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Transcriber's Notes:

A PRINCE OF DREAMERS

A PRINCE OF DREAMERS

FLORA ANNIE STEEL

Author of

"A Sovereign Remedy," "On the Face of the Waters," "Voices in the Night," etc.

New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1909

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

TO THE MEMORY OF A PRINCE OF DREAMERS AND A KING OF KINGS

OH LORD! WHOSE SECRETS ARE FOR EVER VEILED AND WHOSE PERFECTION KNOWS NOT A BEGINNING; MY WORDS ARE LAME--MY TONGUE A STONY TRACT-- SLOW WINGS MY SOUL--AND WIDE IS THE EXPANSE-- CONFUSED MY THOUGHTS--THIS THY BEST PRAISE, IN ECSTASY I SEE THEE FACE TO FACE.

PREFACE

"The fiction which resembles truth is better than the truth which is dissevered from the imagination," said the Persian poet Nizami, in the year 1250.

It remains true, however, to-day. So I give no excuse for this book. It is not one which will appeal to the man in the street. Nevertheless I make the attempt to give the character and the times of the Prince of Dreamers with a glad heart. It is as well that the twentieth century of the West should know something of the sixteenth century in the East.

To begin with Mirza Ibrah?m and Khodad?d. For obvious reasons it is always safer in historical novels to draw the out-and-out villains with imagination. The death of the latter, however, together with the curious privileges of the T?rkh?ns are part of the truth which is stranger than fiction.

For ?tma Devi I have also no warranty; Indian history does not concern itself with womenkind. But dear Auntie Rosebody's Memoirs have supplied me with my sketch of the Beneficent Ladies, while, of course, the story of Mihr-un-nissa, who in long after-years did, under the name of Nurjah?n, become Prince Sal?m's wife, and, as such, did undoubtedly add to the honour and glory of his reign as J?hang?r, is purely historical; even to the chance meeting in the Paradise Bazaar.

P?yand?r Kh?n, the Wayfarer, is so far possible that the heir to the throne of Sinde, who bore that name, suddenly lost his senses in consequence of some direful tragedy, disappeared into the desert, and was no more heard of. The crediting of him with hypnotic powers is offered as an explanation of many marvels which are constantly cropping up in Indian story and legend.

It has been suggested to me that for those to whom the word Mogul is mixed up with tobacconists' shops and packs of cards, a brief outline of the dynasty called by that name might be advisable.

It was founded, then, by one Babar, poet, knight-errant, perfect lover, who is, without doubt, the most charming figure in all history. He sacrificed his life in 1540 for his son Hum?yon, that most unfortunate of kingly adventurers from whose opium-soddened hands the thirteen-year-old boy, Akbar, took an uncertain sceptre. In him the glory of the Moguls culminated. After him three more kings were worthy of the title "Great," and then by slow degrees the dynasty dwindled down to one Bah?dur Sh?h, a feeble old man, who after defying us at Delhi, died miserably in exile.

Akbar was cotemporary of Queen Elizabeth, and his rightful place is among the great company of dreamers--Shakespeare, Raphael, Drake, Galileo, Michelangelo, Cervantes, and half a hundred others--who in the sixteenth century arose to place the whole world, spiritual and temporal, under the sway of imagination for the time.

I have chosen as my period in Akbar's life that time of glorious peace before the abandonment of the City of Victory, Fatehpur Sikri, which he had built to commemorate the birth of his son.

The reason for this abandonment is unknown, though scarcity of water was certainly one of the factors in it.

One thing is clear, the step must have meant much to Akbar; must have involved the giving up of many cherished dreams. And it is equally clear that his whole policy changed from the day he left what was the embodiment of his own personal pride, his own personal outlook on the future. Evidently he felt himself faced by some necessity for supreme choice, and having made it, he kept to the course he had chosen undeviatingly.

I have presumed to find this necessity in the bitter disappointment caused to him by his sons.

This at any rate is history, and with a man of Akbar's temperament it is impossible to overestimate the effect of knowing that his natural heirs were unworthy, incapable indeed, of carrying on his Dream of Empire.

Whether the diamond which plays its part in these pages is the one now called the Koh-i-nur, or whether it was the stone afterward known as the Great Mogul, or whether it was yet a third one, who can say? The history of Oriental gems is often too mysterious even for fiction. But there is a legend that Akbar possessed such a lucky stone, and it is certain that William Leedes remained to cut gems in the Imperial Court when his companions John Newbery and Ralph Fitch left it.

Finally, if competent critics feel inclined to cavil at the extraordinary aloofness of Akbar from his surroundings, I can only bid them remember that he was literally centuries ahead of his time, and assert that in this very aloofness lies the only claim of any soul to be remembered above its fellows.

The two friends whom he chose to be friends--out of the millions of men he governed--fittingly go down with him through those centuries, a trio; Akbar the dreamer, Birbal the doubter, Abulfazl the doer, who between them made of the Great Mogul a king of kings.

A PRINCE OF DREAMS

A PRINCE OF DREAMS

"Hush! The King listens!"

The sudden sonorous voice of the court-usher echoed over the crowd and there was instant silence.

The multitude sank, seated on the ground where it had been standing, and so disclosed to view the rose-red palaces of Fatehpur Sikri, the City of Victory, rising from the rose-set gardens where the silvery fountains sprang from the rose-red earth into the deep blue of the sky.

Akbar the King showed also, seated on a low, marble, cushion-covered pedestal beneath a group of palms.

He was a man between the forties and the fifties with no trace of the passing years in form or feature, save in the transverse lines of thought upon his forehead. For the rest, his handsome aquiline face with its dreamy yet fireful eyes and firm mouth, held just the promise of contradiction which is often the attribute of genius.

So, as he sate listening, a woman sang.

Gladness is Gain, because Annoy has fled Sadness is Pain, because some Joy is dead Light wins its Halo from the Gloom of night Night spins its Shadow at the Loom of light.

The Twain are one, the One is twain Naught lives alone in joy or pain Except the King! Akbar the King is One!

"Hush! The King wearies!"

Once again the sonorous voice of the court-usher following a faint uplift of the King's finger brought instant obedience. The singer was silent, the crowd remained expectant, while the hot afternoon sun blazed down on all things save the King, sheltered by the royal baldequin.

He raised his keen yet dreamy eyes and looked out almost wistfully to the far blue horizon of India, which from this rocky red ridge whereon he had built his City of Victory showed distant, unreal, a mere shadow on the inconceivable depth of the blue beyond.

He rose suddenly, and the crowd rising also swept back from his path tumultuously, as the waters of the Red Sea swept back from the staff of Moses, to leave him free, unfettered.

There was no lack of power about him anyhow! He stepped forward, centring his world with the swing of an athlete--a swing which made the bearers of the royal baldequin jostle almost to a trot in their efforts to keep the Sacred Personality duly shaded; and then he paused to look thoughtfully into a pool that was fretted into ceaseless rippling laughter by the fine misty spray which was all that fell back from the clear, strong, skyward leap of the water in the central fountain. Was that typical of all men's efforts, he wondered? A skyward leap impelled by individual strength; and then dispersion? When he died--and death came early to his race--what then?

He stood absorbed while the crowd closed in behind the courtiers who circled round him at a respectful distance. Beyond them the fun of the fair commenced; bursts of laughter, a hum of high-pitched voices, the tinkling of wire-stringed fiddles, the occasional blare of a conch, with every now and again the insistent throbbing of a hand drum, and a trilling song--

And over all the hot yellow sunshine of an April afternoon in Northern India.

"The King is in his mood again," remarked one of the courtiers vexedly. He was M?n Singh, the R?jp?t generalissimo, son of the R?jah Bhagw?n Singh who had been Akbar's first Hindoo adherent, who was still his close friend and soon to be his relative by marriage. The speaker was in the prime of life, and the damascened armour seen beneath a flimsy white muslin overcoat seemed to match his proud arrogance of bearing. The courtier to whom he spoke was of a very different mould; small, slender, dark, with the face of a mime full of the possibilities of tears and laughter, but full also of a supreme intelligence which held all other things in absolute thrall. He gave a quick glance of comprehension toward his master, then shrugged his shoulders lightly.

He gave an almost sinister little bow at this allusion to the coming political marriage of the Heir-Apparent, Prince Sal?m to M?n Singh's cousin; a match which set the adverse factions in the court by the ears.

M?n Singh laid his hand on his sword-hilt and frowned.

"If Birbal could speak without jesting 'twere well," he said, significantly. "Those bigoted fools"--he nodded toward a group of long-bearded Mahommedan preachers--"may howl about heretics if they choose, but we R?jp?ts know not how to take this mixed marriage either; for in God's truth the Prince is not as the King, but an ill-doing lout of a lad--so Akbar has no time for moods. He needs skill."

Birbal gave another of his comprehending glances toward his master, another of his habitual slight shrugs of the shoulder.

There was a slight suspicion of jealousy in his tone as he turned toward a burly, broad-faced, clean-shaven man whose expression of sound common sense almost overlaid the high intellectuality of his face.

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