It was intolerable! Babar went straight to his grandmother and argued with her; coming back irritated and annoyed by failure to make any impression on the old lady's obstinacy, to his own palace, where, without giving notice, he made his way alone to Mahâm's apartments.
As he entered her room he could see her reclining amongst cushions in the cupola'd balcony, his little sleeping daughter in her lap. She was crooning to it the lullaby which Turkhomân women sing sleepily during a night march. Her pose was exquisite; there was a look of almost motherhood in her face; he paused to listen as she sang:--
"Sleep, croodie! Talk with God!
Know not the path I've trod.
Dad knows not! Why shouldst thou!
Sleep, childie! Sleep just now.
Don't fear! I keep awake.
Heigh ho! My bones do ache.
Heigh ho! My horse does pull.
Can't it see river's full!
No pebbles in that bed,
Mine holds an hundred.
Dreams! Dreams! Who lies dead?
Someone in the river's bed.
Praise God! He rests his head.
Hush! Hush! I hear thee, sweet.
Mums arms around thee meet.
Praise God! The night's nigh past;
Darling sleeps at last! at last!"
The curious drowsiness of the rhythm held him almost silent for a while, so did a great surge of admiration for this self-restrained, kindly, capable woman who had taken her full position as his wife so firmly, without any feminine flutterings or sentimentalities. Truly that sort of thing was what he, with his volatile emotionality, needed to make him not only successful, but persistent.
"Mahâm," he said almost timorously, "I have come back to thee--and the child."
She gave a little cry, started to rise, then pointed to little Ma'asuma. "I should waken her!" she said in a low voice, "but welcome, thrice welcome is my lord--to me and to the child."
Her voice lingered over the words; her smile had a certain gravity in it.
"But thou," he said anxiously. "Hast not been well, wife? Thy face shows ill--why didst not write to me?"
"Because 'twas not worth while," she replied. "And I am most better. The spring comes and with it health. And I have had anxiety over thy grandmother. What said she?"
The deft turn succeeded. Babar gave vent to his dissatisfaction in no measured terms. "See you," he said, "Have I ever failed in my duty or service? When my mother and I had not even a single village nor a few jewels, I treated all my relations, male or female, as members of my family. I have made no difference between my maternal and my paternal connections. I say not this to appraise myself. I simply follow the scrupulous truth as everyone knows. And now, even my mother's sister desires to leave me! I am her nearest relation. It would be better, and more becoming for her to remain with me."