the young face wither from its
beauty into a wrinkled and yellow mask. It would be a just punishment, he
said to himself. Anger against her was as a lust at his heart. He had
lost sight of her kindness, and her pity; he desired her and hated her in
the same breath.

"Are you married, Ahmed Ismail?" he asked.

Ahmed Ismail smiled.

"Truly, Huzoor."

"Do you carry your troubles to your wife? Is she your companion as well
as your wife? Your friend as well as your mistress?"

Ahmed Ismail laughed.

"Yet that is what the Englishwomen are," said Shere Ali.

"Perhaps, Huzoor," replied Ahmed, cunningly, "it is for that reason that
there are some who take and do not give."

He came a little nearer to his Prince.

"Where is she, Huzoor?"

Shere Ali was startled by the question out of his dreams. For it had been
a dream, this thought of capturing Violet Oliver and plucking her out of
her life into his. He had played with it, knowing it to be a fancy. There
had been no settled plan, no settled intention in his mind. But to-night
he was carried away. It appeared to him there was a possibility his dream
might come true. It seemed so not alone to him but to Ahmed Ismail too.
He turned and gazed at the man, wondering whether Ahmed Ismail played
with him or not. But Ahmed bore the scrutiny without a shadow of
embarrassment.

"Is she in India, Huzoor?"

Shere Ali hesitated. Some memory of the lessons learned in England was
still alive within him, bidding him guard his secret. But the memory was
no longer strong enough. He bowed his head in assent.

"In Calcutta?"

"Yes."

"Your Highness shall point her out to me one evening as she drives in the
Maidan," said Ahmed Ismail, and again Shere Ali answered--

"Yes."

But he caught himself back the next moment. He flung away from Ahmed
Ismail with a harsh outburst of laughter.

"But this is all folly," he cried. "We are not in the days of the
uprising," for thus he termed now what a month ago he would have called
"The Mutiny." "Cawnpore is not Calcutta," and he turned in a gust of fury
upon Ahmed Ismail. "Do you play with me, Ahmed Ismail?"

"Upon my head, no! Light of my life, hope of my race, who would dare?"
and he was on the ground at Shere Ali's feet. "Do I indeed speak follies?
I pray your Highness to bethink you that the summer sets its foot upon
the plains. She will go to the hills, Huzoor. She will go to the hills.
And your people are not fools. They have cunn