“I have well weighed the consequences of resistance, and am prepared to pay the penalty. I feel that the man who would not hesitate to dethrone his king would have little scruple about imprisoning his daughter. But, to put you at once out of suspense as to my determination, I tell you, firmly and solemnly, that I never will comply with your wishes. Take me to the prison you have prepared for me!” Lallcheen did not reply, but quitted her with a blanched cheek. He was deeply vexed at this unexpected bar to his ambition from his own child. The fruits of crime were already ripening, but he perceived that they had only a flavour of bitterness. He remembered the predictions of the devotee, and the sun of his glory grew dim--a shadow passed over it, but the disc again grew light, and he hoped that it would be no more obscured. Difficulties now began to thicken around him. Feroze Chan and Ahmud Chan, uncles to the deposed king, had promised their brother-in-law, Mahmood Shah, father of Gheias-ood-Deen, when he was on his death-bed, that they would be faithful and loyal to his son; they accordingly served him with submission and fidelity. Being from the capital at the time their royal relative was deposed by Lallcheen, they escaped the unhappy fate of the nobles who were assassinated. Finding, however, that the king had been dispossessed and blinded, their wives instigated their husbands to avenge the indignity to which their nephew had been subjected. Feroze and Ahmud Chan readily listened to these natural appeals in favour of their injured relative, but the traitor, discovering their intentions through his emissaries, complained to Shums-ood-Deen, and, accusing those nobles of treason, demanded their instant execution. Hoping to excite the young sovereign’s fears, he represented to him that their object evidently was the restoration of Gheias-ood-Deen, which would involve the death of the reigning monarch, as, the moment the deposed king was restored, he would naturally wreak his vengeance upon all who had been instrumental in hurling him from his throne, among whom the man raised to that throne would be one of the first to suffer. Shums-ood-Deen being emboldened by the known influence and bravery of his uncles, resisted these importunities of the slave, whose imperious exercise of authority already began to be exceedingly vexatious. Seeing that the opposition was likely to become serious, Lallcheen sought the queen-mother, and artfully representing to her the perils by which her son was beset, obtained her promise to co-operate with him in counteracting the confederacy forming against the government of her younger son.