s of
intrigue, on what shore of cruel death wast thou cast, or in what other
land more splendid and more cruel?

Suddenly at this moment that crazy Meher Ali screamed out: "Stand back!
Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!" I opened my eyes and saw that
it was already light. My chaprasi came and handed me my letters, and the
cook waited with a salam for my orders.

I said; "No, I can stay here no longer." That very day I packed up, and
moved to my office. Old Karim Khan smiled a little as he saw me. I felt
nettled, but said nothing, and fell to my work.

As evening approached I grew absent-minded; I felt as if I had an
appointment to keep; and the work of examining the cotton accounts
seemed wholly useless; even the Nizamat of the Nizam did not appear to
be of much worth. Whatever belonged to the present, whatever was moving
and acting and working for bread seemed trivial, meaningless, and
contemptible.

I threw my pen down, closed my ledgers, got into my dog-cart, and drove
away. I noticed that it stopped of itself at the gate of the marble
palace just at the hour of twilight. With quick steps I climbed the
stairs, and entered the room.

A heavy silence was reigning within. The dark rooms were looking sullen
as if they had taken offence. My heart was full of contrition, but
there was no one to whom I could lay it bare, or of whom I could ask
forgiveness. I wandered about the dark rooms with a vacant mind. I
wished I had a guitar to which I could sing to the unknown: "O fire,
the poor moth that made a vain effort to fly away has come back to thee!
Forgive it but this once, burn its wings and consume it in thy flame!"

Suddenly two tear-drops fell from overhead on my brow. Dark masses of
clouds overcast the top of the Avalli hills that day. The gloomy woods
and the sooty waters of the Susta were waiting in terrible suspense and
in an ominous calm. Suddenly land, water, and sky shivered, and a wild
tempest-blast rushed howling through the distant pathless woods, showing
its lightning-teeth like a raving maniac who had broken his chains.
The desolate halls of the palace banged their doors, and moaned in the
bitterness of anguish.

The servants were all in the office, and there was no one to light the
lamps. The night was cloudy and moonless. In the dense gloom within I
could distinctly feel that a woman was lying on her face on the carpet
below the bed--clasping and tearing her long dishevelled hair with
despe