So, at any rate, he told the three loving women with his usual serious pomp, when he sent a request for assistance to his uncle, the Khân of Moghulistân, and then set off to reconnoitre around Samarkand. He returned ere long disappointed; but was soon on the march again to see his uncle in person at Tashkend. In this he was encouraged by Isân-daulet who remembered her brother of old. "Lo! I know him. A good soul but a stupid. The brains of my father, Yunus, went in the female line. But if you beat his ears with words he will listen. And keep on the soft side of Shâh-Begum, my husband's widow--God rest his soul! Anyhow he is at peace from her! A clever woman, but like a camel in mud--slippery!"
And this expedition was so far successful that the young leader actually returned from it once more at the head of some seven or eight hundred horsemen. Rather a wild lot, mostly free-lance Moghuls eager for loot and violence. But it was better than nothing, though Khojend was not large enough to hold them, even for a night. Mercifully, however, there was an enemy's fort some forty miles off, so, taking scaling ladders with them, they rode on to it and carried the place by surprise. But even one day of Babar's strict discipline was more than enough for the wild men of the desert, and the very next morning the Moghul Begs represented that, having but a mere handful of men, no possible benefit could result to anyone from the keeping of one miserable castle; and so, there being truth in this remark, they rode off to their desert again unabashed, leaving Babar to return annoyed, but not despondent. For at this particular fortress there grew a particular melon, yellow in colour, with skin puckered like shagreen leather. A remarkably delicate and agreeable melon, with seeds about the size of those of an apple, and pulp four fingers thick, which everyone agreed was not to be equalled in that quarter.
It was as well, certainly, to have gained something if only a good melon, and the little party at Khojend feasted on it and thanked God they had their boy back again safe and sound.
The summer was passing to autumn when another fit of despondency came to young Babar in the news of his cousin Gharîb-Beg's death. The invalid had lingered far longer than had been expected, but still the certainty that he was gone brought grief; the more so because it re-aroused regret for the lost Crystal Bowl; regret which had almost been forgotten in the clash of arms of the last few months. But now he had time--only too much of it--for thoughts. Not given to mysticism in any form, he yet wondered vaguely if the Crystal Bowl had ever existed, or if the whole incident had not been part of the curious hold Poverty-prince had had upon his imagination; and not on his only, but on the imagination of all with whom the cripple had come in contact.
And now he was dead! Gone for ever, like so many friends in these last troublous times.
Babar, translucent as the crystal itself, gloomed under the shadow of his regrets till his mother began to fret with the fear of on-coming illness.
But Dearest-One knew her brother better. "He must get away from us all," she said. "Yea! even from old Kâsim and his warriors. Let him go to the White Mountains a-hunting for the winter."
But Babar would have none of it.
The White Mountains? Aye! they would be splendid--there were more bears there than in any other part of the country. Aye! and snow leopard too--the lad's eyes glistened as he admitted this--but he could not leave his women-folk again, and he ought not to leave those who, to their own cost, had chosen to stick by him.
"Then we will go also," said Dearest-One, nothing daunted. "We are not of towns more than thou art, and thou canst divide thy magnificent army!--take a hundred men with thee and leave an hundred to guard Khojend!"