“Yet Keedar Khan made you his vizier, and his son retained you?”
“Yes; and I have been faithful.”
“But now, it seems to me, you are speaking treason,” said the physician.
“Not so,” declared the vizier, indignantly. “Burah Khan, by your own showing, is virtually dead at this moment. I owe no allegiance to his son, whom I have never seen.”
“How is that?” asked the physician, in surprise.
“When Ahmed was a child his father, fearing a revolt and that his boy might fall by an assassin’s knife, placed him in the Sunnite monastery at Takkatu for safe keeping. There he has remained ever since. It will be necessary for Burah Khan to officially acknowledge him before the chiefs of the Nine Tribes and to appoint him his own successor, before Ahmed can legally occupy the throne. If this is not done the people, who are weary of the rule of these tyrants, will acclaim Kasam as khan.”
“But Prince Ahmed will arrive, and be acknowledged. Burah Khan has so willed it, and he is still the master.”
Agahr faced the Persian with an angry frown.
“Do you refuse to assist us?” he asked, sharply.
“I refuse to betray the man whose life I have promised to preserve until his son arrives,” declared the physician.