"'He has been smitten with a fever, my lord,' I answered, taking upon my shoulders the burden of excuse, and telling no falsehood, for surely love is the fiercest burning fever of all.

"'Ah, ha!' muttered the zemindar, in a guttural note of disappointment.

And there and then I saw him toying with a ruby ring, not worn upon one of his fingers, but held lightly between his two hands.

"'Does anyone here know aught of this bauble?' he added, raising the gem aloft.

"There were glances of inquiry from all around, then bows and gestures and murmurs of disavowal. I alone remained irresponsive, for at that very moment every fibre of my being was strained to nervous rigidity. My senses were preternaturally at work. The marble column against which I was leaning with seeming carelessness, vibrated under my hand. Within its circular depths I could see Abdul descending stealthily and slowly, his one free arm pressing a silken bundle to his breast. Even to my nostrils there was wafted the fragrance of attar of roses, and with the exhalations of perfume came a gentle sigh of timidity almost at my very ear.

"I was moistening my parched lips with my tongue, when I awoke from my momentary trance. The zemindar's eyes were blazing down at me.

"'Villain, this ring is yours!' he cried, struggling to his feet.

"'Not mine, my lord,' I protested, flinging myself at full length before him.

"But at that very moment there rang forth the sharp tattoo of a horse's hoofs on the paved courtyard without, followed by the sharp challenge of a sentry, the bang of a matchlock, and then a very babel of excited yelling.

"Every one in the audience hall swept outside, even the zemindar, his dignity all forgotten. Left alone, with swift consciousness of the suspicion that had fastened itself upon me, and of my powerlessness to deny connivance with the escape of my friend, I gathered myself up and fled by a side pa.s.sage to a ghat on the river. Here I had a boat prepared for just the emergency that had happened, and because of this happy foresight I am enabled to-day, after more than two score of years, to tell the tale."

"And the zemindar?" asked the Afghan soldier.

"Dead long since."

"The hollow marble column?" pressed the interlocutor.

"Its secret remained unrevealed," replied the tax-collector. "Trusty friends told me later that the flight of Abdul on a fiery stallion, with a female figure clinging to him on the saddle behind, ever remained a mystery. So the youth had had the presence of mind to close the sliding panels above and below."

"He escaped? He lived?" queried the Rajput.

"a.s.suredly," came the quiet reply. "I have never seen nor heard from Abdul from that day to this. But as destiny had provided, long years before the actual event, a means for the accomplishment of his happiness, I have ever rested content in the belief that all was well with him--that all is well with him even yet perhaps--with him and his beloved in the valley of far-away Bokhara."

"I should like to find that hollow column," muttered the Afghan.

"As I have said, the column was contrived for love and not for rapine, my friend. Should the white stone from Coromandel that can be cunningly wrought into marble ever cross your fate, be on your guard lest the omen mean, not the gaining of a fortune, but the making of a tomb."

The Afghan smiled, half disdainfully, half uneasily, and silence reigned for a spell.

III. WHAT THE STARS ORDAINED

TOLD BY THE ASTROLOGER

"And now, master star-gazer, your proffered story," said the tax-collector, bestirring the company from its meditative mood.

"As I have promised," responded the astrologer, "I shall recount an experience that shows how the stars, if read aright, can tell us the influences for good or for evil that weigh upon a man and inevitably determine his destiny at the critical moments of his life. What is written is written, and it is impossible to strive against fate."

"Nay," objected the Rajput, "that is a teaching of helplessness to which I cannot subscribe--the pitiful excuse of the coward who folds his hands in the hour of danger, or of the self-indulgent weakling who yields to seductive temptation because his heart inclines to seize the pleasure of the moment even when his conscience counsels otherwise. I hold that man is the master of his own fate. Most a.s.suredly have I been the master of mine," he added with a proud smile, his fingers closing significantly on the handle of a dagger at his belt.

"Be it so," answered the astrologer. "But as Allah knows everything that is to happen, so must it happen."

"Which does not forbid the exercise of my own free will," argued the Rajput. "The Supreme Being, the presiding power of creation, call him Allah if you will, understanding my heart as he understands all things, knows beforehand what choice of action I shall make at the moment of an emergency. But that still leaves me responsible for the deed which I elect to do. Such is my understanding of destiny. It gives fore-knowledge to G.o.d, but leaves free will to man."

"From all of which I do not dissent," rejoined the astrologer. "It is only the ignorant or the base that makes kismet the excuse for helplessness or for wrongdoing. But as the stars under which a man is born influence that man's acts, then does the reading of the stars guide us as to what the future has in store."

"I know little about your stars," replied the Rajput. "But let us have the story," he added, crossing his hands on his knees in an att.i.tude of expectancy. The astrologer, saluting his audience generally with a bow of acquiescence, thus began:

"By your courtesy let me first explain, as necessary to the understanding of the tale which is to follow, that I am from Persia, from the city of Teheran, where for many generations my ancestors were profound students of astrology, some of them famous men because of their skilful divinations, with reputations that reached even to Stamboul. For thither in my early boyhood to the court of the Sultan of the Osmanlis was my father summoned, and him I never beheld again. It was from my aged grandfather that I learned my first lessons in astrology--about the twelve houses, the ruling star of each day, the coming and the going of the planets, their conjunctions and oppositions, and the influences they exercise on men's lives. I learned with avidity, and was an apt pupil, for at fifteen I had begun the practice of my profession, casting horoscopes and reading the nocturnal heavens with constant care, understanding also the flight of birds and the cries of wild beasts of the jungle.

"Yet at that time was my mind a.s.sailed with grievous doubts. I often caught myself wondering whether the stars did really rule the fates of men. And with this inward questioning a restless spirit grew upon me. I longed to see more of the world--to enlarge the sphere of my observations. Just then I chanced to hear some gossip in the bazaars about a great expedition that was getting ready at Kabul to descend upon Hindustan. The hunger of adventure seized me, and was not to be denied.

Despite the tears and implorings of my family, I set forth on foot for Afghanistan, a stripling; in my hand the staff I used in my divinations, in the bag slung at my side a single change of raiment. Money I had none, but my ability to read the stars I knew well would earn me a livelihood wherever I might wander.

"With my adventures during the next two years this story has no concern.

It is enough to say that, after many vicissitudes of fortune, I found myself installed as astrologer in the court of a Moslem prince, sovereign over an extensive region in Kashmir.

"My lord was a man of n.o.ble heart and of high mental gifts. He ruled over his people not by fear of the sword, but by absolute justice, which he himself personally administered, every day holding audience so that grievances, even those of the most poor, might be heard and wrongs redressed. And his royal duties were shared by his wife, who, although she might sit behind the screen of the women's quarters, none the less shared in the counsels of state, and contributed words of wisdom in the direction of affairs.

"Never in my experience have I encountered such mutual love, trust, and devotion as subsisted between this pair. For no other woman in the world had Mirza Shah thought or regard or desire--I call him Mirza Shah, but that was not his real name. For reasons that will presently appear, I refrain from disclosing the ident.i.ty of places and persons connected with my story.

"Well, it was my privilege from the outset to be on relations of close intimacy with my master. He used to come through the palace gardens to the shrub-embowered tower which I occupied, and from the roof of which I nightly contemplated the heavens. For long hours he would abide with me, learning something of the stars while enjoying the cool of the night air after the heat and fatigues of the day. And many times of an afternoon the sultana, veiled, would come with her lord, and together they would seek to gain from me knowledge of the heavenly bodies and of divination.

Some things I told to them, but others I withheld, which is just and right, for skill in astrology is hereditary, descending from father to son, and new minds are unprepared for such teachings, so that too much knowledge conveyed to outsiders may become a source of disturbance to themselves and perchance of danger and hurt to their fellow men. Thus, following the rules laid down for me by my grandfather, always, even when closely pressed with questions, did I exercise a discreet reserve.

"Gradually the friendship accorded to me by my lord and his lady waxed stronger, and I found myself being admitted to some of their innermost thoughts. Thus did I come to learn the pa.s.sionate longing of the wife to become a mother: for six years had she waited, but no child had blessed her love for her husband. As for Mirza Shah, just so soon as the subject was mentioned I could see the cloud of melancholy rest on his brow. And when, as time went on, sadness seemed to settle upon him continuously, I knew full well that this disappointment in his wedded life had at last taken complete possession of his mind, to the exclusion of all other matters.

"And from the sultana's manner I could see the trepidation that filled her heart--the dread that her childlessness might in the end rob her of her husband's love. It was not given to me to look upon her face--to get more than a glimpse of her eyes as they shot an occasional glance at me through the parted folds of her veil. But in these glances I had read the prayers of entreaty that I should use all the spells of my art in her favour, so as to obtain for her from G.o.d the gift of a son.

"Well, after a time an unexpected thing happened. Mirza Shah was absent from his home--gone on a full week's journey, engaged in the settling of some dispute on the confines of his territory. To me there came one afternoon the sultana, attended by one of her women--the most trusted one, I knew, for both were from the same country, near to Amritsar, where the famous rugs are woven. So much I had learned, and this further I also knew, that by birth the sultana was a Hindu, although on being wed to her lord as a little girl, she had of course embraced the true faith of Islam, in so far as it matters for a woman to have any religion at all.

"It was the female attendant who spoke to me, her mistress listening in silence. But the questions came so readily that it was clear the lesson had been well rehea.r.s.ed by the twain.

"'Astrologer,' she began, 'can you swear on the Koran that the stars speak truth?'

"'That I can swear,' I replied, with due dignity and respect for myself and my profession.

"'Can the stars bring about the wishes of man or of woman?'

"'Nay, that I do not declare. They rule the lives of men and women only in so far as their movements forecast the future. If we can read the stars aright, we may gain foreknowledge of events destined to happen.

For what is written in the scroll of fate cannot be changed. From kismet there is no escape."

"'Then tell me this, O astrologer, from your stars: is my n.o.ble lady here ever going to have a child, a son?'

"'That question I cannot answer. Unless I have the horoscope of her highness, cast by skilled hands at the time of her birth, I cannot tell which planet rules her destiny.'