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“No, I won't!” he said, boyishly, just a little hurt. “And that's just what I mean. Love! You see, love is the greatest force in the world, and I do love you, heart and soul and body, and every last, deepest, finest, most secret thought in me. And—why—it's bound to come out all right—don't you see—sooner or later!”

“Yes,” murmured Jane, “it's bound to come out all right!”

It did, rather sooner than Hector expected; and it began, not many weeks afterwards, with the governor of the western marches entering the audience hall arm in arm with Musa Al-Mutasim, and proclaiming, with a great deal of self-righteousness, that—by the red pig's bristles!—he had now proved once and for all his loyalty which, so it appeared, glistened in his soul as “the early rays of the young sun glisten in the tree tops of a staunch forest, O Aziza Nurmahal!”

With which and, too, with a triumphant side glance at his twin brother and worst enemy, the governor of the eastern marches, he related that the confidential messengers whom he had despatched to his headquarters in the western province had returned, that his and Musa Al-Mutasim's armies had sworn fealty to the established government, and that even now a picked squadron under the command of Koom Khan was on the way, with the two sahebs as prisoners, to be dealt with as they deserved.

“As they deserve, by the horns of the Archangel Ashrafeel!” echoed the Arab, winking significantly at Wahab al-Shaitan, the chief executioner.