“My own!” answered the noble firmly.
“What was your object?”
“To get rid of a tyrant!”
“Was that woman your accomplice?” asked Mujahid Shah, pointing to the siren who had placed his life in jeopardy.
“No; she is innocent.”
The wretched woman, who had stood pale and abashed before the royal presence, immediately recovered her composure, and affected to repel the suspicion with indignation.
The accomplice of her brother did not betray her. He would reveal nothing, but made up his mind to die with that sullen resolution so frequently witnessed at public executions. The king, summoning two attendants, ordered them to take the traitor into an adjoining apartment and strangle him. This was accordingly done, and his body thrown from the window. By the time Mujahid Shah quitted the house in the morning, nothing but a skeleton was seen upon the spot where the strangled corpse had been cast the preceding night.
The sovereign having so narrowly escaped, was reminded by the faithful Mahmood of the policy of withdrawing himself from the woman who had obtained so entire an ascendancy over his heart; but such was his infatuation that he could not believe her guilty. She had been pronounced innocent by the confederate of her brother; and so complete was her empire over him, that he would not allow himself to suppose her implicated in the conspiracy against him. She affected to curse her brother’s memory, not only for the murderous act of lifting his arm against his sovereign’s life, but likewise for involving her in the suspicion of having been an accomplice in so wicked a design.
“Make your mind easy,” said the king, in reply to her asseverations of innocence; “my confidence in your affection is not to be shaken. A woman does not hate out of mere wantonness the man to whom she has relinquished all that is most prized by her sex. Great sacrifices are only made for those we love, and for me you have made the greatest.”
“I fear I have an enemy in your armour-bearer,” said the artful siren; “and cannot but feel apprehensive that he will eventually tear me from your heart; this fear is a perpetual sting in my bosom. I have never given him any cause of offence; and yet he continually pours the poison of prejudice into the king’s ear.”