King Errant Part 33

"And found it not, most times," put in Babar with a grim smile. "I have had too much of fighting and running away. I have been at it my life long. Now let us see how it does to fight and stick to it--to the death."

"To the death by all means, sire," said old Kasim with affectionate admiration, "but 'tis madness all the same."

If it were so, there was distinct method in it. Babar threw up strange earthworks round his camp and disposed pickets in quaintly modern fas.h.i.+on on the points of vantage in the hills. This done he sat down calmly and awaited events, much to the discomfiture of those within the city. They were not besieged, of course, but there was an enemy to be reckoned with beyond the gates where an enemy should not be. Being hopelessly in a minority, he ought to have run away.

"Lo!" said one soldier to another doubtfully, as, hand over his eyes, eaves-wise, he looked out keenly from the watch towers, "I dare swear that is the King going his rounds. How I mind me of his smile as he pa.s.sed the meanest."

"Aye!" would come the a.s.sent, "but none were mean in his army. We all felt brave men. At least so 'twas with me. I could have swaggered it with Rustam."

And both pair of eyes would hold a vague regret. A regret that deepened as day after day skirmishes that were almost battles, resulted invariably in a retreat back to the walls of Kabul for the night.

For Babar's five hundred were ready to fight all the twenty-four hours, while the insurgent twelve thousand preferred their beds.

And the next dawn rose calm over that orderly encampment, which it was no use trying to rush because of its cunning defences. Then Babar's cavalry had learnt to charge without an inch of spare room between stirrup and stirrup, so that there was no hope of pa.s.sage or escape between that close-linked, supple, chain of lance and sword.

Altogether it was disconcerting. Then no one had a moment's peace. To show your head beyond the gates was to bring down on you the King in person, heading a reckless band of picked swordsmen.

"Kasim-Beg is the best fencer in Asia," murmured a trooper with a slash on head and arm; "'tis small wonder I got this from him. And his teaching hath made even the rank and file better at swordsplay than our leaders--curse them--who sit at cards and drink, while we--" The rest was sullen silence.

"Yea!" said another, with a leg bandaged. "And I got this from a mere back blow of the Most-Clement's. See you, he hath youth on his side, as well as all old Kasim's art. I saw him, as I fell, cleave a Moghul to the very chin."

So round the watch fires at night it became the fas.h.i.+on to applaud the prowess of the foe. With this result that in the morning, more than one place was vacant on the ramparts; the holder of it had slipped away in the night to join Babar's forces.

As time went on, the latter grew more and more adventurous. His military skill, his personal strength, his courage, his invincible spirit, brought mingled admiration and dread to his enemies.

"Lo! he is a true _Shaitan_," admitted one of the chief rebels. "Didst hear that when he was at the Kharwa Fort he amused himself by leaping from battlement to battlement--and there is sheer fall of a thousand feet to the river below."

"Aye!" a.s.sented another gloomily. "And s.h.i.+rbash saith he hath seen him do it with a trooper under each arm."

So ran the stories, the one outdoing the other.

At last, one day, just before the opposing forces began the clash of arms, the armies stood thrilling, aghast, expectant, as a tall young figure rode out alone, and in a voice that echoed and re-echoed, challenged Abdul-Risak, the usurper, to single combat.

The challenge was refused.

"Then send your best man," cried Babar, "and may G.o.d show the right."

There was a pause; and then from out the rank and file of the insurgents rode one Ali-Beg, and a chorus of approval went up on both sides.

The opponents were well matched. Both young, both in the very pink of training.

"Art ready, friend?" came Babar's clear joyous voice, and with a dash they were at each other.

"Now G.o.d send he remembers the trick of wrist," said Kasim-Beg under his breath, "for Ali-Beg hath it to perfection. He was my best pupil at Samarkand."

But Babar remembered it. How, he felt, could he forget anything with so much for which to fight? His eyes blazed, not with anger--what cared he for the actual enemy?--he was but the dummy of possible defeat--but with calm will. He meant to disarm this fellow--not to hurt him.

The horses reeled against each other, the sword arms were interlocked, for Babar, at close quarters, would not let his antagonist break loose.

G.o.d and his prophets! they would be down! Nor horse nor man could stand that boring pressure, that invincible strength. Wrist against wrist; and beneath them struggling legs and tails and fear-snorting crests!

There! over!--A confused heap upon the ground, but Babar uppermost with two swords in his hand.

A shout of triumph rose from the five hundred. But as the discomfited champion rode back without his sword, another rode forward to take his place.

This was not in the bond; still Babar, checking his laboured breaths to more even rhythm, threw away the second sword and sprang to his horse, which had risen unhurt but dazed.

"Come on, friend!" he shouted; "I am ready!"

This was a very different sort of adversary. A lean, ewe-necked horse, a nimble, dapper, little swordsman with a blade like a razor, who buzzed and wheeled, and settled and fled again like a hungry mosquito.

Babar with his half-dazed horse was at a disadvantage for a time and the razor-like edge caught him on the little finger once. But only once. The next instant in one furious charge, a back-hander with the flat of the sword had sent the King's antagonist spinning from his saddle like a tee-totum.

So it was with five champions, one after the other.

Babar more and more weary, yet more and more triumphant in fierce vitality with every victory, unhorsed, disarmed, or routed every one of them. Raising a laugh, indeed, in his own favour when Yakub-Beg, last but one, escaped by hard riding from the rain of pitiless blows which fell instead on his horse's rump, urging it to greater speed.

Only once did sheer merciless anger leap to Babar's eyes, and that was when n.a.z.ir, the Usbek, letting go his horse's bridle during a close-locked tussle of sword arms, drew a dagger with his left hand and would have plunged it in his adversary's heart.

Then, with one wild cry of rage, Babar's hand left his sword, clipped his adversary round the middle, literally tore him from his horse and flung him head downwards on the ground, where he lay unconscious, the dagger still in his hand, the blood oozing from his nose and ears.

"Take the carrion away," shouted the young champion, breathless, "and come on, if there be any more."

But there were none ready for personal combat; so the battle began.

It was one of Babar's best battles--at least in his own opinion. And it was the prelude to many another, in every one of which Babar drove home his lesson of sheer courage. Finally Abdul-Risak fell into his hands, and from that moment there was peace; since folk could withstand the King's prowess, but they were helpless beneath his magnanimity.

To be forgiven, not grudgingly or of necessity, but with open-hearted friendliness, was disarmament pure and simple; for all but Moghuls.

And the Horde in this instance, disgusted at defeat, took abrupt French leave. Abdul-Risak also, ever a weakling, had the grat.i.tude and good taste to die comfortably and conventionally ere long, so Kabul was left at peace.

Such peace as Babar's life had never known before. He was in the plenitude of his manhood, his strength, and, even after all these years, the imagination warms to the picture of his glad content. A trifle flamboyant, perhaps, he may have been in his consciousness of virtue, in his very successes. But nothing came amiss to his happy nature. The plants he planted throve, the flowers he loved blossomed, he was as keen over repairing a ruined aqueduct as he had been over taking a fort. He knew the name of every bird and beast in his kingdom; he learnt their habits, when and where they are to be caught.

He tells of the strange migration of fishes, and with keen appreciation of the pathos and poetry hidden in the tale, how the flights of summer birds are driven in stormy weather against the chill glaciers of the Hindu-Kush Mountains and perish in their thousands.

Then he interests himself in his people. Knows the race of which they come, the language they speak, and the superst.i.tions in which they believe. And he is stern over some of these. There is a celebrated rocking tomb much frequented by pilgrims of which he discovers the trick and visits his hot wrath on the manipulators, daring them to repeat the imposture; for deceit is the one thing he cannot forgive.

So during the next three years, not only peace, but happiness reigned at Kabul. Humayon grew and flourished. A daughter and then a son were born, and Maham remained the anchor to which Babar's versatile, volatile, affectionate nature was moored. A woman of education, of natural talent, she could enter into that side of his life from which the majority of his companions were shut out; and between the two there was always the inward and spiritual tie of which the Crystal Bowl was the outward and visible manifestation.

There was another soul, however, which touched Babar in a lower plane.

Sultan Said Khan, his cousin, the son of the dead and dispossessed younger Khan of Outer Moghulistan, sought refuge at Kabul, and there sprung up between the two young men perfect love, accord, and trust.

"The two-and-a-half years I spent as exile in Kabul," writes this same Said Khan, "were the freest from care or sorrow of any I have experienced, or am likely to experience. I lived on friendly terms with all, welcomed by all. I never had a headache (except from the effects of wine) and never felt sad (except on the account of the ringlets of some beloved one)."

But Babar himself still abstained from wine, or at any rate from intoxication. Love had stepped in at Herat to keep him from yielding to the first of Said Khan's temptations, and the other form of amus.e.m.e.nt was never to his liking.

Then there was another refugee who forty years afterwards sets down his impressions of Kabul and its King. This was Haidar, yet another cousin, ten-year-old-orphan, whose father had been that Doghlat-commoner rebel of two years back.

What matter? His mother had been a maternal aunt. That was enough for Babar. Besides the poor child had no other protector.

His welcome must have made a vivid impression on Haidar, for, as one reads, the scene rises before one. The timid child wrapped in the one old shawl which the forlorn party of refugees possessed, attempting to kneel at the feet of that glorious figure with life or death in its hands. The merry laugh, the swift stoop to catch up the child and hold it close with comforting words. Then afterwards, the elegant mansion, its rooms all spread with many coloured carpets and soft cus.h.i.+ons, with everything in the way of furniture, food, clothing, servants, and slaves, so fully prepared as to leave nothing to be desired in the whole building. And afterwards, again, the promises of kindness, the threats of severity by which the little lad's love of study was stimulated and encouraged. The lavish praise bestowed on any little virtue or new accomplishment, the quick blame for anything mean or lazy; these were such as most men would scarce do for their own sons.

"It was a hard day for me when I lost my father," writes Haidar; "but I scarce felt the loss owing to the kindness of the Emperor."