ing me along the path of duty, and not
for a moment did I shrink from the dangers into which, perchance, I was
being hurried.

"For the maharajah, worthless, besotted, and on the verge of dishonoured
death, I could have no respect. For the lady of his household, who was
confiding to me her very life, whose soft hand I had touched with due
reverence, there was an instinctive feeling of sympathy. In her hour of
dire need, most likely of extreme danger, she had turned to me, a man
of staid repute and old enough, no doubt, to be her father. So this was
no affair of conjugal wrong, from which my religious scruples and my
abiding principles alike, would have repelled me. Clearly was I the
instrument in God's directing hand for some great happening, and it was
not for me, through thought of self or cowardice, to interpose obstacles
to the carrying out of the divine will.

"And as I thus ruminated there came from a minaret close by the call to
evening prayer. 'The world is but an hour,' I murmured to myself as I
spread my carpet; 'spend it in devotion, the rest is unseen.'

"On the morrow I was astir even before the morning call to prayer.
'Prayer is better than sleep'--I listened to the familiar cry of the
muezzin. But while again I prayed I felt that a good deed done may count
more for a man at the gates of Paradise than the record of many prayers.

"Full an hour before the appointed time I was at the corner of the
coppersmiths' and the money-changers' bazaars. Here I posted two of my
retainers, in whom I could place complete confidence. They had already
been instructed how to act when the proper moment arrived. For myself, I
sauntered through the crowded and noisy bazaar of the makers and menders
of copper vessels, so as not to attract undue attention. In my heart was
not one flutter of excitement or of uncertainty: I felt the quiet
confidence which in the crises of life comes to a man whose trust in
God the Most High is implicit.

"After a period of waiting there came into sight the huge black moorman,
in his hand a white wand of office, and, following close behind him, a
brilliantly decorated palankeen suspended between a pair of mules and
attended by two grooms, leading the animals. The throng had parted
before this little procession, averting their eyes from the covered
palankeen, as was beseeming.

"But suddenly, at the intersection of the two bazaars, a group of
loiterers sprang forward, and with cries assailed t