But as if alone in a desert waste, the presence strode through the group. His robe brushed Maksoud as he passed toward the other side of the court, bearing in his left hand a strangely carved scepter, and with his right hand stroking his long, curled beard. Straight across the moon-bathed tiles, and to the twelfth pedestal; and then with infinite care and deliberation, he seated himself cross-legged after the fashion of those eleven all too life-like images. Very faintly came the sound of a distant gong: not resonant as bronze, but rather as the hissing of a serpent or the rustling of silk. The sultan started. Then he looked Maksoud full in the eye, and smiled that terrific smile of his father, the Old Tiger. "Maksoud," he began, "you sought to be king before your day, and forgot my friendship and favor. You could not wait for me to meet my doom on the highroads of Allah. And I shall now punish you by giving you----" The prisoner choked and gasped. "Not that, _saidi_----" "By giving you," continued the sultan, "that which you sought, so that the fullness of possession shall corrode your soul worse than any torment could corrode your body. You shall sit on my lofty throne and publish the orders dictated by an infidel Resident. He shall thwart your vengeances. He shall make a mockery of you, the last remnant of the lordly estate of kings. You shall rule by words rather than by swords." The sultan drew his simitar. "Your friends shall seek you with daggers in your gardens. Poison shall lurk in your food and in your thoughts. Bungling marksmen shall never quite attain the mark you will finally wish them to attain. Your enemies will pity you." The simitar flickered twice, and the stout cords fell from Maksoud's wrists and ankles. "To horse, Maksoud, and ride to your throne!" The sultan sheathed his blade, advanced a pace down the spiral pathway of darkness, then paused to listen to the hoof-beats of Maksoud's cavalcade. Old Ismeddin leaned over the balustrade. "A moment, _saidi_! Let your first whisper in the girl's ear ask for _two_ British Residents in Angor-lana." And with a courtly salaam to the master, Ismeddin disappeared among the ruins.