caused a shudder to pervade the trembling frame of
Lal Lu--'this is an argument he can understand.'

"'Oh,' cried the terrified girl, 'I could not!'

"'You could not?' repeated the other with chilling emphasis. 'Ha, ha!
you could not! But you will submit to the advances of this monster!

"'Believe me, you are not the sole object of his regard.

"'There have been others caged within these walls who have been less
obdurate than you, or whose resistance has availed them nothing.'

"'Alas!' exclaimed Lal Lu with an inexpressibly melancholy accent, as she
considered the empty pedestal from which her ideal had fallen, and
recalled with a shudder the caress which she had permitted and bestowed
in that fervid interview with the prince. 'Can this be true?'

"'Aye!' exclaimed the woman with savage affirmation. 'Do not doubt it.
Sooner than submit to the embraces of that wretch I would turn that
weapon against myself.'

"'Oh!' exclaimed Lal Lu with a superb gesture and the light of
unmistakable resolution in her eyes, 'that I can do; but the other----'
And the poor girl trembled at the spectacle pictured in her mind.

"'Well,' exclaimed the woman, 'I will leave this dagger here; do as you
will; I have done for you what I could,' and she turned to depart,
unmindful, apparently, of Lal Lu's tremulous 'And I am grateful to you.'

* * * * *

"When the prince arrived at the apartment in which he accorded his
audiences, if the attention he bestowed upon the meager assemblages
which presented themselves occasionally can be dignified by that
description, he found awaiting him a Hindoo, whom he recognized at once,
and whose presence invariably preceded the recital of important
information.

"To the degree that Prince Otondo had reason to suspect that his
grandfather had certain of his servants subsidized at the Kutub, he
measured secretly by similar secret embassies at the Delhi palace.

"The egotistical old moghul, with a vanity which even his anomalous
situation with the British had not impaired, wished to assure himself
that he would be worthily succeeded, and the prince was equally
solicitous concerning the advancing senility of the moghul.

"In such bloodless intrigues this picturesque pair kept their servants
engaged, until this germ of mutual distrust infected every dependent in
the two households with that singular propensity to conspire which the
studious historian of this my