The sovereign having so narrowly escaped, was reminded by the faithful Mahmood of the policy of withdrawing himself from the woman who had obtained so entire an ascendancy over his heart; but such was his infatuation that he could not believe her guilty. She had been pronounced innocent by the confederate of her brother; and so complete was her empire over him, that he would not allow himself to suppose her implicated in the conspiracy against him. She affected to curse her brother’s memory, not only for the murderous act of lifting his arm against his sovereign’s life, but likewise for involving her in the suspicion of having been an accomplice in so wicked a design. “Make your mind easy,” said the king, in reply to her asseverations of innocence; “my confidence in your affection is not to be shaken. A woman does not hate out of mere wantonness the man to whom she has relinquished all that is most prized by her sex. Great sacrifices are only made for those we love, and for me you have made the greatest.” “I fear I have an enemy in your armour-bearer,” said the artful siren; “and cannot but feel apprehensive that he will eventually tear me from your heart; this fear is a perpetual sting in my bosom. I have never given him any cause of offence; and yet he continually pours the poison of prejudice into the king’s ear.” Mujahid Shah was silent. He could not but feel the force of this observation, and it struck him that Mahmood’s prejudice was altogether unjustifiable. In spite of his late gallantry in defending his master’s life, the king was angered at the hostility which his armour-bearer evidently entertained against the object of the royal affections, and he treated him with unusual coldness, sometimes even with asperity. Within a few months after the late attack upon the life of Mujahid Shah, Musaood’s sister had completely steeped his heart in the infatuation of dotage. He felt perfectly secure of her affection; and finding that all suspicion had subsided, she determined to perpetrate with her own hand the deed of blood which her late brother had failed to accomplish. One night, when she retired to rest with the sovereign, concealing a dagger under the bedclothes, she awaited with tremulous impatience to see her victim lulled in slumber. His senses gradually faded into unconsciousness, and he slept heavily. She drew the weapon slowly from its concealment. Her hand trembled. She cautiously bared the king’s chest, and, compressing her lips, plunged into his heart the instrument of death. Mujahid started from his sleep; he saw the night-dress of his murderess stained with blood, and her hand still upon the dagger. Feeling his senses fast failing, he grasped her by the throat, held her a few moments in his death-grip, flung her with his last effort of expiring strength upon the floor, strangled, and fell dead beside her. HISTORICAL SUMMARY.