"Hist!" he said, "a horse's steps."
Not one but many. A little detachment of loyalists headed by Kâsim Beg, arriving in hot haste with renewed hope!
Babar stood up tall, strong, and threw his wide arms out as if to shake off inaction.
"Whence?" he asked briefly; "East, west, north or south?" There was weariness in the thought, not in the tone. He was ready to fight anywhere for Kingship again, though his heart sank at the futility of it all. Bokhâra, Samarkand, Hissâr, and half-a-dozen other chief-ships always changing hands. But this, a message of treaty from Ali Mirza who had held Samarkand since it had dropped from Babar's hand might mean something. So he was in the saddle and off; only to return then, and half-a-dozen other times, despondent, to admit that his star was not yet in the ascendant.
Isân-daulet wearied of waiting at last, and set off herself to Moghulistân to levy troops to aid her grandson in the name of her dead husband. The Khânum went with her, and Dearest-One took the opportunity of retiring with one of her old aunts, to a House-of-Rest. So Babar was left alone. He would not remain at Khojend, however; he felt that he had already taken too much from the loyalists there, so in a state of irresolution and uncertainty he made for the border land of the Pamîrs beyond the White Mountains. There he remained amongst the nomad tribes, perplexed and distracted with the hopelessness of his affairs.
And here, as winter passed to spring once more, a saintly Kwâja--also an exile and a wanderer--came to visit him. And having no help to give, no advice to offer to one so down-cast, prayed over him and took his departure much affected.
"And so was I," writes Babar frankly. Doubtless he was; and yet before sunset that very day he must have been out on the hillside, possibly hunting for new tulips in this new country; for he descried a horseman making his way rapidly up the valley.
A horseman!
Within half-an-hour, without an instant's delay, Babar had backed his lean Turkhomân mare and, followed by a leaner troop of such friends as still clung to him (Kâsim and Nevian-Gokultâsh of course amongst the number) was galloping for Marghinân (the place where they remove the stone from apricots and put in chopped almonds!). For a message had been sent by the governor of the town to say he was ready to give it up to its rightful owner, and would hope for forgiveness for past offences.
It was then sunset, and Marghinân lay more than a hundred miles away as the crow flies. All that night till noon next day the little band rode fiercely on. On those wild hills there was no road to speak of; one could but follow the water-courses as the streams sought their level. At noon next day they drew bridle for the first time. They had not come far, or fast, yet so hard had been the way that their horses needed rest. Twelve hours to give them a chance, and also, in the close valley of Khojend to secure night time for the first part of the march, and they were off again; this time to let sunrise pass to sunset and sunset pass to night before they again drew rein in the grey dawn. Drew rein and looked at each other doubtfully. Yet their goal lay not four miles ahead of them, a shadowy hill crowned by a fort and scarce seen in the half light.