Chapter Forty Eight.
As soon as I could drag my eyes from Ny Deen’s mocking gaze, I looked round sharply for Dost, and a chill ran through me as I failed to see him. For the moment I hesitated to speak, in the hope that he might have escaped, and inquiries might only lead to his pursuit; but it was such a forlorn hope that I gave it up at once, and turned to speak to the rajah.
“Where is my servant?” I said. “Salaman?” he replied. “No, no; my old servant, Dost.”
“The man who was with you just now?”
“Yes,” I cried.
“I do not know,” replied Ny Deen. “I suppose killed, as the result of his rashness.”
I gave him a glance full of horror, and then looked round at the crowd of armed men so fiercely, that the rajah spoke.
“Where is the man,” he said. There was a dead silence, which I interpreted to mean that he had been killed.
The rajah took a step or two forward, glaring round so savagely that one of the men who had seized us prostrated himself.
“You have killed him?” said Ny Deen, in a low guttural voice, which made me shiver.