his hand, rapidly and in a low voice, calling out each move to the figure beneath him. And, ever, almost ere the tone ended, came that clash of steel on stone, that high strident cry "Ohí! The King! peon to rukh's fourth" and so on.
Yet in truth Birbal was right. Akbar was preoccupied. The morning's ride, with its hint of omnipotence, had, naturally enough, roused his physical and mental vitality to the highest pitch, and so dissociated him still further from his surroundings, and brought back the old question, "Why should he cling longer to the ancient pathways?" Being a King, accredited by God, seeing the truth clearly, why should he not cast aside old shackles, cease to attempt immortality through his unworthy sons, and achieve it for himself, by himself alone?
And something had happened that very morning which had almost driven from him all hope of one son at any rate. Not the escapade in Satanstown of which he had, of course, been informed. That was bad enough, bringing with it, as it did, scorn of a love which could so solace itself. No! it was not that! It was this: He had seen, being carried to a hospital almost lifeless, the body of a slave brutally beaten by Salîm's orders, before Salîm's eyes, and the sight had forced from Akbar's lips the bitter question as to how the son of a man who could not see God's littlest creature suffer without pity, could be so barbarous?
Would it not be better to give up the struggle?
All this was in Akbar's mind, as half-mechanically, working as good chess-players can with a portion of their intellect only, so that they can carry on many games at one and the same time, he marshalled his forces swiftly in these opening moves.
And now the board was clearer. Behind it on either side stood a long row of prisoners. The final onslaught was at hand.
"It is an elephant's attack" murmured Abulfazl and then checked himself--"they have changed it!" he exclaimed louder as the court herald cried.
"Ghorah (knight) to badshad's (king's) seventh."
"Wherefore not?" sneered one of the Mahommedan faction who stood hard by. "There be many alternatives in a game of chess."