"Babar thanks God who gave him Sind and Ind,
Heat of the plains, chill of the mountain cold.
Yea! let the scorch of India bring to his mind
Bitter bite of frost in Ghazni of old."
The touch about Ghazni was, he thought, peculiarly happy, since he had appointed Kwâjah-Kilân Governor of that province! And ere the excitement of this passage of wits had died down to dulness, another touch had come to set the Wheel-of-Life spinning once more at full speed. One of Mahâm's charming, cheery letters brought most unexpected news. After some years, on the very verge in fact of her woman's life, she was again expecting to be a mother. "And I pray it may be a boy," she wrote, "for though Hindal, the son whom my lord gave so generously to my empty arms, is very, very dear to me, my heart leaps at the very thought of one who shall be my lord's and mine also."
Babar was overwhelmed with delight and anxiety. Even by special runner it took weeks for a letter to reach Kâbul, so Mahâm, he knew, must be near her time ere his warnings, his happy hopes, his loving affection could reach her. But he wrote off in hot haste, begging her to rely on Dearest-One for all things, entreating her to behave in all ways as if he were at hand. "And thou knowest, dear heart," he said, "what I would be like were I in Kâbul now. Verily, my moon, who hast so often chidden me for fretting wide-eyed the livelong night because Humâyon or Gulbadan or one of the others had a stomach-ache, I should be past bearing. But when I think of what has happened and what might happen, I would mount Rakûsh and ride Kâbul-wards, were it not for some small good sense, and these pitiful folk who would deem me traitor to myself.
"Lo, we will call him Farûk, wife, since distance separates us."
After this he set to work upon his abandoned plan of a pleasure garden. Beggars, he said to Ali-Jân, must not be choosers. If there was no better spot than the plain over the river, he must e'en make the best of it. And the first thing to do was to sink a well; the next to plant roses and narcissus in corresponding beds.
The third thing was to hold a drinking party upon the spot close to the river, and make the place as pretty as it could be made with coloured lights and illuminations, garlands of flowers and palms cut off wholesale and planted in the ground. It seemed a pity to destroy the trees; but that was Hindustân fashion. Everything for show at the moment; no thought for the future. Still it was well done, and the Indian jugglers performed some fine feats.
The rains had by this time set in and the air was singularly delightful, though rather moist and damp. It was, for instance, impossible to shoot with the Kâbul bow which is pieced with glue; and everything, coats-of-mail, clothes, furniture, became mildewed. Even books--and Babar was avid concerning books--suffered, and the flat mud roofs leaked. Still, life was more enjoyable than it had been, and jolly Ali-Jân when in his cups, said gravely--
"The chief excellency of India is that it is large, and that it holds plenty of gold and silver."
They were a fairly merry party, these northerners in the Fort at Agra; merry, good-natured, insouciant, and they began to win golden opinions for themselves amongst the people, thanks to the Emperor's strict discipline. Here were no robbers, but gallant men ready to drink, or love, and pay for both like honest folk.
And their leader was a friendly soul, who sent assurances of safety and protection to all who voluntarily entered into his service. Then he was a fine fellow to look at, with kindly eyes and a ready smile; active, vivacious. Absolutely unlike, therefore, the solid, solemn, stony-eyed, lazy voluptuary which for hundreds of years had been India's conception of a king. Here, honours and rewards were for ever being bestowed, and the small native Princes invariably received back their lands, after they had made their obeisance. So whatever the northern conqueror's object might be, it was clearly not gold.