“You refuse, then?” he cried fiercely.
I was still silent, and he turned from me in a rage, making a fierce motion for me to descend from the elephant, which I obeyed, while Ny Deen gave a short, sharp order in an angry tone, whose result was that one of his men seized me on either side, and I was more a prisoner than ever, with six men in front and six behind, fresh summoned from the guard-house, to march me away.
It was to my death, so it seemed in those terrible moments; while I had but to raise my voice and give my promise to the rajah, to be at once his honoured and trusted friend, commissioned with great power.
But I could not say the necessary words, any more than I could speak a minute before, and in the silence of despair I walked as firmly as I could in the direction taken by the men, feeling giddy with excitement, and as if all this were not real, but part of some terrible trouble befallen another.
I did not see what was about to happen, and was so wrapped up in my position, that I did not hear the huge elephant from which I had just descended shuffling after me, till the rajah’s voice called to my guard to halt. Then, leaning down from the howdah, he said to me—
“This is blind obstinacy. Come, say you will be my friend, and help me now that I want your services.”
“I cannot,” I said huskily.
Ny Deen uttered a fierce command to the mahout, the elephant swung round, and I set my teeth hard to keep from shouting to him to stop and take me with him. But I mastered my cowardly feeling, and marched on to what I felt was my execution, giving Ny Deen the credit of treating me as a soldier, though all the while it was in a curious, half-stupefied way, as if the shock had terrorised me, though after the first sensation of horror, I do not recall feeling any great amount of dread.
It was then with something approaching wonder that I saw the leading men of the guard wheel to the left through the entrance, and up the broad staircase, and along the passages, at the end of which were my rooms.
Here they drew back for me to enter, and the door was closed, the rattle of the men’s muskets announcing that they remained on guard.