“John!” She withdrew from her father’s arms and sought those of the man who loved her and whom she loved, as youth will and must.  “Let him go.  Why should we care?  Take me to my sister.”

Ahmed smiled as he and his men rolled the net.  This was as it should be.  For what man was a better mate for his golden-haired Mem-sahib?  And then he thought of Lal Singh, and he choked a little.  For Lal Singh and he had spent many pleasant hours together.  They had worked together in play and in war, shared danger and bread and glory, all of which was written in the books of the British Raj in Calcutta.

It was the will of Allah; there was but one God, and Mahomet was His prophet.  Then Ahmed dismissed Lal Singh and the past from his thoughts, after the philosophical manner of the Asiatic, and turned to the more vital affairs under hand.

At Ramabai’s house there was a happy reunion; and on her knees Pundita confessed to her lord how near she had been to Christian damnation.  She had fallen from grace; she had reverted to the old customs of her race, to whom suicide was no sin, Ramabai took her in his arms and touched the forehead with his lips.

“And now,” said the colonel, “the king!”

Ramabai’s head sank.

“What is the matter?  Is he dead?”

“If I knew that,” answered Ramabai, “I would rest content.”

“But you searched the royal prison?”

“And found nothing, nothing!”

“What do you believe?”

“I believe that either the council or Umballa has forestalled us.  We shall visit the council at once, They are prisoners.  If they have had no hand in the disappearance of the king then we are facing a stone wall over which we can not leap.  For Umballa has fled, whither no one knows, and with him has gone the secret.  Come; we shall go at once to the palace prison.”

The council which had ruled so long in Allaha was very humble indeed.  They had imprisoned the king because he had given many evidences of mental unbalance.  Perhaps unwisely they had proclaimed his death.  Durga Ram had discovered what they had done and had held it over their heads like a sword blade.  That the king was not in his dungeon, why and wherefor, was beyond their knowledge.  They were in the power of Ramabai; let him work his will upon them.  They had told the truth.  And Ramabai, much as he detested them, believed them.  But for the present it was required that they remain incarcerated till the king was found, dead or alive.

In the palace soldiers and servants alike had already forgot Umballa.  To them it was as if he had not existed.  All in a few hours.  There was, however, one man who did not forget.  Upon a certain day Umballa had carelessly saved his life, and to his benefactor he was now determined to devote that life.  This man was the majordomo, the chief servant in the king’s household.  It was not that he loved Umballa; rather that he owed Umballa a debt and resolved to pay it.