Then without one word he drew himself up from the grave, and taking a shovel worked his hardest to fill in the earth.
Afterwards he sat down and looked out over the valley.
When his time came, he, also, would lie here. One could not desire a more peaceful, a more beautiful spot. But he would have no tomb built over him to blot out the blue sky. No! He and his mother should rest together till the Resurrection morn out in the open, among the birds and flowers.
CHAPTER II
I set Death's Door wide open for thee, Friend,
That thou might'st go.
I did not weep; I did not even send
One sign of woe
To follow, lest the way thou had'st to wend
The harder show.
But thou? Thou shut'st the Door upon my face,
Thou hid'st from me
One tiny gleam of glory from the place
Where thou would'st be;
In this world or the next there is no trace
No trace of thee!
With the swift family affection of their clan, relatives gathered round Babar in his bereavement. His paternal aunts came from Khorasân, and ere the forty days of mourning were over, a small cavalcade arrived from Tashkend. But it brought an aggravation of grief; for old Isân-daulet had predeceased her daughter by a few days. Babar's uncle, the little Khân, had also died; but beyond the fact that this deepened the Shadow-of-Death which seemed to have fallen over his young life, it brought no sorrow to the King. It was different with his grandmother. With her passing he had veritably no feminine thing left to whom he owed affection and duty, to whom he could go for comfort and counsel.
There were his paternal aunts, of course; good creatures every one of them, especially Ak Begum, though the others always flouted her because she had not married. Which was very unkind, since anyone with half-an-eye could see it was because she had devoted her life to her fat, half-witted lame sister. Poor Badul-jamâl-Begum! What an irony of fate it was that she had been called that! The "Lady of Astonishing-Beauty." But feminine names were beyond reason. Even Ak Begum--the "Fair Princess." What a name for that little bird-like, dark creature who twittered and preened herself at every word.
Yet she was the only one of them who understood, who gave the young man's sore heart any comfort at all.
She came to him, looking as if no pin were out of place, so natty, with her scanty hair still braided in virginal fashion on her wrinkled forehead, and said in her high piping voice:
"Lo, nephew! here are violets. A man brought them from the snows. Are they not sweet? Sniff them! Thy mother was ever so fond of them."