VIII. COUNCIL CHAMBER
The brilliant scene which Noren had witnessed in the morning in the Hall of Audience was in striking contrast to the proceedings in the Council Chamber to which it was his privilege to be admitted the same evening. For the Emperor wished to have a clear view of the situation in Bengal, and he had desired Raja Man Singh to bring with him the young Bengal Chief.
The Council Chamber was a smaller room than the great Audience Hall, and it was Akbar's custom to receive private reports and hold private consultations within its walls on all grave affairs of State. Few except the highest Grandees were admitted here, few except those in whom the Emperor confided or whose presence was required. The Emperor sat in that Chamber, not as a Monarch robed in jewels and silk before a vast multitude of his subjects, but as a careworn old man, still directing with watchful solicitude the government of his Empire.
For forty-five years had this gifted man held his rule, and they were generally years of internal peace and of extension of the frontiers. Kabul and Kandahar, Kashmir and Sindh, and the rich provinces of Gajrat and Bengal had been added to the Empire, which now extended from the Himalayas to the Vindhyas, and from the mountains of the Hindu Kush to the frontiers of Assam. Recently he had
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