The Princess stopped at last for want of breath, and Georgia, having answered as many of the questions as she could remember, expressed the sorrow she had felt on account of the misfortune that had fallen upon Jahan Beg, adding a hope that he would soon be restored to liberty. From all sides came the answer that whatever happened to him would be his fate, which could not be averted; but when she asked presently to what cause his sudden arrest was to be attributed, a storm of passion swept over the crowd of women. It was all the doing of Fath-ud-Din--might he die unlamented in the flower of his age! might his children live but to disgrace him! and might the graves of his parents and grandparents be dishonoured, yea, those of his ancestors to the remotest generation! After this outburst they came to definite charges, the Princess speaking first, and one woman after another chiming in with corroborative evidence. Fath-ud-Din robbed the treasury and deceived the King, ground the faces of the honest poor, and kept the lawless rabble in his pay. He meant to place his nephew, Antar Khan, on the throne after his father, instead of the rightful heir, Rustam Khan, to whom God had granted such a promising son as showed he was intended to be king. He had a daughter who was supposed to be the most beautiful child in Ethiopia, and he was bringing her up in the country in a fortress of his own, where no one could see her, intending (such was the height of his presumption) to marry her to Antar Khan when she was old enough. And for her guardian there he had an old woman--a sorceress, who could destroy by her magic arts any undesirable stranger that might happen to approach the fortress, for she was one of the remnant of the Poisoners, a tribe of vagrants so noted for their evil deeds that the last King of Ethiopia had swept them almost out of the land. But this woman still remained, and that she worked at her old trade for Fath-ud-Din’s benefit there was no doubt, for did not all his enemies die mysteriously, and no man could tell who had hurt them? To this old woman had descended the evil secrets of the whole tribe, and she knew of poisons and antidotes with which no one else in the world was acquainted. The women were so eager in their denunciations of the Grand Vizier that Georgia’s voice was unheeded when she tried to interrupt them, for the story of the witch and her poisons had recalled to her mind the recent events at the Mission, and she was anxious to know where the old woman was to be found. But the untiring accusers were hurrying on with a catalogue of other crimes committed by Fath-ud-Din, and they were only checked by a voice from the doorway. “Dost thou not fear, O wife of Jahan Beg, thus with thy women to speak evil of those in authority? The arm of the Vizier has power to reach even to the house of the King.” “The cat may seize the mouse, O mother of Antar Khan,” replied the Princess with dignity, “but the mouse may squeak.”