! Will you
see your king's son murdered unavenged? Avenge me on his murderer!"

No one moved, but from the back of the crowd a murmur arose which
swelled into a cry, "Sher Singh Rajah! Sher Singh Rajah!" The Rani
started as if she had been stung.

"Will you set this wretch before my eyes on the _gaddi_ from which he
has swept his father and his brother?" she shrieked. "Can the heavens
look down on such a sight of shame, and not grow black?"

The soldiers cowered before her, but a short thick-set man pushed his
way to the front. "I am not wise," he said, and a laugh answered him,
"but a plain man may ask questions that the learned cannot answer. Her
Highness desires us to slay Sher Singh. For whose benefit? say I. She
says he is a murderer, but even if it were so--which I see no cause to
believe--he is the last of Partab Singh's house. To whom should the
kingdom fall, if he were slain? To her Highness herself--who might
then be less desirous of death? To her friends the English? perhaps to
Jirad Sahib--who would not be the first to owe a throne to a woman's
favour. Not one of these has any cause to desire the death of Sher
Singh, of course--I lay my hand upon my mouth for having even uttered
the thought--but who then does desire it? Not the soldiers of Partab
Singh, say I."

"And thou sayest well, brother!" burst from the soldiers. "Sher Singh
Rajah! We will set him on the _gaddi_, and by the might of the Guru!
if the English interfere, we will fight them." Out of the tumult in
the ranks a high thin voice rose above the rest. "Back to the zenana,
shameless one! Wilt thou disgrace thy lord, as she of Ranjitgarh doth
daily?"

The two Englishmen and their followers moved towards the Rani to
protect her, but she waved them back with measureless contempt, then
turned upon the jeering soldiers with eyes glowing like live coals.

"Truly Jirad Sahib spoke well when he warned me that you, for whom I
have stripped myself of the very jewels of my marriage-portion,
designed only to play me false. Ai Guru! what a lot is mine, to dwell
in a land where the men are as women, even as those that sell
themselves for gain! Hear then the curse of the widow, the childless
one. Behold the unavenged ashes of my son!" she thrust forth the
brazen urn. "As I cover them from your unworthy sight with the cloth
stained with his innocent blood"--sweeping her veil over it--"so shall
the blood of Agpur extinguish the burnin