"I was ill," began the Prince sullenly, when Akbar interrupted him with a contemptuous laugh.
"Ill? Hast not even a body for drunkenness? Go thy way, boy, if thou wilt. I have other strings to my bow."
"My son!" appealed Lady Hamida who, knowing the King's temper, knew that once lost it might carry much with it, "the boy has come to us----"
"And what does he here amongst virtuous women, madam, and how came they to admit him?" asked Akbar sternly. "Did I, son and nephew, even in the hottest hours of youth inure them to such insult? Go, boy! Go with Jamâl-ud-din, the exile, and his paramour. I have other sons!"
A blank horror settled down on the Beneficent Ladies. Never had things come to such a pitch before, and some of the younger women sobbed audibly. Only little Auntie Rosebody, with the courage of despair stood looking first at the father then at the son, regret, anger, irritation, showing in her small puckered face.
"Oh! my life! Oh! nephew Jalâl-ud-din Mahomed Akbar," she cried at last. "Look at him--oh! look at him! He is a fat-tailed sheep and thou art a hunting leopard! How can he race with thee? Give him time, nephew, give him time!"
Something in Salîm's sheepish attitude appealed to the King's sense of humour, a suspicion of a smile showed about his mouth.
"At his age, madam," he began sternly, the memory of his strenuous youth rushing in upon him. Why! at eighteen, dissatisfied with his agents of Empire he had dismissed them, and taken the whole conduct of affairs upon his own shoulders. At eighteen he had begun to dream. At eighteen his mind was busy with the problem of how to unite a conquered India; how to efface from it all memory of coercion, and make it look to him and his, not as to ephemeral conquerors but as God's viceregents, the upholders of justice, mercy, toleration, and freedom. At eighteen----
Suddenly he flung his right hand out in a hopeless gesture of finality. What use were dreams, even the dreaming of a King, if they were only to last for one poor mortal life?
"There is no end to the dreaming of Kings." Bah! The woman had lied. There was an end! An end to all things.