“Let me have a commissioner’s escort, please,” he demanded.  “I’m going to see Gungadhura now!  You’d better follow up with a troop to r eplace the maharajah’s guards around his palace.  We can’t put him under arrest without impeaching him; but—­make it pretty plain to the guard they’re there to protect a man who has abdicated; that no one’s to be allowed in, and nobody out unless he can explain his business.  Then, can you spare some guards for another job?  I want about twenty men on the River Palace at once.  Caution them carefully.  Nobody’s to go inside the grounds.  Order the maharajah’s guards away!  It’s a little previous.  His officers will try to make trouble of course.  But an apology at the proper time will cover that.”

“What’s the new excitement?” asked the colonel.  “More murders?  More princesses out at night?”

“This is between you and me.  Not a word to a living soul, De Wing!” Samson paused, then whispered:  “The treasure of Sialpore!”

“What—­in the palace?”

“In the grounds!  There’s a tunnel already half-dug, leading toward it from inside the palace wall.  I’ve proof of the location in my pocket!”

“Gad’s teeth!” barked Willoughby de Wing.  “All right, I’ll have your escort in a jiffy.  Have a whisky and soda, my boy, to stiffen you before the talk with Gungadhura!”

A little less than half an hour later Samson drove across the bridge in the official landau, followed by an officer, a jemadar, a naik and eight troopers of De Wing’s Sikh cavalry.  Willoughby de Wing drove in the carriage with him as a witness.  They entered the palace together, and were kept waiting so long that Samson sent the major-domo to the maharajah a second time with a veiled threat to repeat, said slowly: 

“Say the business is urgent and that I shall not be held responsible for consequences if he doesn’t see me at once!”

“Gad!” swore De Wing, screwing in his monocle.  “I’d like a second whisky and soda!  I suppose there’s none here.  I hate to see a man broke—­even a blackguard!”

Gungadhura received them at last, seated, in the official durbar room.  The bandages were gone from his face, but a strip of flesh-colored court-plaster from eye to lip gave him an almost comical look of dejection, and he lolled in the throne-chair with his back curved and head hung forward, scowling as a man does not who looks forward to the interview.

Samson cleared his throat, and read what be had to say, holding the paper straight in front of him.

“I have a disagreeable task of informing Your Highness that your correspondence with the Mahsudi tribe is known to His Majesty’s Government.”

Gungadhura scowled more deeply, but made no answer.

“Amounting as it does to treason, at a time when His Majesty’s Government are embarrassed by internal unrest, your act can not be overlooked.”

Gungadhura made a motion as if to interrupt, but thought better of it.