That was true; as yet the crisis had not come, and it was long in coming. Day after day he grew weaker; day after day the brain, weary of fighting at long-odds for life, grew more and more drowsy.
"My sisters! I want to see my sisters!" would come the low muttering voice, reft of almost all its youth, its tone. And those three, Gulchihra, Gulrang, and Gulbadan, Rose-face, Rose-blush, Rose-body, Babar's three rose-named daughters, would creep in with tears and kiss him. A pathetic little picture. The girlish faces all blurred with tears, the tinkling of bracelets, jewelled earrings, head ornaments, what not, the rustling of scent-sodden silks and satins, and that poor head on the pillow turning from side to side, rhythmically restless.
Even Babar himself, had to see after a while that the Shadow-of-Death lay on his son.
"Mahâm!" he said pitifully,--"the boy, the boy--"
Poor mother! For nigh on four-and-twenty years she had been this man's stay and stand-by. He had come to her consoling arms as a child comes to its mother. She had given him in passionate devotion more than he perhaps realised, for they had been faithful friends always, and the friendship had overlaid the love; but she failed him now, for she was at the end of her tether. So she stood dry-eyed, almost cold.
"Why should my lord grieve," she said, "because of my son? There is no necessity. He is King. He has other sons--I have but this one!--therefore I grieve."
For a second Babar stood as if turned to stone, then he answered almost sternly: "Mahâm! Thou knowest that I love Humâyon as I love no other son of mine, because he is son of the woman I love best. Thou knowest that I have sought and laboured for kingship for him and for him only. Thou knowest--" softness had crept back to his voice--"Nay! what need to tell thee, since thou knowest that there is nothing in the wide world I would not do for Humâyon?"
"Thou canst do nothing! There is naught to be done," she muttered, still tearless, calm; and something in her pitiful despair roused instant response in his ever-ready vitality, and he threw back his head with a gesture of negation.
"There is naught I would not dare, anyhow," he said, "and what is dared is often done. Take heart! my moon! All is not lost. Defeat comes not till Death--who was it said that long years ago--Aye! Defeat comes not till Death--And even then--God knows--He knows...! He knows...!"