Yes! they were very happy, very guileless, very innocent, as Babar himself had written so often over less commendable amusements.
And then suddenly came a bolt out of the blue. Alwar, little Alwar, to whom every day seemed to bring some new charm of unbelievable intellect beyond his years, fell sick. From the very first he lay quiet, exhausted, spent; but smiling. It was a trick he learnt of his father.
So, after two or three days he died, his hot, thin, little hand in that father's. It was as if the sun had gone out of the sky to the whole household. Even the Blessed-Damozel shed slow tears as she wreathed the dead darling in drifts of scented gardenias and put a scarlet slipper blossom with its quaint "something like a heart" upon the breast.
Babar, placing the light corpse in the niche cut for it in the flower-filled grave, felt as if it were his own heart he were burying; but it was Darvesh Târdi-Beg who recited the committal prayer, and that gave him comfort.
Besides he was a man, and the women had to be sustained. The poor mother, Dildar-Begum, was literally frantic with grief. Doubtless, she said, the child had been poisoned, because its father loved it so; doubtless, in her mad despair, she accused Mahâm of doing the deed. Polygamy is a fair-weather craft; it is apt to fail in a storm.
But the poor soul was mad. Everyone saw that; and the women took it more quietly than the man. Even blur-eyed, half-silly Astonishingly Beautiful Princess nodded her head and remarked sagely: "They say that sort of thing always in grief-time, nephew; so why fuss about it. She will forget it after a time."
And Ak-Begum came with her bright squirrel eyes all soft with tears to Babar, and whispered: "We all know it is not true, nephew. Our lady is God's kindness itself; so why fret."
But it did fret the man and added a bitterness to his grief, which even Mahâm could not sweeten.
"If my lord will listen to this slave," said the Blessed-Damozel at last, "it will be better to beguile the poor distraught one by change of scene. Lo! the lotus must be out in the Dholpur lakes. Why not go there for awhile? Good rain has fallen; it is cooler now."
So they all went, sailing down the river Jumna in tented boats. Far and near the wide level plain was tinted green with fresh spring grass. The parch of an Indian summer was over. This was the Indian spring. With magical, marvellous quickness the flowering trees burst into blossom, the Persian roses budded in a single night, and down amongst their grey-green, velvet leaves you could positively hear the calyx burst as the scented petals struggled to the sun. The climbing gardenias hung like white scarves round the dark cypresses, the hedges of Babar's favourite slipper flower were ablaze with their great flat scarlet circles.