was simply an invitation to come and be murdered; so he rode back to camp, sent another messenger to order up the brigade, and passed a horribly uncomfortable night, expecting to be attacked at every moment. Much to his astonishment, he was not attacked, though bands of Nalapuris were said to be circling round, hoping to catch him off his guard, and then the brigade arrived after a forced march. Old Harry allowed the men two or three hours’ rest, occupied the hills overlooking the city in the night, and sent in a demand for its surrender in the morning. Nasr Ali, posing, so the General thought, as an injured innocent, protested against the whole thing as a piece of the blackest treachery, carried out under the mask of friendship, and refused to surrender. I don’t want to go into the whole sickening business; the place was stormed, and Nasr Ali killed in the fighting. Wilayat Ali opened the gates of the _killa_, and allowed the treasury (there was remarkably little in it) to be looted. He was the natural heir, for Nasr Ali’s women and children had all been massacred. Of course Wilayat Ali gave us to understand that our troops had done it, but that is absolutely untrue. The first man that broke into the zenana found it looted, and dead bodies everywhere--a shocking sight. I haven’t the slightest doubt that Wilayat Ali had admitted a set of _badmashes_ to wipe out his unfortunate brother’s family, and intended to charge it on us, but there’s no proving it. Well, he was placed on the _gadi_ with Gobind Chand as his Vizier, and we marched home again. Little by little things came out which made me think a horrible miscarriage of justice had occurred, and when I laid them before Sir Henry he had to believe it too. That Wilayat Ali deliberately traduced and betrayed his brother in order to obtain his kingdom I am as certain as that I am here, and now I have to interfere to save him from being murdered by his fellow-scoundrel!” “There is no chance of putting things right,” said Sir Dugald, in the tone of one stating a fact rather than asking a question. “None. If any of poor Nasr Ali’s children survived, we might do something, but the fiends took good care of that. There were two boys, certainly, and I believe some daughters as well, but they are beyond reach of any atonement we can make. And since no good could come of it, it would look rather bad for the paramount Power to have to confess how easily it had been hoodwinked; so we let ill alone.” “Poetic justice would suggest that you should allow Gobind Chand to murder Wilayat Ali, and to be murdered in his turn by the Sardars.”