“You may trust Fra Pietro, Princess, as you would trust none other.”
“Yet I have trusted many to-night. Now list to me carefully, for time presses. Jahangir dies ere daybreak, and there is much to be done by a man who shall risk all.”
“The Emperor dies! Do you mean that he is to be murdered?”
“Call it what you will, his death is ordained. Nay, frown not so ominously. ’Tis not of my planning. Those who wish his downfall are not seeking to avenge my wrongs. If they succeed, and I see no reason why they should fail, they aim at placing Khusrow on the throne. And who is Khusrow? A boy of ten! I, a woman, am a mere puppet in their hands. That is why I am here. You see one who is in the counsels of both parties yet bound to neither.”
She threw back her head, and the circlet of brilliants across her smooth white brow did not send forth brighter gleams than her eyes. Speaking so freely of treason and dynastic plots, she smiled as though the whole affair were some hoax of which she alone knew the petty secret.
“You have met Raja Man Singh and his ally, the Maharaja of Bikanir?” she continued, coolly, before Walter could decide what shape the tumultuous questions trembling on his lips should take.
“Yes,” he answered, “and they are well aware with what loathing I regard their schemes.”
“It is always possible to change one’s mind,” she said slowly. “I cannot, in a few minutes, give you the history of months; the record of the past few hours must suffice. Since it was known that you and the Hathi-sahib were returning to Agra there has been naught but plot and counter-plot. First, those who conspire against the Emperor look to you to help them, and are even now awaiting you in the baraduri at the bottom of the garden. Secondly, Jahangir, well aware of their intent, has resolved to ensnare them and you in one cast of the net. Hence, the followers of Raja Man Singh and those others who will strike for Khusrow are gathering silently, some within a stone’s throw of the outer walls of the palace, ready to follow their leader in the attack on the fort, where the guard of the Delhi Gate will admit them, the remainder among the trees without. But the forces of the Emperor, ten times more numerous, will fall on them at midnight, whereas the revolt is timed for the first hour. Already the traitors inside the fort have been secured. A few live to delude their friends—most are dead. All this, you may say, concerns you not. You are wrong, Mowbray-sahib. You are a greater man than you think. The conspirators count surely on your assistance and that of Sainton-sahib, whose repute with the common people is worth a whole army. Therefore, lest aught miscarried, they came to me and urged me to induce you to head the outbreak. Though I am a weak woman, I might not have consented had not the Emperor joined his supplications to theirs.”
“The Emperor!” cried Walter, with involuntary loudness.
“Hush! The baraduri is not far distant. Yes, Jahangir still favors me with his jealousy. He does not know that—that—you are longing for the sight of some other woman beyond the black seas. Do not misunderstand me. Jahangir hates me and fears you. Kept well informed by his spies of all that was going on, he connived at the scheme which brought you and me to the forefront of the rebellion. Thus, when he stamps it out in blood, we shall be the chief victims. But that is not all. Raja Man Singh and his friends are in no mind to kill Jahangir and clear the way for a foreign intruder. They, too, see how we may serve their ends. Once the Emperor is dead it will be a fitting excuse to get rid of us on the ground that we conspired against him.”