“All these long years of my watch thrown away! For, never a single one of the sacred jewels has he shown me! They have never seen the light since the awful day in Humayoon’s Tomb. Has he the jewels? Does he hide them? Has he buried them? Has he sent them away? If he has them, then he dies the death of a dog. The jewels of a king to be the spoil of a low tax-gatherer! The King of Kings. “But why does he not go? I have watched him for years. “There is some reason! Hawke Sahib shall tell me all! He must tell! He needs my help!” The old man’s slumbers were haunted with the olden memories of a day of doom, the day when the bodies of the sacred Princes of Oude lay naked in the glaring sun as they were despoiled after Hodson’s pistol had done its bloody work. “They may have taken them all from him, these English are greedy spoilers,” muttered the crafty old man, as his head fell upon the silken cushions with a curse. He was a rebel still, as rank as Tantia Topee. In the splendid marble palace of Hugh Johnstone, the startled Justine Delande was awake long before the dawn, thinking only of the meeting of the morning, her bosom heaving with its first questionable secret, but Major Alan Hawke smiled as he leisurely breakfasted later, reading a telegram just received. “On my way. Will come to private address. Send servants to Allahabad to join me. Silence and discretion.--Lausanne.” CHAPTER V. A DIPLOMATIC TIFFIN. Major Alan Hawke had designedly breakfasted in the stately seclusion of his rooms, and as he came gravely sauntering into the Club ordinary, was at once beset by a friendly chorus, as he carelessly glanced over the morning letters which attested his progress toward the social zenith. He, however, gazed impatiently at the club-house door, where a neat pair of ponies awaited him, with servants deftly purveyed by the subtle Ram Lal. His two body servants were also afrites of the same sly Aladdin. His swelling port duly impressed his old friends. The man “who had dropped into a good thing” gently put aside sundry hospitable proffers, politely laughed away several tempting bargains as to horses, carriages, furnished bungalows, and offers of racing engagements, hunting bouts, and “private” dinners. “Waiting orders, d’ye see!” he gently murmured. “Not worth while to set up anything!” And then, with the air of a martyr, he disappeared, the ponies springing briskly away, leaving all baffled conjecture behind. The curious men who were left discussing a flying rumor that Major Hawke was authorized to raise a Regiment of Irregular Horse for a special expeditionary secret purpose, wrangled with those who maintained that a brilliant local civil-service vacancy would be theatrically filled by the man who now bore a brow of mystery. The advent of this prosperous Hawke had made the great social deeps of Delhi to boil like a pot. His mission was one of those things no fellow could find out.