This critical step, however, it was resolved
to defer up to the latest possible moment, and, at all events, to make
no general communication on the subject until the time of departure
should be definitely settled. In the meantime, Zebek admitted only
three persons to his confidence; of whom Oubacha, the reigning prince,
was almost necessarily one; but him, from his yielding and somewhat
feeble character, he viewed rather in the light of a tool than as one
of his active accomplices. Those whom (if anybody) he admitted to an
unreserved participation in his counsels, were two only, the great
_Lama_ among the Kalmucks, and his own father-in-law, Erempel, a ruling
prince of some tribe in the neighborhood of the Caspian sea,
recommended to his favor not so much by any strength of talent
corresponding to the occasion, as by his blind devotion to himself, and
his passionate anxiety to promote the elevation of his daughter and his
son-in-law to the throne of a sovereign prince. A titular prince Zebek
already was: but this dignity, without the substantial accompaniment of
a sceptre, seemed but an empty sound to both of these ambitious rivals.
The other accomplice, whose name was Loosang-Dchaltzan, and whose rank
was that of Lama, or Kalmuck pontiff, was a person of far more
distinguished pretensions; he had something of the same gloomy and
terrific pride which marked the character of Zebek himself, manifesting
also the same energy, accompanied by the same unfaltering cruelty, and
a natural facility of dissimulation even more profound.
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