"However, with his mind stimulated by the hazard of the prospect, this picturesque heir-apparent, who had assured himself, since his perusal of the unaccountably delivered missive, that Ram Lal had no intention of making his appearance that day, at least, returned to the apartment where his morning repast awaited him, which he dispatched with the preoccupied impersonality of a savant who consults his timepiece in order to determine the temperature. "Advised of the fact that he had finished by a disposition to ignore his remaining privileges, the prince, as if to pursue the direction of the unseeing gaze which he projected into space, rose slowly, and with that moody deliberation which is so often the outward manifestation of an ignoble as well as an elevated determination, proceeded to the silken arras and disappeared from view between the folds. "Quickly he traversed the passageway leading to the apartments of Lal Lu; and in response to a light touch upon the gong the same servile apparition emerged and vanished, with cringing obedience, down the passage. "With a gleam in his eyes, which might have caused a magistrate to reflect or a moralist to anticipate, that was both sinister and engaging, eager and speculative, the prince, with a gesture that was not without its impatient majesty and lithe impressiveness, swept aside the curtains which guarded the entrance to the small ante-room and stepped within." * * * * * As the Sepoy reached this point of the narrative, arranged, perhaps, with shrewd malice to tantalize his eager listener, an expression of libidinous expectation and depraved absorption deepened upon the countenance of the latter, who, like an animal deprived of its prey, looked up suddenly as the narrator paused, with an exasperation which he made little attempt to conceal. "Hell!" he muttered, "why do you pause? It is not late. This is an irritating trick of yours to leave off at the crucial juncture." "Ha, ha!" laughed the Sepoy mirthlessly. "You have attended me, then? Well, I can't admit you with the prince until to-morrow evening. I have much to do ere I retire." "This is my dismissal, I presume," responded Raikes sourly as he replaced the gem, from which he seemed unable to remove his thieving eyes. "Here, take this damned thing; it has demoralized me," and placing the shagreen case, with its priceless contents, in the hands of the evilly-smiling Sepoy, he disappeared through the doorway. Arrived at the door which opened upon his room, Raikes was assured, by the familiar response of the locks to the pressure of his extraordinary keys, that his precautions of a few hours before had been undisturbed.