"Come now, sar, you go 'long quiet an' comf'r'able an' nobody hurt you.
Dis way. Das a sweet little chamber for de naughty boys."

With a force that there was no resisting Ebony pushed the prince into a
small room with a very small window. The door was shut, the key turned,
and the danger was past!

Immediately afterwards the Commander-in-Chief appeared on the balcony of
the palace, announced the Queen's death to the multitude, and, amid
demonstrations of wildest joy, alike from soldiers and people,
proclaimed Rakota King of Madagascar, under the title of Radama the
Second.

In the afternoon of the same day the King presented himself to the
people, arrayed in royal robes, with a crown on his head, and surrounded
by his chief nobles.

So overjoyed were the people at the blessed change from the tyranny of a
cruel woman to the sway of a gentle prince, that it was some time before
they could be quieted. When silence was obtained, the King, in a few
and simple words, assured his subjects that his great desire was, and
his aim would be, to devote himself to their welfare, and that of the
country over which he had been called to reign.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

THE LAST.

The vigour with which Prince Rakota put down the attempt at usurpation
was followed by characteristic deeds of leniency and kindness. Instead
of taking the usual method of savage and semi-civilised rulers to crush
rebellion, he merely banished Rambosalama from the capital, and confined
him in a residence of his own in the country; but no fetters were put on
his limbs, and his wealth was not forfeited, nor was he forbidden to
communicate with his friends.

Moreover, before the sun of that day in 1861 had set, the new King
caused it to be proclaimed far and wide that all his subjects might
depend upon receiving equal protection; that every man was free to
worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience; that the
prison-doors should be thrown open to those who had been condemned for
conscience sake, and their fetters knocked off. He also sent officers
to announce to those who had been banished to the pestilential districts
that the day of deliverance had come.

To many of these last, of course, the good news came too late for this
life. Disease, and hard labour and cruel fetters, had done their work;
but the deliverance that came to these was grander and more glorious
than the mere removal of earthly chains and pains.

It was a glad d