pons. The armed men in the entrance sprang
forward at Gerrard, who believed that his last moment had come. But to
his amazement a ring of bucklers encompassed him. The six Rajputs had
remained when Kharrak Singh was taken away, and they stepped before him
with ready swords. Baulked of the easy prey they had expected, Sher
Singh's men hesitated, and the councillors flung themselves into the
breach, weeping, clutching at the Prince's coat, urging in tremulous
voices the impolicy of slaying a British envoy and thus bringing
destruction upon Agpur. Sher Singh allowed himself to be turned from
his immediate purpose.

"Let the Feringhee live for the present," he said, waving his followers
back. "Speak, O Jirad Sahib, you who hide behind the servants of a
woman, and tell me who stood to profit by my father's death?"

"You!" returned Gerrard promptly. "You, who have trumped up this story
of a reconciliation, and come here to assert it now that he cannot
contradict you. You, of whom your father spoke to me with aversion and
absolute lack of forgiveness only last night. Tell me," he turned to
the councillors, "when did this messenger of Kunwar Sher Singh's
arrive--before my visit to his Highness, or after I had left him? You,
O Sarfaraz Khan, as keeper of his Highness's head, must know all who
entered or left his presence. When was it?"

The old Mohammedan captain of the guard gazed miserably from Gerrard to
Sher Singh and back again, and finally faltered out that to the best of
his recollection it was before the Sahib's visit.

"Then the petition had been rejected before I arrived, and the
messenger despatched bearing the Rajah's refusal to see his son's
face," said Gerrard.

"The man lies. It was after," burst forth Sher Singh. "Here is Sada
Sukhi, the king's friend, who can testify it."

"Then," said Gerrard calmly, "the messenger murdered the Rajah, since
both my guards and his own can testify that he bade me farewell in good
health at the door of this very tent, and did me the honour to admire
my horse."

"Fool! does a man murder the one who has just promised to give him all
he desires?" cried Sher Singh.

"No, but he does sometimes murder the one who has refused it. And so
Prince Sher Singh was his own messenger?"

"It is a lie--I swear it!" He appealed frantically to the bystanders.
"I was at Adamkot, the fortress of my father-in-law, and rode forth on
the very heels of my messenger, so eager was