“‘Ah!’ the prince groaned aloud; the veins of his forehead knotted; a sharp, strained look appeared in his eyes, and he shivered with a mortal chill.
“A stinging, sharp surge attracted his attention to his right wrist.
“It was swollen beyond its usual size, and a bluish discoloration surrounded the livid line where the dagger point had penetrated.
“He placed his hands together and noted their disproportion, considered the wounded arm, and then—he remembered.
“‘The dagger!’ he gasped, and a new horror charged his bloodshot eyes as he recalled the devilish craft employed by the natives to envenom their weapons.
“‘Poisoned! and by Lal Lu!’
“At this thought the malignant light of a fearful determination illumed his features and revealed their frightful distortion.
“‘I shall not—go—alone!’ he sighed, and repossessing himself of the fatal dagger, which he had cast upon the table on entering the room, he rose from the chair, looked with fearful purpose upon the curtains which disguised the entrance to the secret passageway from which he had emerged but a short time before, took one step forward, and then fell inertly on to the couch from which he had risen in the excitement of his malignant impulse.
“‘Ha!’ The faint sound of an alien air smote his ears.
“‘The bagpipes!’ he muttered; ‘the Scots, the hellish Highlanders.’