"During that hour of watching my soul had been gravely perturbed, not because of the dying debauchee, but in dread of sinister happenings in the royal zenana when the news of the maharajah's demise should come to be announced. But how was I to give warning without betraying to certain death the youth and his mother who had sought sanctuary in my defenceless home? For there, at the door of the sick room, stood the captain of the king's bodyguard, Todar Rao, the very man who, I knew, held his corrupt soldiery in leash for any villainy.
"Another high officer of the court, the diwan, had shared my vigil in the death chamber, and just before the end came had informed me that it was news of an attack by budmashes on one of the royal palankeens that morning in the bazaars that had inflicted the fatal stroke upon his master. But this treasurer was an aged man, who would have quailed under the eye of the stern and relentless soldier keeping watch and ward at the doorway, and, for all I knew, he, too, might be in the conspiracy--indeed, his furtive glances and the nervous twitching of his hands forewarned me of this danger.
"Surrounded by uncertainties, and utterly helpless in my isolation, I could but drift whither the stream of destiny carried me.
"'The king is dead,' I announced, when the last flutter of the heart had ceased. 'May God in His compassion give him peace.'
"The diwan summoned the captain of the bodyguard, and the latter, to make certainty doubly sure, brutally shook the dead man by the shoulder. I could see the savage gleam of satisfaction on his face when he threw from him the already stiffening arm. The two men, in close conclave, hastened from the chamber, and when the attendants set up the accustomed cries of wailing I profited by the clamour and confusion to slip discreetly from the palace and gain my own home.
"The terrible events of the next few days were, alas! just the same as have befallen a hundred times on the passing of a king. The outside world knew few details, but the news from the palace current in the bazaars was that all the sons of the late maharajah had perished excepting only the eldest. And this youth, although the whisper passed freely that he was merely the son of a slave woman, duly ascended the throne.