He dropped his arms and hobbled slowly through the crowd, who made way before him, following him with acclamations. Lallcheen was disappointed at not having been able to detect the juggle of this patriarchal deceiver. How he had managed to elude the scrutiny of the watchers was a fact which baffled his comprehension; and he was fearful that the credulity of the multitude as to the fakeer’s direct communication with Heaven might lead to dangerous consequences. No doubt was entertained of the man’s prophetic endowments and supernatural sustentation. That he had fasted forty days and forty nights was a fact which few questioned; and the general expectation was that some fearful calamity was about to befall the king and his ministers. Groups of idle gossippers were seen at the corners of the streets, communicating their suspicions and whispering their fears. CHAPTER IV. When Shums-ood-Deen was placed upon the musnud, intimidated by the fate of his unhappy brother, he was afraid to oppose the man who had raised him to the throne; he had therefore little more than the name of king. All the substantive power was in the hands of his late father’s slave, who assumed the title of Mullik Naib, an office equivalent to regent; and the nobility who had escaped the sword, seeing no safety but in submission, bowed to his authority. The queen-mother, having been originally a slave, paid the utmost deference to the traitor who had blinded her elder son, in order that she might obviate any mischief against the younger, whom she advised to submit to the wiser counsels of his minister, observing that he was indebted to him for his crown, and that the man who had so easily deposed one brother might with equal facility depose the other. “Besides,” she said, “you owe him a debt of gratitude, and, depend upon it, he will expect it to be paid. You will find, my son, many malicious insinuations breathed into your ear against your benefactor--but let me conjure you to give them no heed, for the king who requites benefits with injury can have no security for his throne.” “Alas! mother,” said the young monarch, “I have been exalted only to misery; I find the throne a seat of thorns instead of roses. My elevation has been the means of separating me for ever from the object of my soul’s idolatry, and I am become a wretch whom the veriest outcast might pity.” “Nay, this is mere delusion: higher objects will engross your attention now. Alliances will be sought with you by princes; seek not, then, the attachment of slaves.” “Did you not recommend gratitude towards my benefactor?” “True, I did; but this may be shown without marrying his daughter.” “To marry her is the one dear wish of my heart; not in order to signify my gratitude to the man who has placed me upon the pinnacle of human greatness, but to signalise my love for one who is at once an honour to her sex and to her country.”