rouched on his
cushions and stared at the purdah that divided him from the Lady; and
all day the people came and went about him, and there was silence from
the voice he longed to hear; for she would not moan, lest the sound
should slay the Emperor. Her women besought her, fearing that her strong
silence would break her heart; but still she lay, her hands clenched in
one another, enduring; and the Emperor endured without. The Day of the
Smiting!

So, as the time of the evening prayer drew nigh, a child was born,
and the Empress, having done with pain, began to sink slowly into
that profound sleep that is the shadow cast by the Last. May Allah the
Upholder have mercy on our weakness! And the women, white with fear
and watching, looked upon her, and whispered one to another, "It is the
end."

And the aged mother of Abdul Mirza, standing at her head, said, "She
heeds not the cry of the child. She cannot stay." And the newly wed
wife of Saif Khan, standing at her feet, said, "The voice of the beloved
husband is as the Call of the Angel. Let the Padishah be summoned."

So, the evening prayer being over (but the Emperor had not prayed), the
wisest of the hakims, Kazim Sharif, went before him and spoke:--

"Inhallah! May the will of the Issuer of Decrees in all things be done!
Ascribe unto the Creator glory, bowing before his Throne."

And he remained silent; but the Padishah, haggard in his jewels, with
his face hidden, answered thickly, "The truth! For Allah has forgotten
his slave."

And Kazim Sharif, bowing at his feet and veiling his face with his
hands, replied:

"The voice of the child cannot reach her, and the Lady of Delight
departs. He who would speak with her must speak quickly."

Then the Emperor rose to his feet unsteadily, like a man drunk with
the forbidden juice; and when Kazim Sharif would have supported him, he
flung aside his hands, and he stumbled, a man wounded to death, as it
were, to the marble chamber where she lay.

In that white chamber it was dusk, and they had lit the little cressets
so that a very faint light fell upon her face. A slender fountain a
little cooled the hot, still air with its thin music and its sprinkled
diamonds, and outside, the summer lightnings were playing wide and blue
on the river; but so still was it that the dragging footsteps of the
Emperor raised the hair on the flesh of those who heard, So the women
who should, veiled themselves, and the others remained like pil