“Let me hear thy voice, slave. What punishment does the man deserve who deposes a monarch and murders his nobles?”
The slave was still silent.
“Traitor, I am blind! it was through thee that these eyes were closed in everlasting darkness. The penalty of crime is now demanded. Art thou prepared to perish?”
There was no answer. The ex-king placed his hand upon Lallcheen’s shoulder, and raising his sword, brought it with the full force of an arm of vengeance upon the head of the criminal, who fell dead at the avenger’s feet.
On the following day Agha solicited an audience of the new monarch.
“King,” she said, “I need not tell you that mercy is the brightest jewel in the regal sceptre. It is the axiom of every country where sovereigns reign and people are obedient.”
“On whose account, lovely girl, do you seek to propitiate the royal clemency?”
“On that of the deposed monarch, Shums-ood-Deen. I know him to have been innocent of any participation in the late transactions which have cast such ignominy upon the memory of one whom I would willingly have remembered as a good man. Shums-ood-Deen sought not to reign. Had he rejected the throne, his only alternative was to die. We were plighted to each other. I refused to wed him as a king, when I did not consider his elevation just; but I am prepared to link my destiny with his now the bar is removed which disunited us.”
“Your wish, lady, shall be fulfilled. He will be released for your sake, with the government of Dowlatabad as a reward for his temperance upon the throne. You shall be the messenger of these tidings.”
Agha fell at the king’s feet; he raised and dismissed her, with kind assurances of future favour. She sought the apartment in which Shums-ood-Deen was confined. He was seated on the ground at the extremity fronting the door, and remarked not her entrance. His hand was upon his brow. He seemed to press it, as if it ached from the severe infliction of his own thoughts. The sigh came heavily from his bosom, and he occasionally muttered indistinct sounds, which were evidently the groanings of a lacerated spirit. He did not raise his head as Agha advanced, but appeared unconscious of her presence.