“No further report from your spies?” he asked his ministers.
“Not since yesterday,” answered Abú-l Fazl; “but I expect them at midnight, and understand that they have news for me.”
“Is it not sad,” said Akbar, “that one must make use of such people? Oh! why are men thus forcing us to have recourse to such means?”
“It is,” replied the Minister, “a necessary consequence of our present form of government, which cannot be altered. Malcontents, whether they are so with justice or not, have no means of redressing their wrongs when all the power is vested in one, and that one pronounces their complaints to be groundless. The ambitious and fortune-seekers make use of them as tools to attain their own ends, and they easily allow themselves to be so employed.”
“But I never refuse to listen to the complaints of my subjects,” said Akbar; “and if they are just, I redress them as far as lies in my power.”
“If they are just!” repeated Abú-l Fazl. “Yes; but who decides that? The Emperor and his councillors?”
“But what would you have, then? We have heard of states and people in other parts of the world, where things are managed differently; but then, the condition of those people is very different from that of ours. How would it be possible among the many kingdoms and races subject to our rule to give any real share in the government to the people themselves, even if their character, their manners and customs, made it possible?”
“That is quite true,” said Abú-l Fazl; “and I have already said that I regard further changes as neither desirable nor possible. When I alluded to the present state of affairs, it was only to show how unavoidable is the use of means that we are forced to adopt in order to avoid what is still worse. So far as these men are concerned whom we contemptuously call spies, they are less to be despised than one supposes; at least, the two I have now in my mind are honourable men, respected by others, and devoted to us heart and soul. It is true that they are well paid, still that is not necessary, they would be faithful to us without that; and they have indeed rendered us good service. They discovered Salhana’s plot, and, what is not of less importance, the secret intrigues of Gorakh the Yogi.”
“Yes,” remarked Faizi, mischievously, “of that philosopher who for some time gloried in the favour of His Majesty, while he unfolded the mysteries of the Yogi teaching; but not much came of it, so far as I know.”
Akbar coloured as the remembrance was brought back to him how with all his wisdom he had almost, though but for a moment, been entirely taken in by the cunning deceiver. But at the right moment Kulluka interposed, and continued the conversation by saying: “It is indeed to be regretted, but it is wiser to have little to do with this Gorakh. My former pupil, Siddha, has communicated to me things about him which show that caution is necessary. And yet he knows more, perhaps by tradition, of the ancient and now almost forgotten teaching than we shall ever discover.”