The Adventures of Akbar | Page 3

see if a neighboring chief would help them) said, "This
will be joyful news wherewith to cheer my lord on his return,"
Head-nurse's irritation found voice.
"That is all very well," she cried. "So it would be to any common father
of any common child, Your Royal Highness! This one is the
Admired-of-the-Whole-World, the Source-of-Dignity, the
Most-Magnificent-Person-of-the-Period----"
And she went on rolling out queer guttural Arabic titles till
Foster-mother implored her to be silent or she would frighten the child.
Could she not see the look on the darling's face?

For Baby Akbar was indeed listening to something with his little finger
up to command attention. But it was not to Head-nurse's thunderings,
but to the first long, low growl of a coming storm that outside the
miserable tent was turning the distant hills to purple and darkening the
fast-fading daylight.
"Frighten?" echoed Head-nurse in derision. "The son of Humâyon the
heroic, the grandson of Baber the brave could never be frightened at
anything!"
And in truth the little lad was not a bit afraid, even when a distant flash
of lightning glimmered through the dusk.
"Heavens!" cried gentle Queen Humeeda, "his Majesty will be
drenched to the skin ere he returns." She was a brave woman, but the
long, long strain of daily, hourly danger was beginning to tell on her
health, and the knowledge that even this coming storm was against
them brought the tears to her eyes.
"Nay! Nay! my royal mistress," fussed Head-nurse, who, in spite of her
love of pomp, was a kind-hearted, good woman, "this must not be on
such an auspicious day. It must be celebrated otherwise, and for all we
are so poor, we can yet have ceremonial. When the child was born were
we not in direst danger? Such danger that all his royal father could do
in honor of the glad event was to break a musk-bag before his faithful
followers as sign that the birth of an heir to empire would diffuse itself
like perfume through the whole world? Even so now, and if I cannot
devise some ceremony, then am I no Head-nurse!"
So saying she began to bustle around, and ere long even poor, unhappy
Queen Humeeda began to take an interest in the proceedings.
A mule trunk, after being ransacked for useful odds and ends, was put
in a corner and covered with a worn satin quilt. This must do for a
throne. And a strip of red muslin wound about the little
gold-embroidered skull cap Baby Akbar wore must, with the heron's
plume from his father's state turban, make a monarch of the child.

In truth he looked very dignified indeed, standing on the mule trunk,
his little legs very wide apart, his little crimson silk trousers very baggy,
his little green brocade waistcoat buttoned tight over his little fat body,
and, trailing from his shoulders in great stiff folds, his father's state
cloth-of-gold coatee embroidered with seed pearls.
So, as he always wore great gold bracelets on his little fat arms, and
great gold jingling anklets fringing his little fat feet, he looked very
royal indeed. Very royal and large and calm, for he was a grave baby
with big, dark, piercing eyes and a decided chin.
"He is as like his grandfather as two splits of a pea!" cried Head-nurse
in rapture, and then she went to the tent door and shrilled out:
"Slaves! Quick! Come and perform your lowly salute on the occasion
of the cutting of a back tooth belonging to the Heir-to-Empire, the
Most----"
She cut short her string of titles, for a crash of thunder overhead warned
her she had best be speedy before the rain soaked through the worn
tent.
"Quick, slaves!" she added; "keep us not waiting all day. Enter and
prostrate yourselves on the ground with due reverence! Quick! Quick!"
She need not have been in such a hurry, for it did not take long for the
"slaves," as she called them, to perform their lowly salaam by touching
the very ground with their foreheads. There were but three of
them--Old Faithful, the trooper; Roy, the Râjput boy; and Meroo, the
scullion; the rest were away with their master, King Humâyon.
Old Faithful, however, tall, lank, grey-bearded, brought enough
devotion for half a dozen followers. He had served with little Akbar's
grandfather, Babar the brave, and when he saw the child standing so
fair and square, he gave almost a sharp cry of remembrance and delight.
And when he stood up after his prostration, in soldier fashion he held
out the hilt of his old sword for the baby to touch in token that its
service was accepted. Queen Humeeda, who stood beside her little son,

guided his fat fingers to the sword; but at the very moment a