And, indeed, Walter did see a whirl of muslin tremble in the air like a tiny cloud from one of the many small windows which pierced the frowning battlements.
CHAPTER XVII
“Under which King, Bezonian? Speak, or die!”
King Henry IV, Part II, Act 5, Sc. 3.
When a woman’s head governs her heart she is to be feared; and that is why Providence, meaning her to be loved, ordained that, for the most part, her heart should govern her head. In the rarer descriptions of the human clay a woman unites in herself romance and the critical faculty, as though the Master delighted in blending Aphrodite with Athene.
Nur Mahal, true daughter of the gods, was such a one. Gifted with the intelligence and cold intellect of an empire-ruler she seldom yielded to the divine femininity which was her birthright. It was an impulse of sheer emotion which led her to betray her joy by a signal when she distinguished Mowbray in the midst of the troop of horse. Not unnaturally, she interpreted the sudden halt caused by Roger’s anxiety anent the Countess as arising from Mowbray’s wish to let her know that he had seen the fluttering scarf and rightly guessed its owner. If so, his action was an indiscretion. Who could tell how many pairs of eyes were watching him from hidden chamber or open battlements?
The departure of Sainton in such furious haste puzzled her exceedingly, but she was reassured when Mowbray turned his horse’s head again towards Dilkusha. She knew now that the brown-robed stranger who rode so near to him was not only the friend, spoken of by Jai Singh, for whom the Englishman had dared so greatly, but that he, too, had observed her token. So she ventured to thrust forth the gossamer muslin a second time, and she was sure that Mowbray looked towards her and bowed gracefully, even raising his hat to show that he was aware of her presence.
In Agra, during the Mogul dynasty, such was the perfection reached by the weaver’s art, muslin was fashioned of a texture so delicate that a turban or girdle, if spread out, would sink gently, with surprising slowness, to the ground. Nur Mahal, though impoverished, still retained her wardrobe, and this scarf was one of the lightest and most beautiful in her possession. Nevertheless, a flaming torch thrust into an oil-soaked beacon could not have kindled a tocsin fire of more furious significance than those floating folds. Aware of her environment she, having hastily adjudged Mowbray guilty of imprudence, should have been prudent herself. But prudence is a negative quality seldom allied with the magnetic powers which sway men, and Nur Mahal was bold in either love or hate. Moreover, she despised her enemies.
So it came to pass that the Emperor pleaded fatigue when Mowbray and Fra Pietro rode to the palace that afternoon, and they returned to the Garden of Heart’s Delight more perplexed than ever by Jahangir’s inscrutable attitude. Of Jai Singh they could glean no tidings. All the servants in the late Diwán’s residence were newcomers and Mahomedans, to whom the old Rajput was unknown. His fellow-clansmen of the escort had no later intelligence of his movements than Walter himself, who, though restored to familiar surroundings, was nevertheless in the position of a traveler returned to a place whence the well-known landmarks have been effaced.