te hall of
audience--the Diwan-i-khas. It was an imposing scene: the pure white
marble of the walls, ornamented with delicate inlaid work; the rich
decorations and gorgeous colour of the ceiling; the arches with mosaic
traceries, giving views of beautiful gardens: all this would have made a
fit setting for a mighty monarch's court. The old king, tremulous with
age and anxieties, sat in the centre on a dais of white marble, and no
doubt deplored at times the cupidity of his predecessor Nadir Shah, who
had turned into money, a hundred years before, the wondrous peacock
throne, in which the spread tails of the birds were encrusted with
sapphires and rubies and diamonds and other precious stones, cunningly
arranged in imitation of the natural colours. But his monarchy was sadly
diminished in wealth and dignity. Successive invaders had all taken
something for themselves; and though he was in courtesy styled king, and
received royal salutes from the guards at his doors, his territory had
been confined, since the British imposed their rule upon him, to his
palace; and instead of the untold wealth that had once been his, he had
been granted the mere pittance of L120,000 a year. And now it seemed
that he would lose even this, for the British still held the Ridge; his
generals and their forty thousand men had as yet made good none of their
confident boasts of sweeping the handful of Feringhis away, and the old
king wished with all his heart that the mutineers had let well alone. He
was depressed, wretched; what a mockery seemed that gilt scroll of
Persian on the arches above his head--

"If on earth is a bower of bliss,
It is this, it is this, it is this."

The hall was thronged. There was Bakht Khan, the commander-in-chief, the
square blunt soldier, who was yet said by some to hide under his
bluffness a character of cunning and duplicity. To him the querulous old
king turned a cold shoulder; for he had been for several weeks in the
city, and yet no success had attended his arms save the burning of
Alipur--a trumpery feat. There was Mirza Mogul, daily growing more
jealous of his supplanter. Bakht Khan's men had received six months' pay
in advance ('tis true it was the product of their own plundering), while
Mirza Mogul had the greatest difficulty in squeezing a few thousand
rupees out of the treasury to satisfy his clamorous troops. There was
Ahsanullah, the king's physician, a thin fox-faced man in black; and
Mirza Nos