rom the adjoining room. At
the four dark, inscrutable faces the bewildered girl stared, her limbs
numb with terror. Gravely the council told her she must come with them
to the palace.

"It is impossible!" she murmured. "You are all mad. I am a white
woman. I can not rule over an alien race whose tongue I can not speak,
whose habits I know nothing of. It is impossible. Since my father is
dead, I must return to my home."

"No," said Umballa.

"I refuse to stir!" She was all afire of a sudden: the base trickery
which had brought her here! She was very lovely to the picturesque
savage who stood at her elbow.

As he looked down at her, in his troubled soul Umballa knew that it was
not the throne so much as it was this beautiful bird of paradise which
he wished to cage.

"Be brave," he said, "like your father. I do not wish to use force,
but you must go. It is useless to struggle. Come."

She hung back for a moment; then, realizing her utter helplessness, she
signified that she was ready to go. She needed time to collect her
stunned and disordered thoughts.

Before going to the palace they conducted her to the royal crypt. The
urn containing her father's ashes was deposited in a niche. Many other
niches contained urns, and Umballa explained to her that these held the
ashes of many rulers. Tears welled into Kathlyn's eyes, but they were
of a hysterical character.

"A good sign," mused Umballa, who thought he knew something of women,
like all men beset with vanity. Oddly enough, he had forgot all about
the incident of the lion in the freight caboose. All women are felines
to a certain extent. This golden-haired woman had claws, and the day
was coming when he would feel them drag over his heart.

From the crypt they proceeded to the palace zenana (harem), which
surrounded a court of exceeding beauty. Three ladies of the harem were
sitting in the portico, attended by slaves. All were curiously
interested at the sight of a woman with white skin, tinted like the
lotus. Umballa came to a halt before a latticed door.

"Here your majesty must remain till the day of your coronation."

"How did my father die?"

"He was assassinated on the palace steps by a Mohammedan fanatic. As I
told you, he died in my arms."

"His note signified that he feared imprisonment. How came he on the
palace steps?"

"He was not a prisoner. He came and went as he pleased in the city."
He bowed and left her.

Alone