Tom was in despair. He looked back to Hoosanee. Should he try to quiet them with quiet words; but what could he say--he who was a stranger amongst them? Hoosanee's agonised face gave him no help; but help came. All in an instant, and mysteriously, the crowd thinned away. It had flashed, like an electric current, through the city, that one known to the people--a prophet, who, under pretence of stirring up a religious revival, had been detected preaching sedition in the towns and cities of Oude, and shut up, had escaped from his prison and was now making his way in disguise to the place where the city malcontents had been accustomed to meet him. This was a vast underground tank and gallery, which, being approached through one of the most sacred of the Hindoo temples, was safe from the prying eyes of Europeans. Thither flocked the greater number of the people who had been blocking Tom's way; but many a backward look was cast at the royal youth, as, his eyes fixed and his brow sombre with thought, he was carried slowly through the throng which remained. 'Your Excellency has found favour in their sight. They would make him a leader,' said Hoosanee, when, an hour later, they were resting thankfully in camp. 'Why did my cousin die?' cried Tom, bitterly, 'or why was I brought up in ignorance of the people amongst whom my lot was to be cast? If I had known a little more; if I had been sure of myself, I might have spoken to them, and they might have heard me, and the destruction which is coming upon my people might, perhaps, have been averted.' 'Let his Excellency have patience,' said Hoosanee, soothingly. 'He is learning every day.' That night Tom wrote to his mother. He had written in the same strain before, but never so earnestly. 'I beseech you,' he wrote, 'not for my sake alone, but for the sake of others, to lift, if you can, the veil of secrecy which covers our past. I am certain--how I dare not tell you--that I belong to this people, and I believe it is by birth; and, if so, I am passionately anxious to know the nature of the tie. Pardon me, dearest mother! I know how strongly you feel on this subject, and, but for dire necessity, I would not vex you by alluding to it. Say to me, once for all, that there is no kinship, by birth, between us and the East, and I will trouble you no more. I will be content to believe that there exists between me and this people a mysterious spiritual affinity. If, on the other hand, there is such a tie--if, through you or through my father, I draw my origin as I inherit my wealth from the East, it is time that I should know it.'