She loved to hear him sing, and even in the old Turkhomân ballads, she did not--like old Isân-daulet--claim to have them fairly bawled. This new soft fashion was utterly sweet. So was her son's close-shaven chin. He had gone far from the wild Turkhomân tents; far ahead of her; God only knew how much farther he was to go.
"Motherling! Thou art not so well to-night," he said with solicitude as he noticed how fever-bright were her kind, worn eyes. "I will bid the Court physician send for him of Khorasân. He will likely know all methods; for I cannot have thee ill, my motherling."
The Khânum held him fast with her hot hands. "I care not, sonling," she sobbed suddenly; "so long as thou art here to the last--the best--the bravest son--
"But I?" he said in tender raillery, though a sudden fear gripped at his heart. "Whom have I in the wide world but thee, mother? Lo! thou art the one thing feminine left to me after all these years." And his eyes grew stern as he thought of that dearest Dearest-One away in far Samarkand. Thank God she had a child.
"Have I not always said so?" wailed his mother. "Have I not bid thee have children? Ah, Babar! if I live, promise thou wilt marry."
"I will marry either way, motherling," he said. "Lo! I promise that; so cease thy tears and try to sleep. Thou wilt be better by morn."
But morning found the palace hushed with the hush of mortal sickness. There was no longer any doubt that the Khânum had contracted measles in its worst repressed form, and regret, vague almost unreasonable regret, seized on Babar. He was responsible. It was his fault. His mother had nursed his wife. The Khorasân physician came and ordered water-melons; he of Kâbul let blood. And Babar sat dry-eyed beside his mother, holding her hot hand. She did not know him. Those words of hers, begging him to marry had been her last to him. His to her his promise that he would marry. Even amid his dazed grief he remembered this; remembered it keenly as, when the end came in quiet unconsciousness, he bent over her to give the last caress before Death claimed the body and it lay soulless, impure. But she? She was received into the Mercy of God.
He said that over and over again to himself as, on the Sunday morning, he put his strong shoulder under the light bier and carried it to the Garden of the New Year. It was summer-time now, the roses were beginning to blow, the tulips were nigh over, but the wild pansies were in full blossom. They had dug a grave under the plane trees and here, after the committal prayers had been said and flowers strewn, Babar, holding the head and Kâsim, his foster brother, the feet, laid the light, muslin-swathed, tinsel-bound corpse in the long, low niche, cut coffin-wise in the side. His voice scarcely trembled at all as he laid a handful of earth upon the breast with the solemn words of admonition and hope.
"Out of the dust I made you, and to dust I return you, to raise you yet once more out of the dust upon the Day of Resurrection."
But his eyes brimmed with tears as, with lavish hand, he scattered pansy blossoms till the white shroud was hidden by them.