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precious porcelain between them.

Meanwhile the other members of the party, after a little fumbling among
their bales of merchandise, had withdrawn from the folds of innocent
cloth a musket apiece, and after the departure of their fellows stood
just behind the door in the attitude of men awaiting a call. One of them
peered round the door; another slightly drew aside the slats of the
adjacent window--an unglazed opening in the wall--and looked eagerly
across the street. There was no moon; the village was in darkness; but
the forms of the two men who had gone out could be dimly seen as they
crept stealthily along by the wall in the direction of the tower between
them and the gate.

The two reached the foot of the tower and laid their burden
down--gently, as befitted a box containing precious porcelain--at the
door. Then one of them stooped lower, and appeared to thrust something
into a hole near the bottom of the box. The watchman on the wall must
have been half-asleep, or he would have noticed a sudden spark at the
foot of the tower. It flashed but for a moment; then the two men,
bending low, hastened back stealthily by the way they had gone, came to
the change-house, and slipping in by the still half-open door, closed it
behind them.

They waited for perhaps a minute, and there was not a sound within the
guest-chamber save the slight smothered grunting of the Afghans through
their gags. Then from without there came a sudden roar; the ground
trembled, the building rocked as if it would fall about their heads, and
the waiting men, drawing a long breath, threw open the door and ran with
great nimbleness towards the tower The street was filled with acrid
fumes; here and there men were crying out, but the merchants paid no
heed, but rushed through the smoke and plunged into the yawning chasm
where the tower door had been. The opening was clogged with burning wood
and fragments of masonry; the intruders stumbled over these, coughing up
the smoke that entered their lungs, and groped their way up the narrow
winding stairway.

Cries from above assailed them. At the top of the first flight of steps
stood a man armed with a long spear. The stairway was so narrow that
only one man could pass at a time, and the man at the head of the
mounting party, coming too suddenly upon the spearman, received a thrust
in the breast and toppled backward. But the man behind him slipped aside
to avoid his falling body, and caught the spear b