"Having once more impressed secrecy on my attendants, and bidding them give admission to no one, I led my young guest into an inner reception room. There, in a few concise sentences, he told me his story.
"A plot had been hatched in the royal zenana that, just so soon as the maharajah died, this youth, and seven or eight younger brothers, sons of other wives, should be slain, so that the undisputed succession might descend on one particular son, elder by several years, but not in the regular line of succession because born of a slave mother. It was this slave woman's brother who commanded the maharajah's bodyguard, and, in collusion with his sister, had conceived the damnable conspiracy. Only by the whisper of a woman who was close to the officer, but whose heart was tender, had the mother of the young heir to the throne been warned. With my aid, and that of the eunuch who had visited me the day before, they had made their escape, the youth having been hidden in the palankeen of his mother before the latter left the seraglio on one of her occasional visits to the bazaars.
"Such was the story. Now the future had to be planned, for up to this point the maharanee had acted blindly and impulsively--just swiftly--the moment she had realized the supreme danger for her son. In the boy I found high courage and a clear brain, and together we devised the measures to be followed that would best allay suspicion as to the whereabouts of the fugitives.
"As a first step I sallied forth as usual to pay my professional visit on the maharajah a little before the noontide hour. Perhaps I felt that, if by any chance suspicion had already alighted upon me, I was taking my life in my hands by entering the palace; but, trusting to the protection of Allah, I gave no second thought to any fear of this kind.
"I had not yet reached the palace gates when I encountered a messenger running in hot haste to summon me. His highness the maharajah had been seized with a fit, and the whole palace was in a turmoil.
"When I gained the royal apartment I saw at a glance that the sufferer was beyond human aid. I could but watch the deep laboured breathing, growing ever fainter and fainter, until the death-rattle in the throat proclaimed the end.