child--but sent me to his officer. I, the wife of Yunus Khân, Chagatâi, of the house of Timur the Earth Trembler! Well! the fool came decked as for a bridal with blandishments and perfumes, and I welcomed him. Wherefore not? for the supper was good and he played on the lute passably. But when that was over, and we withdrew smiling to the inner room, my maids locked the door by my orders, stabbed the silly rake to death and flung his be-scented body through the window to the gutter. 'Twas its proper place."

The old voice which had gained strength and fire in the recital, dropped to cold, hard finality.

"And Jaimal Shaikh?" queried Babar unwilling to lose a word.

"He sent for me and I went. 'Why hast thou done this evil thing?' he asked. 'Because thou didst worse,' I answered. 'Because thou sentest me, the wife of a living man, to another's embrace. Therefore I slew him. Slay me also, if so it pleases thee.'

"But it did not please him. 'Take her to her husband's prison,' he said, 'and leave her there. They are one flesh indeed.' So I stopped with thy grandfather and comforted him until his star rose again. Now, get thee to thy bed, child, and see thou take the draught without demur. Remember 'God is no maker of the promise breaker.' 'Twill make thee feel sick, doubtless; but what matter if the result be good."

Babar made a wry face and laughed. "Thou hast done me more good with thy tale, revered one! Lo! I can see thy would-be lover in the gutter and my esteemed grandmother, all beautiful as a bride, peeking through the lattice for a glimpse of his corpse--"

"Go to thy bed, child," put in the old lady, delighted. "There be more than pictures for thy sight now; so may the Great Maker of Kings guard thee, his creature."

And that night Zahir-ud-din Mahomed commonly called Babar, forgot that he was King in sound, dreamless, boyish sleep.

CHAPTER II

In truth, Babar needed such a cherub in the first days of his King-ship, for Kâsim and Hussan, his two advisers, fell foul of one another. The former, bluff, honest, facetious, a pious, faithful, religious Moslem who carefully abstained from forbidden meats and drinks, and whose judgment and talents were uncommonly good though he could neither read nor write, was for the forward policy. Hussan, polished, active, a man of courage who wrote excellent verses and was remarkable for his skill in playing polo and leap-frog, was for diplomacy. And against these latter qualifications even honest Kâsim's ingenuous and elegant vein of wit could not stand.

At least in young Babar's judgment. Old Isân-daulet his grandmother was, however, of a different opinion, and even Dearest-One, his sister, ventured to rally him gently on his choice of Prime-minister.

"What," asked Babar hotly in reply, "is Hussan the worse for playing games? Is a man the worse for doing all things well?"

"Nay! but rather the better--so be it that they be men's things," she replied, going on imperturbably with the embroidery of a new pennon for her brother. It was green and violet, his favourite colours, and she was scrolling a text on it in crinkled gold. As she sat in the sunshine on the flat roof of the citadel, her bare head gleaming brown in the glare of light, her mourning garment of dark blue short in the sleeves and low at the neck showing her wheat-coloured skin, she was a pretty creature, though her nose was too long, her chin too short for real beauty: that lay in her eyes, amber-tinted like her brother's.

"Man's things! What be man's things?" argued Babar irritably. "Is cousin Baisanghâr no man because he could help thee embroider two years agone?"

The princess held her head very high. It was not nice of her brother to import strange young men into the conversation, and distinctly mean of him to mention that old breach of etiquette. Had she not heard enough of it from her mother, ever since? Luckily grandam Isân-daulet, being desert-born, had not been so shocked, or life would have been unendurable. And as for Baisanghâr! Everyone knew he was not at all a proper young man, though he was so charming, so sweet-tempered, so ...

"Lo! brother!" she said with asperity, checking her vagrant thoughts, "if one fool shook a baby's rattle better than another, he would be wise man to thee. But 'tis not I only who find leap-frog Hussan a smooth-tongued hypocrite. Grandmother has her eye on him."

"Then can no harm happen," said the boy-King cheerfully, rising, however, with suspicious alacrity as if to escape from the subject. In truth he was somewhat afraid of old Isân-daulet though he tried to minimise his awe by asserting that very few of her sex could equal her in sagacity!

Events, however, had marched with great rapidity, and Sultan Ahmed, his uncle, was now with his army but sixteen miles from Andijân.

So something must be settled. Kâsim was for defiance and defence, Hussan for diplomatic and dutiful submission; since the King of Samarkand was, ever, indubitably suzerain-lord of Ferghâna.

"Words against works," quoth honest Kâsim, who loved to be epigrammatic. His experience told him that if you fought fair you failed at times, but in the end you came out top dog in the general scrimmage of claims and clans.

"Nay!" retorted Hussan, "I desire diplomacy, not dare-devil disregard of common precautions."

Babar, however, frowned at both as he sat listening to the council of war or peace. He favoured neither pugnacity nor deceit.

"Look you, gentlemen," he said, frowning. "All admit my Uncle Ahmed to be a fool whom fools lead by the nose; but is that cause why I should treat him foolishly, and so disgrace myself? I will neither fight nor yield till I have made him understand how the matter lies. So, let a scribe be brought and I will indite him a letter."

"No letter ever did any good," grumbled illiterate Kâsim.

"Especially if it be not received nor read," suggested Hussan sardonically. "The King of Samarkand is supreme and may refuse aught but a personal interview."

Kâsim shot furious glances: such talk savoured to him of treason; but Babar only looked gravely from one adviser to the other.

"So be it," he said cheerfully. "If he refuse reception or understanding, then--if so it pleases God--I can defeat him at my leisure. Meanwhile write thus, O scribe!--with all proper titles, compliments and reverences--'I, Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar, rightful heir, and by acclaim (underline that, scribe!) of this Kingdom of Ferghâna, do with courtesy and reasonableness point out that it is plain that if you take this country you must place one of your servants in charge of it, since you reign at Samarkand. Now I am at once your servant and your son. Also I have a hereditary right to the government. If therefore you entrust me with this employment, your purpose will be attained in a far more easy and satisfactory way than by fighting and killing a number of people (and horses) needlessly. Wherefore I remain your loyal feudatory Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar.'"

He beamed round on the council for approval of this logical argument, then added hastily, "And, scrivener! put 'Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar' large; and 'King of Ferghâna' larger still at the very end. That will show him my intentions."

If it did, the effect was poor: for though the letter was duly engrossed on silk paper sprinkled with rose-essence and gold-dust, enclosed in a