“Rest assured of that,” said the doctor gravely. “Nothing shall be given to you that I have not examined. Try and rest in the full confidence that you are safe.”
The Rajah shuddered, and just then he saw the Ranee approaching, and he closed his eyes.
She paused for a moment, but came on to his side to kneel down and whisper, the officers drawing back.
“Have I not sworn to you that this was not my doing?” she said reproachfully.
“Yes,” he said in the same low tone; “you, my mother, could not have been guilty of such a horror. But I know—I cannot be deceived—it was the work of your friends, and it was meant for mine.”
Chapter XXXIII.
Wyatt Smokes the Hubble-Bubble.
“What have you got there, Doctor Robson?” said Dick one morning about a month later, when the troubles of the past seemed to have given way to perfect peace, the defeat of the revolutionary party on the morning after the poisoning having resulted in the flight of most of the leaders, and the settling down of the people to the Rajah’s wishes.
For during his illness, when he had more than once been at the point of death, the English troops had remained in the new palace; and, in spite of their seeming to be so much out of place there, a detachment of the horse artillery-men had their quarters in and held the huge temple, to the disgust of the chief Brahmin and his large following of priests.
Then, as under the constant care of the army doctor the Rajah began to mend, he expressed his wish that those who had saved his little kingdom for him should remain, with the result that, while the old palace was retained for the stabling and stores, the main portion of the troop, with the guns, occupied one side of the palace in conjunction with the Rajah’s bodyguard, of which they now seemed to form a portion; while, to the great annoyance of the native doctors, the army surgeon completely took their place.