“As this bizarre scion of an incredibly ancient régime read this extraordinary missive, with its exasperating reference to the restitution of Lal Lu, and considered the prompt realization of the threatened reprisal which had followed his first failure to comply with the request of Ram Lal, a sense of fear and futility possessed him.
“With curious apathy, an unaccountable suggestion of impersonality, almost, he did not pause to consider the absence of the intolerant passion which his loss should have occasioned, or to wonder at his bewildered reception of this implication of further dispossession.
“The prince appeared to be moving as in a spell; but as he concluded the remainder of the missive and remembered, at its inspiration, that he was, indeed, the grandson of the Moghul and the heir-apparent of this pageant throne of Delhi, a sensible degree of his customary cynical assurance returned.
“Hastening to the ante-room, the prince, with alert reanimation, questioned the stalwart official who stood without.
“He indicated to his master that the missive had been left upon the outer sill of the threshold leading from the ante-room to the corridor which opened upon the courtyard.
“Beyond this nothing could be learned; but other and more absorbing information was conveyed to the prince.
“He learned that several bodies of Sepoys had already passed the palace, on the highway, in the direction of Delhi.
“Startled at this rapid confirmation of the statement conveyed in the strange communication which he had just read, the prince rapidly reviewed the singular cause of the mutiny.
“Great Britain had just supplied the native soldiery with the Enfield rifle.
“This weapon was rendered formidable by a new cartridge, which, in order that it might not bind in the barrel bore, was greased in England with the fat of beef or pork.