, of
course, but, seeing that the rajah was convinced, he threw aside all
restraint, and, dancing, laughing, and shrieking in the most horrible
manner, confessed his guilt, gloated over it, and reviled the rajah to
his teeth,--this, knowing that some fearful death awaited him.

The rajah decided upon the details of the matter that night, and in the
morning he informed me of his decision. It was that Neranya's life
should be spared, but that both of his legs should be broken with
hammers, and that then I should amputate the limbs at the trunk!
Appended to this horrible sentence was a provision that the maimed
wretch should be kept and tortured at regular intervals by such means
as afterwards might be devised.

Sickened to the heart by the awful duty set out for me, I nevertheless
performed it with success, and I care to say nothing more about that
part of the tragedy. Neranya escaped death very narrowly and was a long
time in recovering his wonted vitality. During all these weeks the
rajah neither saw him nor made inquiries concerning him, but when, as
in duty bound, I made official report that the man had recovered his
strength, the rajah's eyes brightened, and he emerged with deadly
activity from the stupor into which he so long had been plunged.

The rajah's palace was a noble structure, but it is necessary here to
describe only the grand hall. It was an immense chamber, with a floor
of polished, inlaid stone and a lofty, arched ceiling. A soft light
stole into it through stained glass set in the roof and in high windows
on one side. In the middle of the room was a rich fountain, which threw
up a tall, slender column of water, with smaller and shorter jets
grouped around it. Across one end of the hall, half-way to the ceiling,
was a balcony, which communicated with the upper story of a wing, and
from which a flight of stone stairs descended to the floor of the hall.
During the hot summers this room was delightfully cool; it was the
rajah's favorite lounging-place, and when the nights were hot he had
his cot taken thither, and there he slept.

This hall was chosen for Neranya's permanent prison; here was he to
stay so long as he might live, with never a glimpse of the shining
world or the glorious heavens. To one of his nervous, discontented
nature such confinement was worse than death. At the rajah's order
there was constructed for him a small pen of open iron-work, circular,
and about four feet in diameter, eleva