"At my bidding the inner gates opened, and they closed again when the palankeen had entered.
"'Within is sanctuary for your royal mother, and here is sanctuary for yourself, O prince,' I continued, with a profound obeisance, for, despite the modest garments he wore, I had recognized the eldest royal son of the maharajah, whom I had seen several times in his father's presence, and on one occasion at an affair of state clad in a robe of honour of silk and gold brocade, festoons of jewels around his neck, and a tiny sword with scabbard of gold girt at his side.
"Having once more impressed secrecy on my attendants, and bidding them give admission to no one, I led my young guest into an inner reception room. There, in a few concise sentences, he told me his story.
"A plot had been hatched in the royal zenana that, just so soon as the maharajah died, this youth, and seven or eight younger brothers, sons of other wives, should be slain, so that the undisputed succession might descend on one particular son, elder by several years, but not in the regular line of succession because born of a slave mother. It was this slave woman's brother who commanded the maharajah's bodyguard, and, in collusion with his sister, had conceived the damnable conspiracy. Only by the whisper of a woman who was close to the officer, but whose heart was tender, had the mother of the young heir to the throne been warned. With my aid, and that of the eunuch who had visited me the day before, they had made their escape, the youth having been hidden in the palankeen of his mother before the latter left the seraglio on one of her occasional visits to the bazaars.
"Such was the story. Now the future had to be planned, for up to this point the maharanee had acted blindly and impulsively—just swiftly—the moment she had realized the supreme danger for her son. In the boy I found high courage and a clear brain, and together we devised the measures to be followed that would best allay suspicion as to the whereabouts of the fugitives.
"As a first step I sallied forth as usual to pay my professional visit on the maharajah a little before the noontide hour. Perhaps I felt that, if by any chance suspicion had already alighted upon me, I was taking my life in my hands by entering the palace; but, trusting to the protection of Allah, I gave no second thought to any fear of this kind.
"I had not yet reached the palace gates when I encountered a messenger running in hot haste to summon me. His highness the maharajah had been seized with a fit, and the whole palace was in a turmoil.
"When I gained the royal apartment I saw at a glance that the sufferer was beyond human aid. I could but watch the deep laboured breathing, growing ever fainter and fainter, until the death-rattle in the throat proclaimed the end.
"During that hour of watching my soul had been gravely perturbed, not because of the dying debauchee, but in dread of sinister happenings in the royal zenana when the news of the maharajah's demise should come to be announced. But how was I to give warning without betraying to certain death the youth and his mother who had sought sanctuary in my defenceless home? For there, at the door of the sick room, stood the captain of the king's bodyguard, Todar Rao, the very man who, I knew, held his corrupt soldiery in leash for any villainy.
"Another high officer of the court, the diwan, had shared my vigil in the death chamber, and just before the end came had informed me that it was news of an attack by budmashes on one of the royal palankeens that morning in the bazaars that had inflicted the fatal stroke upon his master. But this treasurer was an aged man, who would have quailed under the eye of the stern and relentless soldier keeping watch and ward at the doorway, and, for all I knew, he, too, might be in the conspiracy—indeed, his furtive glances and the nervous twitching of his hands forewarned me of this danger.