“Shabash, hathi!” cried Jahangir. “By the soul of my father, Akbar, if I am spared to-night those two strokes shall be writ in history and recorded in stone!”
“’Twill please me better if they remain in your Majesty’s memory,” was Sainton’s gruff answer. Truth to tell, his mighty effort had shaken him. In that last almost superhuman blow he had surpassed himself. His muscles still twitched from the tension, and he experienced a curious sympathy for the magnificent creature whose dying convulsions alone betokened the abundant life with which it was endowed.
He leaned wearily on the long bar. The slaying of the elephant was the culmination of a day’s toil such as no other man in India could have endured, for many a stout warrior had fallen under his sword ere he carried the Countess di Cabota into the Garden of Heart’s Delight.
But the Emperor, not to be rebuffed thus curtly, seized him by the arm.
“Harken, friend,” said he, “one lie will poison a river of truth. They told me ’twas thy intent to tumble my palace about my ears. Tomb of the Prophet, what will not a man believe when he lends his wits to women and wine? Never was king more beholden to stranger than I to thee and thy friend; canst thou not credit my faith when I say that no recompense you ask shall be too great for me to give?”
Sainton turned and clapped the Emperor on the shoulder.
“I have oft wondered,” he cried, “how so good a soldier could be a bad king. Now I see ’twas a passing fit, which, mayhap, like certain distempers, leaves thee wholesomer.”
And that was how Jahangir and Roger began a comradeship which was never marred nor forgotten while either lived.
Mowbray, though delighted that Sainton’s rough diplomacy had won the Emperor so thoroughly, nevertheless kept a sharp lookout for any recrudescence of the fight. But the back of the revolt was broken. He who escaped with the Maharaja of Bikanir, riding post-haste for fresh troops, was captured by the imperial forces, and a strong contingent of mounted men arriving at Dilkusha relieved the little garrison of further concern. Jahangir despatched several officers with instructions, the exact significance of which Walter failed to grasp. He knew it was hopeless to expect clemency for those who fomented the disorders. In the East, and indeed elsewhere, rulers had a habit, not wholly lost to-day, of repressing such outbreaks with merciless severity.
The Emperor quickly completed his arrangements. Then he drew Walter aside.