The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales of Destiny, by Edmund Mitchell

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Title: Tales of Destiny

Author: Edmund Mitchell

Release Date: August 10, 2006 [EBook #19017]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF DESTINY ***

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TALES OF DESTINY

By EDMUND MITCHELL

LONDON
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD
1913

COPYRIGHT, 1912
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY
EDMUND MITCHELL

CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Chap. I. The Maid of Jhalnagor. Told by the Rajput Chief 5

II. The Hollow Column. Told by the Tax-Collector 19

III. What the Stars ordained. Told by the Astrologer 35

IV. The Spirit Wail. Told by the Merchant 60

V. The Blue Diamonds. Told by the Fakir 101

VI. The Tiger of the Pathans. Told by the Afghan General 128

VII. Her Mother Love. Told by the Physician 146

VIII. The Sacred Pickaxe, Told by the Magistrate 170

TALES OF DESTINY

INTRODUCTION

Just without one of the massive bastioned gates of the city of
Fathpur-Sikri there stood in the year 1580 a caravanserai that afforded
accommodation for man and beast. Here would alight travellers drawn by
the calls of homage, by business, or by curiosity to the famous Town of
Victory, built, as the inscription over the gateway told, by "His
Majesty, King of Kings, Heaven of the Court, Shadow of God, Jalal-ad-din
Mohammed Akbar Padishah."

At the time of our story Akbar was at the zenith of his glory. He had
moved his court from Agra, the capital of his predecessors on the throne
of the Moguls, after having raised for himself, on the spot where the
birth of a son had been promised him by a hermit saint, this superb new
city of Fathpur-Sikri, seven miles in circumference, walled and guarded
by strong forts at its seven gateways. Emperor and nobles had vied with
each other in erecting palaces of stately design and exquisi