Page:Wonder Tales from Tibet.djvu/141

Rh the Khan himself was sitting. When the monarch heard the wind whispering about his secret, he was filled with rage.

"Truly," he said to himself, "the whole world must be talking about my secret if even the wind bandies it about! I did wrong to spare the life of that fellow Daibang, and to-morrow before sunrise he shall die!"

So it came about that Daibang was arrested that very day and dragged to the palace by rough soldiers. He was thrust at once into the private council room and there found himself alone with the angry Khan.

"Did I not say that no man on earth could keep a secret faithfully?" he cried sternly to the lad. "And you, though I loved and believed in you, have betrayed your trust, for the very wind that plays in my garden is whispering of that which none but you could tell! Speak, now, if you have aught to say in self-defense, for to-morrow, at daybreak, you shall die!"