reparations to meet our forces, which must be
pretty close at hand, but whether in sufficient strength to attack this
great town I would have given anything to know.

The beating of the horses' hoofs passed away, but the steady tramp of
infantry went on for some time before it had died out, and the dull,
distant roar as of many people in a crowd, did not cease. I fancied
that it was on the increase, while below me in the court, the fountain
played and sparkled in the sunshine, the great goldfish sailed about in
the tank, and the green leaves trembled and glistened in the bright
light. For whatever might be going on in the town, here everything was
perfectly peaceful and still.

I was just wishing that I could have been at liberty to mount a horse,
and, only as a spectator, go about the town and see what arrangements
were being made for its defence, wondering whether it was strongly
walled, my recollections on the night of our entry only extending to the
great gate through which we had passed, and thinking that if the force
advancing were only small, Ny Deen might decide to go out and attack it,
when I saw a couple of dark figures in the gateway, which were not those
of the guard, and directly after, bending low beneath the weight of
their loads, my old friends, the two bheesties, walked slowly across to
the other side of the court, where they separated as before, one going
round by the far side of the tank, the other coming in my direction.

"It cannot be a very serious alarm," I thought, "or matters would not be
going on so calmly here."

Then I stopped short to watch the actions of the nearest man, wondering
whether my ideas were right, or it was only fancy.

"It can't be Dost," I said to myself, as the man diligently directed the
thin tube of leather formed by the leg of the animal from which it had
been stripped, sending the water round and round to form chains of
circles on the marble paving.

"No. It can't be Dost," I thought, with the feeling of sadness of one
who was suffering terribly from his solitary position. "It was all
imagination."

But then I felt that it could not have been imagination about the
message, for there were the forces approaching. Still, that
heavy-looking man's sole aim in life seemed to be to make the rings of
water on the pavement perfectly exact, and I was wondering at myself for
being so ready to jump at conclusions as I watched him come slowly
nearer and nearer, his back b