The Rajah caused this safe to be built into the wall of his palace in a little room beyond the Hall of Audience. He superintended the building up of it with jealous eyes. And thereafter he would go thither day by day, once at least every day, coming back with brighter eyes. “He goes to count his treasure,” said Golam Shah, standing beside the empty daïs.
And in those days it was that the Rajah began to change. He who had been cunning and subtle became choleric and outspoken. His judgment grew harsh, and a taint that seemed to all about him to be assuredly the taint of avarice crept into his acts. Moreover, which inclined Golam Shah to hopefulness, he seemed to take a dislike to Azim Khan. Once indeed he made a kind of speech in the Hall of Audience. Therein he declared many times over in a peculiarly husky voice, husky yet full of conviction, that Azim Khan was not worth a half anna, not worth a half anna to any human soul.
In these latter days of the Rajah’s decline, moreover, when merchants came, he would go aside with them secretly into the little room, and speak low, so that those in the Hall of Audience, howsoever they strained their ears, could hear nothing of his speech. These things Golam Shah and Azim Khan and Samud Singh, who had joined their councils, treasured in their hearts.
“It is true about the treasure,” said Azim; “they talked of it round the well of the travellers, even the merchants from Tibet had heard the tale, and had come this way with jewels of price, and afterwards they went secretly telling no one.” And ever and again, it was said, came a negro mute from the plains, with secret parcels for the Rajah. “Another stone,” was the rumour that went the round of the city.
“The bee makes hoards,” said Azim Khan, the Rajah’s heir, sitting in the upper chamber of Golam Shah. “Therefore, we will wait awhile.” For Azim was more coward than traitor.
At last there were men in the Deccan even who could tell you particulars of the rubies and precious stones that the Rajah had gathered together. But so circumspect was the Rajah that Azim Khan and Golam Shah had never even set eyes on the glittering heaps that they knew were accumulating in the safe.
The Rajah always went into the little room alone, and even then he locked the door of the little room—it had a couple of locks—before he went to the safe and used the magic word. How all the ministers and officers and guards listened and looked at one another as the door of the room behind the curtain closed!
The Rajah changed indeed, in these days, not only in the particulars of his rule, but in his appearance. “He is growing old. How fast he grows old! The time is almost ripe,” whispered Samud Singh. The Rajah’s hand became tremulous, his step was now sometimes unsteady, and his memory curiously defective. He would come back out from the treasure-room, and his hand would tighten fiercely on the curtain, and he would stumble on the steps of the daïs. “His eyesight fails,” said Golam. “See!—His turban is askew. He is sleepy even in the forenoon, before the heat of the day. His judgments are those of a child.”
It was a painful sight to see a man so suddenly old and enfeebled still ruling men.
“He may go on yet, a score of years,” said Golam Shah.