could in the direction taken by the men, feeling giddy with excitement,
and as if all this were not real, but part of some terrible trouble
befallen another.

I did not see what was about to happen, and was so wrapped up in my
position, that I did not hear the huge elephant from which I had just
descended shuffling after me, till the rajah's voice called to my guard
to halt. Then, leaning down from the howdah, he said to me--

"This is blind obstinacy. Come, say you will be my friend, and help me
now that I want your services."

"I cannot," I said huskily.

Ny Deen uttered a fierce command to the mahout, the elephant swung
round, and I set my teeth hard to keep from shouting to him to stop and
take me with him. But I mastered my cowardly feeling, and marched on to
what I felt was my execution, giving Ny Deen the credit of treating me
as a soldier, though all the while it was in a curious, half-stupefied
way, as if the shock had terrorised me, though after the first sensation
of horror, I do not recall feeling any great amount of dread.

It was then with something approaching wonder that I saw the leading men
of the guard wheel to the left through the entrance, and up the broad
staircase, and along the passages, at the end of which were my rooms.

Here they drew back for me to enter, and the door was closed, the rattle
of the men's muskets announcing that they remained on guard.

I felt so faint on being left alone that I was glad to fly to the great
cool vessel of water always standing in one of the rooms, after which I
sank down on one of the piles of cushions, and wiped the cold
perspiration from my forehead.

I was still half-stunned, and wondering whether this was only a respite;
but Hope soon began to be busy, and I felt that, after all, the being
led off to instant death was the work of my own imagination, and that Ny
Deen had probably never even had such a thought beyond holding it up as
a threat.

As I recovered myself, I rose and walked to the farther door, where,
there could be no doubt, the twelve men were stationed, and from thence
I hurried to one of the open windows, and looked out to see that there
was a guard still at the gateway, and beyond it I could hear a dull,
hoarse murmur, and the heavy tramp, tramp of marching men, which was
followed by the rush of a body of horse going by at a gallop.

This last revived me more than the water, for it sent a thrill through
me, suggesting as it did p