this cavity two
of the figures were passing up baskets of mud and gravel, into the hands
of Mustafa Khan himself, who was bestowing the material around the walls
of the room. The fourth man, also in the pit that had been dug, was
tapping a long iron crowbar into a hole that had evidently been pierced
in the soft ground in the direction of the fortress wall.

"I knew little enough about engineering in those days, but it needed
only common sense for me to realize that the miscreant Mustafa had
betrayed our hospitality for no other purpose than to breach the walls
of the citadel. If there had been women in one pannier there had been
men in the other, and, to balance the camel's load, there had been
powder and tools for the nefarious task, the crowning achievement, no
doubt, of an elaborate conspiracy.

"But I lost no time then in trying to piece together the details of the
scheme. It was action that was needed now. So, just as silently and
cautiously as I had descended, I climbed back again by my rope and
regained the battlements. I paused just for a moment to listen to the
sweeping chords of the zither, played by no unskilled hand, and to the
rich notes of the woman's voice swelling into the midnight air. Then I
gathered the rope in my arms, and sought the sleeping quarters of my
grandfather.

"The old Tiger of the Pathans, as I knew well, was prepared to be
aroused at any hour of the night. Even his tulwar was buckled to his
belt when, in answer to my summons, he stepped forth into the outer
chamber. He listened to my eager story, peering at me the while from
beneath his shaggy eyebrows. But not even the twitching of a muscle in
his face betrayed surprise.

"At the close of my narrative he laid a kindly hand on my shoulder.

"'O son of my dead son,' he said gravely, 'if what you have seen
to-night be not a dream, then have you done me great service. But go now
and sleep, and prepare yourself for what is to come. Rest assured, more
than ever before, that Allah is on our side, and that, even as I said to
you last night, our enemies are being delivered into the hollow of our
hands.'

"But sleep still refused to come to me that night. The call for morning
prayer found me wide awake, turning over in my mind the many
perplexities of the situation. Had the quarrel in the camp of our
adversaries been nothing but a cunning pretence, the fight among the
tribesmen before the dawn a mere sham, even the gathering in of the
su