"Well, if it had been me, hanged if I wouldn't have taken the job, as the wigging is bound to come anyhow. A man might do a good deal while the runners were going to Ranjitgarh and back. But as Antony will probably punish your misdeeds by sentencing you to stay on here and keep the peace between the rival Regents, it's just as well you didn't make yourself impossible by accepting. Can't say I envy you the billet."
"I am almost inclined to ask you to shoot me through the head and put me out of my misery," remarked Gerrard.
"Oh, cheer up! We may all be shot down in a heap to-morrow, you know, in spite of my powers of persuasion. But I don't fancy you will, somehow. Sher Singh asked me very mysteriously whether you knew the secret of the entrance to his father's private treasury. Not knowing I couldn't say, but I can be mysterious too, and I told him there were some things that couldn't be spoken about. He seemed to take that as an affirmative, and I think he felt that to shut you up there to feed on gold was about the only thing that would fit the case. But, by the way, how is it that he leaves the palace to you to-night, if he believes you know the secret?"
"He don't know it himself. I am the only living creature that does, now, and you are the only living creature that I may reveal it to."
"An honour likely to be associated with sudden and painful death—eh? But I'm game. And as your principal duty in connection with the treasury will probably be to pay out of it Sher Singh's allowance as fixed by the Ranjitgarh Durbar, I don't fancy you'll enjoy a bed of roses."
[1] Treasury.
CHAPTER IX.
IN SLIPPERY PLACES.
Owing to the combined influence of Charteris's strong hand, Gerrard's lavish promises to the army, and what Colonel Antony chose to style the "moderation" of Sher Singh, the succession of Kharrak Singh to his father's throne was effected without general bloodshed. The city was evidently seething with all the possibilities of revolt when the funeral procession entered and passed through the streets, but the army was staunch for the moment—apparently from a sportsmanlike readiness to allow Gerrard to redeem his promises if he could—and one or two attempts at disturbance were ruthlessly put down. The women and the corpse of Partab Singh were got safely into the palace, and Sher Singh, who would have liked to edge in under cover of the confusion, dexterously excluded. The walls were garrisoned by the loyal guard, the disappointed Sher Singh quartering himself with his followers in the house of a reluctant Armenian near at hand, and Gerrard and Charteris spent an arduous night in getting up from the secret treasury an amount sufficient to fulfil their obligations. The heads of the goldsmiths' guild had been warned to be in attendance early in the morning, and they came with a mixture of surly defiance and ostentation of poverty that showed they expected Gerrard's financial expedient to take the form of obtaining a forced loan from them. The sight of the gold ingots softened them wonderfully, and though it would not have been human nature had they failed to exact an exorbitant rate of exchange for their silver, both sides parted well pleased, the money-changers only grieving that they could not discover whether this transaction was a final one, or merely a prelude to further business of the same sort.
The military arrangements for the funeral were made by Gerrard and Charteris, who were quite aware that they and their men, in the character of sympathetic spectators, were in as great danger as Kharrak Singh himself. The army must be entrusted with the duty of keeping the ground, since it was necessary for the guard, with the exception of a small detachment, to remain at the palace and garrison it in case of a surprise attack, and had the army been ill-disposed, it could have swept away both claimants and the small Ranjitgarh force with a single volley. But the army remained unmoved, and Sher Singh walked behind Kharrak Singh as mourner, and guided his hand when he set light to the great pyre of sandalwood dripping with costly perfumes. It was the first time that the body of a Rajah of Agpur had been burnt without the accompanying self-immolation of a number of his women, and troops and Brahmins were alike displeased, while the mob surging outside the lines enlivened the ceremony with taunts and maledictions. The troops made various raids into the crowd to punish the most outspoken of the dissentients, and this may have served to assure the people that there would be no change in the drastic methods of Partab Singh. At any rate, when the dead man's two sons had watched the pyre burn down into ashes, had performed the ceremonies of purification and were returning—on separate elephants, for the Rani had insisted on this—to the square before the palace for the proclamation of the new Rajah, the mob acclaimed Kharrak Singh with ardour.