A Prince of Dreamers

s who have

woman

sword hold hono

y bloo

lure with re

nce, deathfu

the

enge

King,

tempered steel rang out over the roof as tma Devi, turning to the north, the south, the east, the west, repeated her challenge. She had put on her father's sil

rned toward it fiercely to see a pink and yellow lollipop of a woman, respectability, in the shape of a

"Yamin," she said slowly

was a small woman, extraordinarily graceful, extraordinarily beautiful, with a tiny oval innocent-looking face on which neither pleasure no pain left any mark whatever. From

walls? Not I!" Here the water-bright laugh rang out derisively. "Lo! many things have happened since Siyala played with tma--what a bully thou wast in those days to poor little me; and thou lookst it now, thou sister of the veil

held point downward formed a support for her elbow as she rest

ed much, Siyala," sh

re merry old days! A pity thou didst not come with me to the

ow of that high fate which makes of womanhood something b

e have kept the secret that thou didst not know the Companion-of-the-Court was thy next

amin!" interrupted tm

hing curves. "The King!" she echoed, "Oh

in the sword-bearer s

of tma and

e old man's armour and the sword--frown not sweet sister, it becomes thee mightily--I just caught up my veil, and ran downstairs (for we have many entrances see you, and this tene

tma's face. "And if he d

mes before tasting," she replied airily, "even with Kings. A

game, Siyala; if the King discovers that thou--the

d woman, veiled, secluded, a perfect cupola of chastity!" Wrapped in her white burka, al

d tma, "what man

d I love him--as much as I love most! And he is

of Barha?" echoed

-inspiring like the Seven Steps and the Sacrificial Fire; lo! even with no man, but a dagger, that gave me shivers. Thou wilt come and see me, tma. It is pleasant up there. We have joine

silver and pearl fri

ground in front of the sword and on it set the two lamps which all night long kept watch and ward over the weapon, placed between them the death-dagger of her r

townsfolk call her mad: for those words with which the King had gifted to her the Charanship, "I'll treat th

iceless. The challenge had rung out from it once more, obliterating the sad echoes of that

e death-dagger was keen enough for woman's flesh; she might

s enshrined in old bardic verses that had been handed

g now at any rate, and

ssed arms, she said them over to herself rough, rude, almost uninte

gh treason to his suzerain, was sent forth by his mother to seek his father's body in the wilds, and having found it, to take the death-dagger from the bl

s a

Hee

e the

t-Ones s

e the

ull inquiry. So she knelt dreaming, her chin upon her

, and in every fibre of her being she still

m. What did they want? Not womanhood certainly. But who wanted that? No one. Moth

ell first. Yet despite this superstitious selection, she was learned beyond the learning of most women, beyond even that of many learned men, for her father had taught her as he taugh

ir ancestress, the ancestress of all her race. That voluntary yielding up of sex brought her

f no child's lips--had nurtu

it was her hands which had sent little Heera into the wilderness to do

ot slain." So to her, as she sate reading the Sacred Book came spirits in

he light by which she had been reading

e asked, and sta

pen, my sister. I c

shawl with which he was enveloped, and discl

oly," he said airily. "Nay! frown

Maheshwar Rao"--she gave Birbal's tribal name with in

le shrug of the shoulders

s "Padré Rudolfo, the Jesuit, hath it," he continued, "that I am the fool who saith 'There is no God'; but Birbal propounds no such proposition. H

?" asked t

ister? Nay! I will not lie. I want him, because of a talisman stone he

rised, "what stone? He wea

tter and better! Tell me where he lives, sister. I would see for myself.

frank mockery and

rm," she began, "he

with it, sister. I have tramped from well to water, and water to well, these two hours seeking the Sinde envoy, but it comes ev

evasively. "Nay! 'tis no trouble; he l

that circled round a central stair, and then broke away from it and wandered in labyrinthine passages

rough the dark silence

ow with her lamp a flight of smaller, steeper steps. "He is

ch tma knocked. There was no answer. "Way

no a

o the dark room. In that hot climate a cellar is no bad place wherein to live, and t

beside a string bed on which lay, wrapped in a white sheet, the figure of the rebeck player. The clear, fi

-compeller," she said, "he takes it at

an; but, upturned as his, there lay the most beautiful face surely in the whole wide world. It was that of a girl apparently not yet in her teens, yet s

rcely save her face, but when her eyes are open, one forgets." She gathered the sheet together so as

ce unsteady. Poet, artist, to his finger-tips, the sight before him stirr

er essences. She is like a deer for scent--a rose makes he

side the low string bed, silent, almost

money to-day," she said regretfully. "There is no use w

echoed inte

ays. Then, when he goes out, I carry Zar?fa up to my roof. She is so l

he lamp tma held and turned

is all hours of the night. See, I will wait until I note your ligh

ircle the stairs, then disappear, circle again higher up and disappear, until he judged from the fa

mixed up with the whole problem of life? What was it that all the great ones of the earth had possessed? What gave them their power, their

at the very question itself. What was reality? Not surely the death-like prof

half-sober laughter rose close besi

amin's paradise, so lurch not, fool, lest the w

tumbling against the wa

o much promise, so many regrets. And the other was his boon companion Dhari--another bad son of a good father--T?dar Mull the man whose financial skill had saved the Empire

hear the password given at the closed door, not far he judged from tma's square of roof. Allowing a decent interval he knocked again and

heir diffused radiance higher than his knee. It did not reach the edge of the trellised walls, and above that was night; cool, quiet, night. A liveried servant salaamed to him profusely, then returned to his solitary game of cards. A white Persian cat rose, hunched up its back and clawed viciously o

nken, fools?

ove from out

nted tresses of

ddled

stained mouth ha

kisses, so the

eart, and body

ssion

went forward. Time was when love--but never wine--had tempted him also; this, however, was flagrant disobedience of the King's

of words he was about to face, since she, likely

e was

m sight, he found the place half-full of drowsy girls and sodden revellers; but she, r

. Sir! I would rise," she continued pointing and making a graceful wriggle of appare

nce at the prostrate fi

Syed Jamal-ud-din, of Barha, sure enough. A good soldier to the King though at this present somewhat overcome with love for poor me and liquor; as indeed

lad, stared stupidly at the newco

y. "That's what I wan'ter know. What'sh a devil----" Th

e the only two sober ones. Cupbearer, the cup! And bring the snow from holy Himalya to cleanse it; fo

ng creed impatiently, "if you would play yo

of dismay. "My veil! Here! wome

e; meanwhile----" he glanced round, hastily taking in the company. "So! Meean Khodadad! Hide

vil which in the younger revellers showed as yet

that case would not save thee from the hangman's noose

gs one balm--no man need shrink calling thee son! A

Prince Sal?m rising unstead

"this is no place for you--no place for the Heir to India-

shed his cup do

King here! Am I not King, and th

ny triumphantly; but Birbal,

olitely, "thou art drunk, boy

the chorus of mirth in which for t