The two eunuchs who had recently died of fever in the palace had been men of experience and importance in their station; and they had been replaced by two others, supposedly responsible, from Bágh. Kasya had satisfied himself that both were trustworthy; but Kanava, sounding them from another quarter, found in one of them a long-sought weakness. On the afternoon of the fourth day of Fidá’s misery, when the Rajah was attending ceremonial in the village at the other end of the plateau, one of these men, Kripa by name, stood on guard in the zenana antechamber. Kripa was tired, and Kripa was bored with the prospect of two stifling hours of solitary watching. He was, then, undisposed to be short with any one that came to break his dull thoughts. And when Lord Ragunáth unexpectedly appeared before him, he greeted the minister with a mixture of curiosity and reverence that Ragunáth found propitious to his purpose. He had come well prepared and fortified with the corrupter of prudence, the breaker of faith, the power of the evil-minded—a goodly sum of money. For a few moments he applied himself to his task with all his considerable mind and tact; and, at the end of that time, Kripa stood before him a newly enlisted mercenary. It had been arranged between them that Ragunáth was to stay in the anteroom and there have a brief interview with the Lady of his Desire; provided of course that, what he did not for a moment doubt, she would see him. Quite tremulous with eagerness, Ragunáth pushed his minion into the zenana, bearing a blind message to the Lady Ahalya to come at once, if it were her pleasure, to the antechamber. Kripa reappeared in a very short space of time, smiling the word that the Ranee would follow him. And Ragunáth, drunk with high success, commanded the fallen one to remain away for at least an hour. Promising nothing, but very well satisfied to be free for a little while, though he dared not join his companions, Kripa, drowsy with the dusk and quiet of his watch, wandered off into the maze of rooms around the audience hall, lay down upon a convenient divan, and was shortly sound asleep. Ragunáth, meantime, had grown as nervous and eager as a youth while he waited the coming of the Ranee. She did not keep him long. As he stood watching the curtained doorway, she appeared, her young face pale and strained, but with expectation in it; her form all swathed in crimson silks. At sight of her, Ragunáth gave a low cry of emotion; but, in the same instant, Ahalya’s face changed utterly. “Thou!” she said, half wondering, half sobbing. “I, rose of heaven! I, star among women, whose hair holds the fragrance of the jessamine, whose breath is perfumed like the almond blossom. I, I, Ragunáth, have sought thee, and beseech thy favor; for, indeed, I am gone mad for love of thee!” And, throwing himself before her, Ragunáth lifted the filmy hem of her garment to his lips.