In one of the many-columned courtyards of the palace was a chained, mad elephant whose duty was to kneel on the Rajah’s captive enemies.  In another courtyard was a big, square tank with a weedy, slippery stone ramp at one end; in the tank were alligators; down the ramp other of the Rajah’s enemies, tight-bound, would scream and struggle and slide from time to time.  But they were only little enemies who died in that way; the greater ones, who had power or influence, lived on and plotted, because the owner of the execution beasts was afraid to put them to their use.

Below, in damp, unlit dungeons, there were silken cords suspended from stone ceilings; their ends were noosed, and the nooses hung ten feet above the floor; those told only, though, of the fate of women who had schemed unwisely—­favorites of a week, perhaps, who had dared to sulk, listeners through screens who had forgotten to forget.  No men died ever by the silken cord, and no tales ever reached the outside world of who did die down in the echoing brick cellars; there was a path that led underground to the alligator tank and a trap-door that opened just above the water edge.  Night, and the fungus-fouled long jaws, and slimy, weed-filled water—­the creak of rusty hinges—­a splash—­the bang of a falling trap—­a swirl in the moonlit water, and ring after heavy, widening ring that lapped at last against the stone would write conclusion to a tragedy.  There would be no record kept.

Howrah was childless.  That, of all the hell-sent troubles that beset him, was the worst.  That alone was worse than the hoarded treasure whose secret he and his brother and the priests of Siva shared.  Only in India could it happen that a line of Rajahs, drag-net-armed—­ oblivious to the duties of a king and greedy only of the royal right to tax—­could pile up, century by century, a hoard of gold an jewels—­ to be looked at.  The secret of that treasure made the throne worth plotting for—­gave the priests, who shared the secret, more than nine tenths of their power for blackmail, pressure, and intrigue—­and grew, like a cancer, into each succeeding Rajah’s mind until, from a man with a soul inside him he became in turn a heartless, fear ridden miser.

Any childless king is liable to feel the insolent expectancy betrayed by the heir apparent.  But Jaimihr—­who had no sons either—­was an heir who understood all of the Indian arts whereby a man of brain may hasten the succession.  Worry, artfully stirred up, is the greatest weapon of them all, and never a day passed but some cleverly concocted tale would reach the Rajah, calculated to set his guessing faculties at work.

Either of the brothers, when he happened to be thirsty, would call his least-trusted counsellor to drink first from the jewelled cup, and would watch the man afterward for at least ten minutes before daring to slake his thirst; but Jaimihr had the moral advantage of an aspirant; Howrah, on the defensive, wilted under the nibbling necessity for wakefulness, while Jaimihr grinned.