he death chamber, and just before the end came had informed me that it
was news of an attack by budmashes on one of the royal palankeens that
morning in the bazaars that had inflicted the fatal stroke upon his
master. But this treasurer was an aged man, who would have quailed under
the eye of the stern and relentless soldier keeping watch and ward at
the doorway, and, for all I knew, he, too, might be in the
conspiracy--indeed, his furtive glances and the nervous twitching of his
hands forewarned me of this danger.

"Surrounded by uncertainties, and utterly helpless in my isolation, I
could but drift whither the stream of destiny carried me.

"'The king is dead,' I announced, when the last flutter of the heart had
ceased. 'May God in His compassion give him peace.'

"The diwan summoned the captain of the bodyguard, and the latter, to
make certainty doubly sure, brutally shook the dead man by the shoulder.
I could see the savage gleam of satisfaction on his face when he threw
from him the already stiffening arm. The two men, in close conclave,
hastened from the chamber, and when the attendants set up the accustomed
cries of wailing I profited by the clamour and confusion to slip
discreetly from the palace and gain my own home.

"The terrible events of the next few days were, alas! just the same as
have befallen a hundred times on the passing of a king. The outside
world knew few details, but the news from the palace current in the
bazaars was that all the sons of the late maharajah had perished
excepting only the eldest. And this youth, although the whisper passed
freely that he was merely the son of a slave woman, duly ascended the
throne.

"Revolt by some of the nobles over such an indignity might come later
on. But meanwhile, at all events, the show of military power quelled all
opposition, while a judicious remission of taxes pleased the general
populace, and indeed caused them joyfully to acclaim the new maharajah
as he made a triumphal procession through the city, mounted on an
elephant caparisoned with cloth of gold and bedecked with silver chains
and bells, preceded by priests and the dancing girls of the temples, and
surrounded by troops, both horsemen and foot soldiers.

"Only I and the members of my household knew that the rightful heir to
the throne was alive and in safe hiding. For the moorman had never come
to claim his string of pearls, and it was not until some days later that
I had learned of his h