"Lo! he is good prophet," said one; "he told my wife's sister her son would die and he did."
"And 'tis all well enough to call it devils'-craft," put in another, "but who made the stars, save God?"
"And to what use were they made?" asked a third argumentatively, "save to guide men aright? There is no other good in them."
This proposition was so palpably true to the knowledge of those days that even Babar himself had no weapon against the argument. Nor could any deny that Mars was in the ascendant in the West!
The Emperor as he sat wearied out with anger and irritation could see it for himself shining red; steadily, placidly red.
"Oh! for God's sake, gentlemen!" he said captiously when he had exhausted every argument he could think of to allay the evident alarm even of his highest nobles, "let us leave it hanging in the heavens and get to Paradise ourselves. Cup-bearer! the new Ghazni wine. That may help us to forget foolery. Mayhap it would have been better to have brained the knave on the spot--but a man can but do his best."
He drained his cup to the lees, held it out for more, and called for a song.
"Thank God for wine!" he muttered under his breath as he felt the fumes rising to his brain.
Never had merriment been more fast and furious; never had Babar drunk more recklessly.
Song after song rent the night air, mingled with outcries and loud laughter; but there was sufficient decorum left for comparative silence when the Emperor himself lifted up his voice in "The Buss"; a favourite Turkhomân ditty. It had rather a quaint, plaintive tune, and a catching refrain which was duly bellowed by the others.