Yes! Love triumphant came, engrossing all
The fond luxuriant thoughts of youth and mind;
Then in soft converse did they pass the hours,
Their passion like the season fresh and fair.
Nizâmi.
The Judas trees were in full blossom. But a day or two before they had been dry branches, brown, wrinkled, to all appearances dead. Now, with a swiftness nigh miraculous they had flushed, every inch of finest twig, to rosy red under their mantle of sweet-scented bloom. The ground underneath them was already carpeted with fallen flowers, their five-petalled cups, like those of a regal geranium, still perfect utterly.
"'Tis like the blossoming of love in the heart, is it not, little one?" said Babar idly, as, lying amid the spent blossoms he raised one to perch it coquettishly on the goldy-brown curls that rested on his breast.
He had been married five months to little Cousin Ma'asuma but it seemed to him like five days. Aye! though happenings stern and sad had filled the interval, Kâsim had been right. Herât had been plundered by the arch-enemy Shaibâni. His cousins had fled, leaving wives and children to fall into the hands of the conquerors.
At another time Babar's hot anger might have led him to attempt reprisals, though he knew it would be but an attempt. But in these first months of marriage he could not find it in his heart to leave little Ma'asuma for any time--if, indeed she would have allowed him to do so. For small, young, delicate as she was, those violet eyes of hers could set hard as sapphires. Aye! and have a gleam in them too, like any gem.
The first time Babar saw it, he caught her in his arms and half smothered her with kisses until she bade him peremptorily put her down. And then they had both laughed, and Babar had vowed in his heart, that never had lover been so fortunate as he. His mistress was--what was she not? Briefly, she was all things to him. He had never been in love with a woman before, and his self-surrender was complete.
Small wonder, indeed, if it were; for there was something almost uncanny in the beauty of the face which looked up at him, love in its eyes.
"Put it on thine own rough head, man," she said superbly, "thou needest ornament more than I."
And it was true. From the tiny silvern and golden slipper she had kicked off, to the light, gold-spangled veil which just touched her curly head, she was ornament personified. The dainty heart-shaped opening of the violet-tinted gauze bodice she wore over a pale green corselet was all set with seed-pearls and turquoises, hung on cunning little silvern tendrils. And the corselet itself! all veined with golden threads and pale moonstones. So with the flimsy, full, almost transparent muslin petticoat, pale pale green, that lay in shrouding folds over the violet-tinted under garment. All edged and embroidered, all scent-sodden with the perfume of violets--his favourite flower then; to be his favourite flower till his death. Truly a marvellous small person from head to foot!