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?
But behind Prince Askurry were others who did not remember; who were eager to kill and have done with Humayon and his son for ever.
And when they saw Prince Askurry pause, they were quick with advice.
"It is unwise to spare snakes' spawn," said one.
[Illustration: _Prince Askurry ...