"Her Majesty will not be disappointed, after all," said he, with a courtly bow to us, "and the commission the Maharajah's honoured me with shall be fulfilled."


The poor gentleman was taken ashore that afternoon, and his luggage followed him. He was certified mad by the medical man at Cape Town, and was to be retained there, as I understood, till the arrival of a steamer for England. It was an odd, bewildering incident from top to bottom. No doubt this particular delusion was occasioned by the poor fellow, whose mind was then fast decaying, reading about the transmission of the Koh-i-noor, and musing about it with a mad-man's proneness to dwell upon little things.


II.

FIG. 16.