The Great Mogul

“It will be of interest to his lady, best known to me as the Countess di Cabota, to learn that recently, while on a journey to the Nasirabad mission, I turned aside and visited the deserted city of Fatehpur-Sikri, built, as you know, by Akbar. In Queen Mariam’s house I found wall-paintings representing the Annunciation, and other scenes in the history of Our Lord and His Blessed Mother, thus proving that the unhappy woman, long since dead, was an apostate. May she have found grace and repentance even at the foot of the throne. It would be a great delight to me if I could win Nur Mahal to the faith. She and Jahangir are ready enough to reason the matter, but they remain obdurate. I trust yet to prevail.”

The Franciscan then branched off into such trading information as he thought might be useful to them or their friends in the city of London, and concluded by expressing the hope that, if ever he returned to Europe, they might all meet; though, said he, “I expect little more than that my own bones shall rest in the small graveyard we have established at no great distance from Dilkusha.”

Nellie, who had heard the letter when it reached her husband, listened to it again while he read it to Roger and Lady Sainton.

“What an influence Nur Mahal seems to exert on all who meet her!” she said, thoughtfully, when Walter laid down the last closely written sheet.

“Aye, a witch, and a bonny one at that!” muttered Roger.

“Was she really so beautiful?” asked Nellie, and Walter felt that her eyes were on him though her question was addressed generally.

“She was so beautiful,” he said, caressing her fair head with a loving hand, “that once, when I wished to be complimentary, I told here there was only one prettier woman in the world, to my thinking, and her name was Nellie Roe.”

“Gad! Was that what you said to her in the field of chick-peas?” cried Roger.

“Some words to that effect.”

“But no woman would take that as a compliment,” said Nellie, dubiously.

“I could fashion no better at the time,” he answered, and he picked up Fra Angelico’s sketch of the Garden of Heart’s Delight. The cypresses were there, and the smooth lawns, with the white marble pavilion shining from the green depths, whilst the artist-friar had cunningly depicted a gold mohur tree, in all the glory of its summer foliage, to cover one corner of a tower where the sheer lines were too harsh.

Roger rose ponderously, having lost that ease of movement which was wont to be so deceptive when an enemy deemed him slow because of his size. He looked over Walter’s shoulder.

“’Tis a gaudy picture,” he growled, “but ’tis not the place I dream of at times when a pasty is too rich or the beer a trifle heavy.”

“I oft wish I had seen the garden as you knew it, Walter,” said his wife.

“May the Lord be thanked your wish was not granted!” he said, drawing her nearer and kissing her with a heartiness that was unaffected. “’Twas no fit habitation for you, Nellie, or for any Christian woman. Ask my Lady Sainton. She knew it, only too well. The Empress is right. It was best fitted to hold a tomb.”

And, indeed, while the men went forth into an English rose-garden, to indulge in the new fashionable habit of smoking tobacco-leaf, Matilda assured her young friend, for the hundredth time, that, notwithstanding the undoubted charms and barbaric elegance of the Persian princess, Walter Mowbray treated her very cavalierly. So, for the hundredth time, Nellie drove the wrinkles of thought from her brow, smiled delightedly when Matilda vowed that the man’s face on the stone elephant was not a quarter as handsome as Roger himself, and thus effectually banished the dim but lovely and ever fascinating wraith of Nur Mahal.

1

“There is indeed a God!”

2

Collar or circlet.

3

Literally, “Born under favoring planets,” a title conferred by historians on Taimúr, and assumed by Jahangir.

4

“Kill them!”

5

Arena, or sport-ground.

6

Leopard

7

“Wonderful! Wonderful!”

8

An amulet.

9

A functionary akin to a chief of police.

10

A literal translation of the name “Jahangir.”

11

The enclosure in which wild elephants are captured.

12

Order.