"God forbid!" gasped the horrified High Treasurer weakly. In his heart of hearts he had been thinking--and not for the first time--of his little daughter Mihrun-nissa, as a future Empress of India. But this was an outrage on decorum, an indignity! He began to splutter remonstrance.
"Prayers are over! Up with the carpet!" interrupted the Mirza irreverently. Whereupon the Makhdûm interfered with pompous frowns and craved to know what my Lord High Chamberlain meant by the unseemly remark.
"Nothing, Most Holy," replied the latter cheerfully, "save that if the pious deliberations of the wise are ended the ignorant have a point of law which they would fain lay before authority. Is it not so, oh, sahibân?"
He turned as he spoke to a little knot of curiously distinctive-looking men who, having separated themselves from the remainder of his following, stood together in the full blaze of sunlight. They were singularly alike. Small, fine-drawn, with watchful eyes, and a little stoop forward of the head, reminding one irresistibly of a bird of prey. In truth the Syeds of Bârha were wild hawks indeed; and to-day, still travel-stained with their quick march from their eyrie of a fortress far in the distant plains, they were ready to swoop fiercely on any cause of offence. For they were red-hot with anger at the exile of that ill-doing scion of their house Jamâl-ud-din. Not that they defended his choice of a wife--it was one which sooner or later might necessitate a sack, and the nearest river--but, if Siyah Yamin was the lad's wife, what right had even the Great Mogul to interfere?
They assented with a scowl; but Khodadâd (he who called himself by another name when he wrote to Sinde) smiled urbanely. He was evidently prepared to play the indispensable Eastern part of applauder and general backer-up.
"Even so, Most Holy!" he replied effusively, "a point of law which can only be settled by God's most chosen Judge, before whom even these lineal descendants of our Great Prophet bow humbly."[[10]]
The speech was full of malicious intent, purposely provocative, and succeeded in its purpose.
"Then let them go to the King," began the Makhdûm acrimoniously, when Ibrahîm cut him short, concealing a yawn as he sought a comfortable place for himself where his feet could be in sunshine, his head in shadow.
"Who hath usurped the Judge's seat? Nay! Most Holy! It is only time-servers and idolaters who yield such function to Akbar. We faithful ones and true----"
"Had best keep silence in a public place," put in Budaoni eyeing the other with a glassy stare. He himself might take his own part in discontent, but being, by virtue of his voice, precentor in the Court Mosque, he did not choose to encourage Ibrahîm, whose evil life was notorious. The latter smiled and skilfully drew another red-herring of provocation across the path.