'From whom?' gasped Tom. 'Hoosanee?'
'No, Excellency; and yet it has to do with the errand on which Hoosanee was sent. Had his Highness been pleased to trust Ganesh with his confidence, he might—but'—dropping his voice to a still humbler tone—'I am delaying, and your Highness, I can see, is impatient. The message of which I have the honour to be the bearer is from the illustrious Dost Ali Khan.'
'A traitor and a rebel,' said Tom, sternly. 'Do you mean to tell me that one of my servants has been in communication with him?'
They were still close to the marble lattice. The storm had increased in violence, and so fearful was the tumult that they could scarcely hear one another's voices. Tom moved to the centre of the room, and, feeling almost too weak to stand, threw himself down on one of the mattresses.
'Explain yourself,' he said, as firmly as he could. 'I would not condemn you unheard.'
Ganesh had followed him; he stood at the foot of his couch, looking down upon him.
'Your Excellency,' he said, with that curious dignity which generally characterises an Indian who respects himself, 'I knew Dost Ali Khan in the days of his greatness. Was I to forsake him when he was poor and deserted?'
'Certainly not, Ganesh; but, if I am to believe what I hear, he is poor no longer.'
'If your Excellency means that Dost Ali Khan, the son of the late rajah's friend, has raised the standard of revolt, he is right. He has done it to recover his own. But to my master he means well. He has not forgotten Delhi, and his food and rest in my master's tent.'
'But the message,' said Tom impatiently.