"By legal marriage?"
"How else?" asked the spokesman hotly. "We of Bârha, descended of the true Prophet--may His name be exalted--deal not with customs borrowed of the idolater."
"Then are they true wed, and none can dissolve the tie save the husband himself by----"
"Traa!" interrupted Ibrahîm impatiently, "that is for them to settle between them! These gentlemen desire to know by what right the King forbids this virtuous young man to bring his screened and lawful woman into the town? Such cupolas of chastity are beyond the power even of majesty; is it not so, most learned doctors?"
A little stir shifted through the assemblage; it sate up literally, metaphorically, keen for ground of offence against any of the King's decisions.
"Of a truth," pronounced the Makhdûm pompously, "he hath no right. By all the laws of Islâm a screened and lawful woman belongs only to her owner."
So in the sunshine the enmity of the Old against the New rose hot as the sunshine itself, and conspiracy sprang into being.
It was a good half-hour ere Mirza Ibrahîm summed up the situation in these words:
"We meet again then, in the Hall of Public Audience to-day, and demand revision of the sentence as being contrary to the Revealed Word; and if the King----"
Khodadâd broke in on him with a sudden laugh--"Nay! my idolatrous quarry will be Birbal! God and His Prophet! how I loathe the dog!" He paused, seeing the unwisdom of his confidences, for the Syeds of Bârha rose, to stand packed, fingering their swords.