From second in command to the office of commander-in-chief, was but one step. It mattered little to the unscrupulous Amalickiah that Lehonti stood in the way. He had slow poison administered in his food. When the latter sickened the Nephite took over his duties.
As the two sat at the table at dinner, one day, Lehonti collapsed and fell on the floor. Amalickiah shrugged his shoulders and indifferently remarked that he had taken a fit. When the physicians examined the prostrate figure and pronounced him dead, Amalickiah affected surprise. He ordered that Lehonti be buried with military honors, and that same day appointed himself to the dead man's place.
Slowly the great army began to make its way back to the capitol. Runners brought word to the king that the hosts covered the plains. Thinking that Amalickiah had gathered together so great an army to go to battle against the Nephites, he, with great pomp, accompanied by his guards, sallied out to meet the victorious general. He did not know that Amalickiah would fain advance another step and that the king himself this time stood in the way.
The advance scouts, the employed hirelings of the general, went ahead of the army and bowed themselves down before the king to do him reverence. Among them was Tish, noted for his dog-like devotion to his master. It was he, it was suspected, who had administered the poison to Lehonti. Whatever his faults, he was unswerving in his loyalty to his chief. It chanced that he knelt directly in front of the monarch. When the sovereign put forth his hand to raise him in token of peace, he leaned forward and buried his dagger to the hilt in the king's heart. So quickly had it happened as the two men stood together, so sure was the stroke, that not until the king went down on his back and the red spot on his robe slowly widened, did the dazed onlookers realize what had happened. The attendants, in abject terror that they would share a like fate, swiftly fled.
An accomplice, taking his cue from the fleeing servants came up and addressed the assassin.
"So his own guards have killed the king and are running away."
Tish, smiling sardonically down on his own blade drinking the life blood of the dying monarch, murmured, "It must be so."
The eye lids of the victim quivered accusingly an instant and then closed forever. Tish turned away his head.
The others closed in and raised a great shout, "Behold the servants of the king have stabbed him to the heart, and he has fallen and they have fled. Come and see."
They did not bethink themselves to pursue the refugees until Amalickiah, with the main division of the army came up.