"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.
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