He rose suddenly, and the crowd rising also swept back from his path tumultuously, as the waters of the Red Sea swept back from the staff of Moses, to leave him free, unfettered.
There was no lack of power about him anyhow! He stepped forward, centring his world with the swing of an athlete--a swing which made the bearers of the royal baldequin jostle almost to a trot in their efforts to keep the Sacred Personality duly shaded; and then he paused to look thoughtfully into a pool that was fretted into ceaseless rippling laughter by the fine misty spray which was all that fell back from the clear, strong, skyward leap of the water in the central fountain. Was that typical of all men's efforts, he wondered? A skyward leap impelled by individual strength; and then dispersion? When he died--and death came early to his race--what then?
He stood absorbed while the crowd closed in behind the courtiers who circled round him at a respectful distance. Beyond them the fun of the fair commenced; bursts of laughter, a hum of high-pitched voices, the tinkling of wire-stringed fiddles, the occasional blare of a conch, with every now and again the insistent throbbing of a hand drum, and a trilling song--
"May the gods pity us, dreamers who dream of their godhead"
And over all the hot yellow sunshine of an April afternoon in Northern India.
"The King is in his mood again," remarked one of the courtiers vexedly. He was Mân Singh, the Râjpût generalissimo, son of the Râjah Bhagwân Singh who had been Akbar's first Hindoo adherent, who was still his close friend and soon to be his relative by marriage. The speaker was in the prime of life, and the damascened armour seen beneath a flimsy white muslin overcoat seemed to match his proud arrogance of bearing. The courtier to whom he spoke was of a very different mould; small, slender, dark, with the face of a mime full of the possibilities of tears and laughter, but full also of a supreme intelligence which held all other things in absolute thrall. He gave a quick glance of comprehension toward his master, then shrugged his shoulders lightly.
"He sighs for new worlds to conquer, Mirza-rajah," he replied, with a faint emphasis on the curious conglomerate title which was one of the King's quaint imaginative efforts after cohesion in his court of mixed Hindus and Mahommedans. "You Râjpût soldiers are too swift even for Akbar's dreams! With Bengal pacified, Guzerât gagged, Berhampur squashed and the Deccan disturbances decadent, His Majesty is--mayhap!--busy in contriving a new machine to turn swords into wedding presents."
He gave an almost sinister little bow at this allusion to the coming political marriage of the Heir-Apparent, Prince Salîm to Mân Singh's cousin; a match which set the adverse factions in the court by the ears.
Mân Singh laid his hand on his sword-hilt and frowned.
"If Birbal could speak without jesting 'twere well," he said, significantly. "Those bigoted fools"--he nodded toward a group of long-bearded Mahommedan preachers--"may howl about heretics if they choose, but we Râjpûts know not how to take this mixed marriage either; for in God's truth the Prince is not as the King, but an ill-doing lout of a lad--so Akbar has no time for moods. He needs skill."