But when Poverty-prince spoke of roses and nightingales and even of the red wine cup, he took you into another world; and he evidently believed what he said, whereas Kâmal-ud-din was all pose.
Yet the next instant the thin ugly face would show almost impish in its amusement and its owner would burst out with some sally that would set them all a-laughing; and him a-coughing for the change of air which was to have done him good was doing him harm; though he would not admit it.
"Wherefore should I?" he laughed gaily in some anxious face. "A man is as ill as he thinks himself--he is all things that he believes himself to be. So I am strong, and well, and young, and deeply enamoured of a beauteous lady. She is called Feramors--a pretty name," and he would catch up a lute over which his thin, long, ivory hands would flutter like butterflies and sing:
"Say! is it Love or Death, O Feramors!
That hides behind thy bosom's pearly doors?
I care not, so I reach the heart within.
Oh! let me in;
Open the closed doors, O Feramors!"
Truly he was a marvellous person! To Babar, boy as he was, the most marvellous thing in the camp. How could he, cripple, suffering, almost dying as he was, keep life at bay as it were? How could he sit so free of it? He, Babar, with his health and strength was not so independent, though he was more so than most, for, almost unconsciously, he set himself as free as he could from encumbrance even of thought.
He shrank even from so much as came to him from Gharîb, and avoided his cousin in consequence, spending such time as he could spare from his numerous lessons, and the watch Kâsim made him keep on military matters, in hunting amid the low hills.
But it was no use. That dark, curiously be-scented tent wherein the cripple lay laughing at life, had a strange attraction for him. He took to dropping into it on his way elsewhere, until old Kâsim grew uneasy.
"He lays spells on you, my liege," he protested. "They tell me he can do it to all young folk--so have a care!"
"Smear my forehead with lamp-black against the evil eye; then shall I be safe," laughed the boy, and yet in his heart he felt the spell. And, oddly enough, he liked it. He was fascinated by something in this distant, faraway cousin of his; so far-away that it scarcely seemed worth while calling him cousin. Yet, as grandmother Isân-daulet would say: "all men were descended from Adam!"
"Come in on thy return from the chase," said Poverty-prince one day when he had looked in on the scent sodden tent, a picture of youth and strength and health, in his fur posteen and his high peaked cap. "And bring thy bag with thee for this lifeless log to see. What shall it contain? Imprimis--a brace of chameleon birds. I love to see their iridescent necks and the six different colours between head and tail--mark you! how I remember thy description, cousin-ling?"