“If,” said he, “we do not get rid of these Omrahs, the worst consequences are to be apprehended. Their connexion with the blood-royal gives them an influence which must endanger the safety of your son; and you being suspected of having participated in the late revolution, will be certainly singled out as one of the first victims. If they are not to be overcome by open force, the concealed dagger is a sure and speedy remedy against threatened hostility.” These arguments rousing the queen’s fears, she hastened to her son, threw herself at his feet, and implored him to provide for his own and his mother’s safety by ordering the instant seizure of the two refractory nobles before they should be aware that their hostile designs had been made known. Shums-ood-Deen, overcome by the earnest entreaties of his mother, was reluctantly induced to consent to the apprehension of the husbands of his aunts. They, however, having obtained intelligence of his design, quitted Koolburga, and shut themselves up in the fortress of Sagur, where they were for the present secure from the machinations of their enemy. An officer of the name of Suddoo, formerly a servant of the royal family, commanded in Sagur. He was rich and powerful, and received the princes with the greatest hospitality, doing everything in his power to evince his attachment to them. He was entirely in the interests of the deposed monarch, and felt the strongest antipathy towards the traitor who had mutilated him and assassinated his nobles. He had been elevated by Gheias-ood-Deen to his present dignity as a reward for long and faithful services, and his gratitude did not sleep. Towards Lallcheen he always entertained a secret enmity, suspecting the integrity of his purposes, and believing him to be nothing better than a hollow hypocrite. The fortress under Suddoo’s command was one of great strength, and in it for the present the princes felt themselves perfectly secure. Here they were determined to remain until they could assemble a sufficient body of forces to oppose the treacherous slave. In pursuance of this determination, they addressed letters to Shums-ood-Deen and the principal nobility, declaring that they were making preparations to chastise the man who had committed such an act of outrage upon his sovereign, at the same time declaring that they had no intention of disturbing the existing government. They stated that, as near relatives of the deposed monarch, they conceived it their duty to use every effort to inflict justice upon him by whom he had been so irreparably injured, and called upon the nobility and the reigning sovereign to assist them in punishing so grievous an offender. If this were done they promised entire submission to Shums-ood-Deen’s government, and concluded by a solemn asseveration that nothing should deter them from bringing retribution upon the head of Lallcheen.