“I will kill the first man who dares—­” began Old Faithful.

“Aye!  The first!  But how about the last, old man?” interrupted Head-nurse.  “Force will be of no avail.  Askurry hath half an army with him.”

“Harm shall only come to the child through my body,” wept Foster-mother, whereat Head-nurse laughed scornfully.

“Woman’s flesh is a poor shield, fool!  God send we find better protection than thy carcass.”

“Boo! hoo!” blubbered Meroo the cook-boy.  “Lo!  Head-nurse!  I could kill a whole army by poisoning their suppers.”

Head-nurse nodded faint approval.  “Now, there is some sense in that, scullion, but what about that they may do supperless?  If they should dare——­”

“They will not dare,” said a clear, sharp voice, and Roy the Rajput lad stepped forward, a light in his great eyes.  “My mother used to say, ’Fear not!  A king’s son is a king’s son always, so be that he forgets not kingship.’”

Head-nurse stood puzzled for a second, then she caught the meaning of the lad’s words, for she was a clever, capable woman, and had all a woman’s quickness.

“Thou art right, my lad,” she said slowly, looking curiously at Roy, from whose face the flash of memory seemed to have passed.  “Thou art right.  In royalty lies safety.  The Heir-to-Empire must receive his enemies as a King!  Quick! slaves!  Close the tent door and let us bring forth all we have, and make all things as regal as we can.  There is no time to lose.”

And they did not lose any.  The result being that when, quarter of an hour afterward, Prince Askurry, bitterly disappointed at finding that his real quarry, the King and Queen, had escaped, strode with some of his followers into the tent where he was told Baby Akbar was to be found, he paused at the door, first in astonishment and then in amusement.

It was really rather a pretty picture which he saw.  To begin with the tent had been lit up with the little rushlight lamps they call in India chiraghs—­tiny saucers which can be made of mud in which a cotton wick floats in a few drops of oil—­and a row of these outlined the mule trunk throne.  Then Meroo’s misshapen limbs had been hidden under a chain corselet and helmet, so he made quite a respectable fellow to Old Faithful, as the two supporters stood bolt upright with drawn swords one on either side, while beneath them, on the ragged old Persian carpet which had been spread to hide the dirty tent drugget, crouched Head-nurse and Foster-mother, their faces veiled with their best gold embroidered veils.

A great pile of cushions had been placed on the muletrunk, and in the centre of these sat Baby Akbar, the Royal heron’s plume of his turban waving gently in the breeze caused by the slow dignified sweep of the Royal fan which Roy, who stood behind his young master, was swinging backwards and forwards.

But it was not the prettiness of the picture which made Prince Askurry pause.  It was the child’s open fearless face which reminded him at once—­as King Humayon had hoped it might—­of that dear, beloved father whose memory, even in their worst wickednesses, was ever a good influence in the lives of his sons.  Babar the Brave!  Babar of the Generous Heart! the Kindly Smile!  Who could forget him?