"Nay! Sire!" remarked old Kâsim drily--"If the Most Excellent choose to risk lives for the sake of a dumb brute, let them be the lives of dumb brutes, not Kings. Troopers! Six horses to save one!"
Babar hung his head, but held to the rope.
"Doubtless I am a brute also," he murmured half to himself, "so let me be dumb; save for this--God made me so!"
The staunch old warrior heard the words and shook his head. Yet in his heart of hearts he would not have altered one jot or one tittle in his idol. Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar was for him the first gentleman in the world.
"Truly," said the latter with pious cheerfulness after a time, during which the sledge slipped easily down the steep slopes of snow, "it is well said
'Looked at wisely with clear eyes
Ills are blessings in disguise.'
But for this extreme depth of snow which till now hath seemed our worst enemy, we should all be tumbling down precipices and being lost in crevasses."
This was obvious; but it cheered the party, until in the far distance something more tangible showed to bring sudden alacrity to outwearied steps.
A hut surely!
And that figure on the lessening snow slopes--was it a man?