"Lo! I feel a new man. I am ready for anything--for everything!"
So, as he stood there, the memory--never very far distant from his mind in his moments of exaltation--of the Crystal Bowl of Life came back to him and he sang the last verse, his full voice rolling away among the hills:
"Clear Crystal Bowl, I laugh as I quaff.
Bring me Life's whole! I won't take the half!
Crystal Bowl, I bid thee bring to me
Joy, Grief, Life, Death."
"Where didst learn that song, sonling?" said his mother, fondly. "And how well thou singest now! Thou hast learnt much of late, Babar."
"I learnt it," replied her son, his face sobering, "from my cousin Gharîb. Dost know, motherling," he added swiftly, the light coming back to his eyes, "I learnt more of him than I wist at the time. Sometimes I think I owe all to him."
"All?" echoed the Khânum, hurt. "Dost owe nothing to me--or at least to thy grandmother?"
Babar's face showed whimsically reverent. "Oh, yea! Oh, yea!" he assented readily; "I owe much to my revered grandparent; yet at this present it shows but little."
And he pointed to the two ragged tents, the two hundred tatterdemalions. "I would I were a tulip at times," he added irrelevantly, as he flung himself down on the grass that was all starred with the blood-red blossoms. "Think of it, motherling! To lie cosy all winter at your own heart, and when the sun has warmed the world to unfurl your banner and flaunt it independent--disobedient, if you choose!"--he rolled over on his stomach to look clear into one ruby cup--"Yea! little one!" he said patronisingly. "Rightly art thou called 'na farmân.'[[2]] Thou holdest thine own treasure secure, caring for none--yet will I touch it with my hand," and the tip of his long finger dived into the chalice to touch the stiff stamens, and come out all covered with pale, yellow pollen. "An augury!" he said gravely, as he smeared his forehead with the powder of life. "Lo! I am marked like a Hindu--I shall conquer Hind yet."
"God forgive thee, child," exclaimed his mother hastily. "Say not such things--they tempt Providence. Even not thyself to an idolater."