"But, although the embers of revolt were ready to burst into flame at the first fanning of a breeze, Todar Rao, now sirdar in command of the whole army, still dominated the situation. At his slightest word the mercenary soldiery under his control would have rushed into the bazaars with sword and torch, like ravening wolves among sheep helpless to defend themselves. As for the nobles, each surrounded by his own bodyguard, they were torn into rival factions, the one jealously watching the other lest open revolt should be made the excuse for usurpation of the throne by the strongest and best prepared among them.
"In these circumstances it would have been fatal to let word go forth prematurely that the rightful heir was alive, for disappointed ambitions among the feudal lords might have become an added danger to the fury of the sirdar. But any prolonged delay would also be disastrous, for it was only now that the boy prince would be recognized and received as the undoubted heir to his father's throne; a few years later he would, to a certainty, be looked at askance as a mere pretender—a pawn in the game of some unscrupulous king-maker playing for his own aggrandizement.
"It was the maharanee who devised the bold stroke which involved undoubted danger yet promised the best chance of success. Her idea was to take the whole court unawares at one and the same moment, so that the nobles might have presented to them, not only a common rallying-point for loyalty, but the chance by united action to break for all time the hated military power of the slave-born sirdar.
"It was the appointed day when the recently installed maharajah, according to custom immemorial, was to be publicly weighed, and the gold he counterbalanced distributed in charity. In the great courtyard of the palace all the people were assembled, nobles and officers of state, soldiers and traders, rich and poor, among the latter the halt, the blind and the maimed, the deformed and the leprous, in pitiful evidence as fitting objects for a share of the promised bounty. On a raised dais, seated upon a throne covered with cloth of gold, and sheltered by a canopy and awnings of crimson brocade, sat the reigning maharajah, a puny and sickly-looking stripling.
"Before the main ceremony of the day, heralds had announced that the sovereign was prepared to listen to any grievances or complaints from his people. For a few minutes no one came forward, but at last a pair of sleek mules, handsomely caparisoned, with a richly adorned palankeen slung between them, the identical equipage of the maharanee which had been harboured in my home, emerged from the crowd, and advanced at a grave pace toward the royal dais. That some high-born lady was within the silken coverings of the palankeen every one surmised, and at this extraordinary spectacle a hush of tense expectancy fell upon the assemblage.
"But the silence changed to murmurs of amazement and admiration when a queenly woman stepped upon the edge of the dais, and faced, not the maharajah on his throne, but the nobles and courtiers and officers clustered around.
"With a proud gesture she flung even the sari from her face, which the play of the sunbeams among the jewels in her hair and around her neck invested with a shimmering halo of radiance. On such a woman's face the multitude had never looked before. But stately and unabashed, serene in the purity of her womanhood, the dignity of her motherhood, and the majesty of her rank, she raised aloft a hand, and spake aloud in tones clear as the notes of a silver trumpet.
"'O nobles and O people, the royal son and heir of my husband, the late maharajah, is alive, spared by divine Providence from the massacre of his brothers and playmates in the seraglio of the palace. Many of you know him well, and behold now he comes to claim his heritage.'
"As these words were spoken, the crowd again parted, and there stepped forth the young prince, my protégé. At the edge of the throng he discarded a loose mantle of cotton that had concealed the rich garments befitting his rank. Then he advanced, looking proudly and gaily about him, while close behind, and pressing eagerly around his person, came full fifty stalwart tribesmen, treading with the bold swinging gait of the mountaineer, their drawn tulwars flashing in the sun, their voices shouting 'Jai, jai,—Hail, hail!' in deafening chorus.
"The effect was instantaneous and tremendous, and from all the assembled multitude went up the loud acclaim—'Jai, jai, jai!' There seemed to be not a dissentient in the throng. And a moment later the young prince was standing on the dais by his mother's side, one hand resting proudly on her shoulder.