ill you try to keep me from my father now that he has sent for
me? Because he has not made his beneficent intentions known to you,
will you deny them? Let him be told that I am here, and you will learn
what is his will."

"Prince, your venerable father passed away in the night," said Gerrard
laconically. The exact bearing of this new arrival upon the situation
he could not determine, but he was very certain that it behoved him to
walk warily. Sher Singh turned upon him a magnificent glance of anger
and disdain.

"This is well done--very well done!" he exclaimed, while the
councillors cowered before the meaning accents like reeds before a
blast. "My lord and father proclaims his gracious willingness to lay
the hand of forgiveness upon the brow of penitence, and in the few
short hours before the feet of haste can carry me to the spot, he dies,
and his intentions are unfulfilled."

"Were his intentions known to any besides yourself, Prince?" asked
Gerrard, and noted that the eyes of the councillors sought Sher Singh's
face, as though to inquire what he wished them to say. But he
disregarded them.

"I understand that Jirad Sahib has enjoyed the honour of the Rajah's
confidence of late, to the neglect of his tried and trusted
councillors. Is it possible that nothing was said to him of my
father's wishes?"

"They were communicated to me in great detail, but you, Prince, bore no
part in them whatever." Gerrard weighed his words carefully, feeling
that the time had come to throw down the gauntlet.

Sher Singh turned slowly to the councillors, and Gerrard noticed for
the first time that the armed men who had accompanied him were crowding
at the entrance of the tent. "I call you all to witness," said the
Prince deliberately, "that this stranger, this encroaching Feringhee,
who has supplanted my father's natural councillors in his confidence,
desires now to supplant me also in my rights. Brothers, friends, when
he thought he had attained the height of his evil desires, and learned
too late that he had only opened the path for me, what did he do? My
father made his final decision last night, when he despatched to me
with a gracious message of favour the runner who had carried my humble
petition. Before I can arrive, before he can announce his
determination to the world, he dies. Who stands to profit by his
death?"

Before the last words were out of Sher Singh's mouth, the tent was
filled with the clash of wea