ession might
descend on one particular son, elder by several years, but not in the
regular line of succession because born of a slave mother. It was this
slave woman's brother who commanded the maharajah's bodyguard, and, in
collusion with his sister, had conceived the damnable conspiracy. Only
by the whisper of a woman who was close to the officer, but whose heart
was tender, had the mother of the young heir to the throne been warned.
With my aid, and that of the eunuch who had visited me the day before,
they had made their escape, the youth having been hidden in the
palankeen of his mother before the latter left the seraglio on one of
her occasional visits to the bazaars.

"Such was the story. Now the future had to be planned, for up to this
point the maharanee had acted blindly and impulsively--just swiftly--the
moment she had realized the supreme danger for her son. In the boy I
found high courage and a clear brain, and together we devised the
measures to be followed that would best allay suspicion as to the
whereabouts of the fugitives.

"As a first step I sallied forth as usual to pay my professional visit
on the maharajah a little before the noontide hour. Perhaps I felt
that, if by any chance suspicion had already alighted upon me, I was
taking my life in my hands by entering the palace; but, trusting to the
protection of Allah, I gave no second thought to any fear of this kind.

"I had not yet reached the palace gates when I encountered a messenger
running in hot haste to summon me. His highness the maharajah had been
seized with a fit, and the whole palace was in a turmoil.

"When I gained the royal apartment I saw at a glance that the sufferer
was beyond human aid. I could but watch the deep laboured breathing,
growing ever fainter and fainter, until the death-rattle in the throat
proclaimed the end.

"During that hour of watching my soul had been gravely perturbed, not
because of the dying debauchee, but in dread of sinister happenings in
the royal zenana when the news of the maharajah's demise should come to
be announced. But how was I to give warning without betraying to certain
death the youth and his mother who had sought sanctuary in my
defenceless home? For there, at the door of the sick room, stood the
captain of the king's bodyguard, Todar Rao, the very man who, I knew,
held his corrupt soldiery in leash for any villainy.

"Another high officer of the court, the diwan, had shared my vigil in
t