There was silence, but no one stirred. They had not the courage for that at any rate.
So Babar went back to his bed, his blood pulsing in every vein, his head bursting, until the hot stage passed into the sweating stage, and he sat up weakly, half-laughing, half-crying.
"Lo! I felt like a God," he said. "A God with a pain everywhere. Did I say enough?"
"Too much for me, Most-Clement," quoth Ali-Jân with a smile. "I stop till death."
And most of the hearers had come to the same decision. Only Kwâjah-Kilân, obstinate as a mule, refused to remain. So, as he had a fairly numerous retinue, it was arranged that he should return to Kâbul in charge of the presents Babar was sending home.
And this, with the necessary thought it entailed lest any should be disappointed, proved a welcome distraction for the Emperor, who in good sooth, what with recurring attacks of fever and general malaise due to the climate, needed something to keep up his spirits in the long, weary, hot days and nights, during which military operations were perforce at a standstill. And Babar was in his element choosing this and that, apportioning presents with all the fervour of a child at Christmas. No doubt his heart ached the while he wrote instructions for a regular gala to be held in the Four-corner Garden, and he must have felt life flat indeed when Kwâjah-Kilân had set out northwards. A certain interest of anger, however, re-awoke, when a friend returning from escort-duty to the party as far as Delhi, told him, with ill concealed smiles, that ere leaving the Fort there Kwâjah-Kilân had scribbled on one of its walls--
"If safe and sound I cross the Sind,
Damned if I ever wish for Hind."
Babar's cheek flushed dark red when he heard this jeu d'esprit.
"As his Emperor still remains in Hindustân," he said with hurt pomp, "there is evident impropriety, first in composing, and then in publishing such vituperative verse; and so I will tell him."
Which he did, by sending after him post haste an urgent messenger with his reply--