The Kattri's face, yellow of tint, fleshy of contour, seemed to take on bone and muscle, and his oiliness of manner roughened into swift decision. "Aye!" he returned, "they grow more content, poor souls, but, 'tis the King who starts me on the trail. I go even now to discuss a new idea of his with Abulfazl, whose head truly hath no peer for detail."
"Yea!" put in Birbal, "but the King's Diwan is even now using it in showing the details of the King's work to the Englishmen, while the Portuguese priests scowl at the intrusion of new claimants to commerce. Lo! I grow weary of these strangers. Why should Akbar make their way smooth?"
Tôdar Mull, his inherited aptitude for the problems of money showing in the eyes which were keen even for fractions in a man's character, looked at Birbal doubtfully.
"Wherefore not?" he asked. "Lo! I have had speech with these new men, and there is that of free-trading, unfettered by aught save gold or the lack of it, in them which compels approval. For see you, in the end gold is the essence of all things. I tell thee were it not for piety I myself would bow down to it and worship with a 'Hallowed be thy name.'"
Birbal's mimetic face became preternaturally grave, but there was a twinkle in his eye: "'Twould not"--he bowed courteously--"be so bulky a divinity as Tôdar Mull's present pantheon, which, if rumour says sooth, already runs to cart-loads."
The financier flushed. This allusion to his habit of carrying waggons-full of household gods about with him when on tour brought a quick reproach: "Jest not at the Gods, O! Brahmin-born," he said.
Birbal's whole expression changed. "Not at the All-Embracing One, for sure; but for the little brass god-lings."
Tôdar Mull edged away nervously. "Let be--let be! Râjah Sahib. Each for his own belief, and the Almighty's curse lodge on the hindmost, so it be not me! Now go I to the statistic makers; for see you, without figures man is lost in this world."
They parted company, and Birbal looked after the retreating Finance Minister with a frown.
What was the use of it all! Was it not better far to eat, to drink, knowing that to-morrow one must die? So his thoughts turned, as they always did, to the present; to the one portion of time which even Fate could not filch from a living man. The advent of the Syedân of Bârha meant, doubtless, appeal to the King. An appeal to which the King must not, of course, listen. As to that, Abulfazl must be seen, and at once.