ch a phalanx of the guards kept watch. Here he
thought it prudent to sheath his weapon, though he still followed the
eunuch, as his only remaining chance of escape. Even here they were
instantly admitted, and without any apparent hesitation. The door
turned slowly on its pivot, and Cedric found himself in a
richly-decorated chamber, where, by the light of a single lamp, and
with the smell of perfumed vapour in his nostrils, he saw a figure in
costly vestments reclining on a couch. The slave prostrated himself.

"What brings thee from thy mistress at this untimely hour? A message
from the empress?"

Here the speaker raised himself from the couch, and the slave, with
great vehemence, made certain signs, which the wondering Briton
understood not.

"Ah!" said the emperor, his eyes directly levelled at the supposed
culprit; "thou hast found the thief who, in the confusion of
yesternight, bore away the magic cup. Bring him hither that I may
question him ere his carcase be sent to the beasts."

The doomed wretch was now fairly in the paws of the very tyrant he had
so long dreaded. The death which by every stratagem he had striven to
avoid was now inevitable. He was betrayed by means of the very device
he had, as he thought, so craftily adopted; but still his natural
sagacity did not forsake him even in this unexpected emergency. As he
prostrated himself, presenting the cup he had stowed away safely in
his cloak, he still kept a wary eye on the slave who had betrayed him.
He saw him preparing to depart; and knowing that his only hope of
deliverance lay in preventing his guide from giving warning to the
conspirators they had just left, Cedric, with a sudden spring, leaped
upon him like a tiger, even in the presence of the monarch.

The latter, astounded at this unexpected act of temerity, was for a
few moments inactive. This pause was too precious to be lost.
Desperation gave him courage, and Cedric addressed the dread ruler of
the world even whilst he clutched the gasping traitor.

"Here, great monarch, here is the traitor; and if I prove him not
false, on my head be the recompense!"

He said this in a tone of such earnestness and anxiety that the
emperor was suddenly diverted from his purpose of summoning his
attendants. He saw the favourite slave of the empress writhing in the
gripe of the barbarian; but the events of the last few hours had
awakened suspicions which the lightest accusations might confirm. He
remember