“Slaves!  Quick!  Come and perform your lowly salute on the occasion of the cutting of a back tooth belonging to the Heir-to-Empire, the Most——­”

She cut short her string of titles, for a crash of thunder overhead warned her she had best be speedy before the rain soaked through the worn tent.

“Quick, slaves!” she added; “keep us not waiting all day.  Enter and prostrate yourselves on the ground with due reverence!  Quick!  Quick!”

She need not have been in such a hurry, for it did not take long for the “slaves,” as she called them, to perform their lowly salaam by touching the very ground with their foreheads.  There were but three of them—­Old Faithful, the trooper; Roy, the Rajput boy; and Meroo, the scullion; the rest were away with their master, King Humayon.

Old Faithful, however, tall, lank, grey-bearded, brought enough devotion for half a dozen followers.  He had served with little Akbar’s grandfather, Babar the brave, and when he saw the child standing so fair and square, he gave almost a sharp cry of remembrance and delight.  And when he stood up after his prostration, in soldier fashion he held out the hilt of his old sword for the baby to touch in token that its service was accepted.  Queen Humeeda, who stood beside her little son, guided his fat fingers to the sword; but at the very moment a vivid flash of lightning made her give a shriek and cover her face with her hands.  But little Prince Akbar having got a hold of the hilt, would not let go.  And to Old Faithful’s huge delight he pulled and pulled till the sword came out of the scabbard.

“An omen!  An omen!” cried the old man.  “Like his grandfather, he will fight battles ere he be twelve!”

Then there was Roy, the Rajput lad, whom the royal fugitives had found half dead from sunstroke in the wide, sandy Rajputana deserts, and whom, with their customary kindness, they had succoured and befriended, putting him on as a sort of page boy to the little Heir-to-Empire.  He was a tall, slim lad for his twelve years, was Roy, with a small, well-set head and a keen, well-cut face.  And his eyes!  They were like a deer’s—­large, brown, soft, but with a flash in them at times.

For the sunstroke which had so nearly killed the lad had left his mind a little confused.  As yet he could remember nothing of what had happened to him before it, and could not even recollect who he was, or anything save that his name was Roy.  But every now and again he would say something or do something which would make those around him look surprised, and wonder who he could have been to know such things and have such manners.

After him came Meroo, the misshapen cook-boy.  He was an odd fellow, all long limbs and broad smiles, who, when his time arrived, shambled forward, cast himself in lowliest reverence full length on the ground and blubbered out his delight—­now that the princely baby could really eat—­at being able to supply all sorts of toothsome stews full of onions and green ginger, to say nothing of watermelons and sugar cane.  These things, strange to say, being to little Indian children very much what chocolate creams and toffee are to English ones.