the Colonel stood straight before the Prince.
“I desire to have a few words with you, Maharajah!”
“And I have instructed my servants to inform you that I am not at your service. You see I am at luncheon!”
“That, in your case, is no reason for refusing to receive the representative of His Britannic Majesty. The message you sent me was an insult, which, if repeated, will have to be punished.”
In a transport of rage the Prince sprang up from his chair. He hurled an abusive epithet into the Colonel’s face, and his right hand sought the dagger in his belt. The attendant, who was about to serve up to his master a ruddy lobster on a silver dish, recoiled in alarm. But the Colonel, without moving an inch from his place, placed the silver hunting whistle that hung from his shoulder to his mouth. Two shrill calls, and at once the trotting of horses and the rattle of arms was audible. The high, blue-striped turbans of the cavalry and the pennons of their lances made their appearance under the terrace.
“Call my bodyguard!” cried the Prince, with a voice hoarse with rage.
But in a voice of icy calm the Colonel retorted, “If you summon your bodyguard, Maharajah, you are a dead man. That would be rebellion; and with rebels we make short shrift.”
The Prince pressed his lips together; the rage he had with the greatest difficulty suppressed caused his body to quiver as in a paroxysm of fever, but he had to realise that he was here the weaker, and without a word more he fell back again into his chair.
The Colonel stepped to the balcony of the terrace.
“Sergeant Thomson!” he called down into the park.
Heavy steps were heard on the marble stairs, and the man summoned, followed by two soldiers, stood at attention before his superior officer.
“Sergeant, do you know the gentleman sitting at that table?”
“Yes, sir! It is His Highness the Maharajah.”
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