d was the interminable babble of the
Khan, as he sat at the table shivering with fear and unable to eat a
morsel of his food.

"You won't give me up!... I have been a good friend to the English....
All my life I have been a good friend to the English."

"We will do what we can," said Phillips, and he rose from the table and
went up on to the roof. He lay down behind the low parapet and looked
over towards the town. The house was a poor place to defend. At the back
beyond the orchard the hill-side rose and commanded the roof. On the
east of the house a stream ran by to the great river in the centre of
the valley. But the bank of the stream was a steep slippery bank of
clay, and less than a hundred yards down a small water-mill on the
opposite side overlooked it. The Chiltis had only to station a few
riflemen in the water-mill and not a man would be able to climb down
that bank and fetch water for the Residency. On the west stood the
stables and the storehouses, and the barracks of the Sikhs, a square of
buildings which would afford fine cover for an attacking force. Only in
front within the walls of the forecourt was there any open space which
the house commanded. It was certainly a difficult--nay, a
hopeless--place to defend.

But Captain Phillips, as he lay behind the parapet, began to be puzzled.
Why did not the attack begin? He looked over to the city. It was a place
of tossing lights and wild clamours. The noise of it was carried on the
night wind to Phillips' ears. But about the Residency there was quietude
and darkness. Here and there a red fire glowed where the guards were
posted; now and then a shower of sparks leaped up into the air as a fresh
log was thrown upon the ashes; and a bright flame would glisten on the
barrel of a rifle and make ruddy the dark faces of the watchmen. But
there were no preparations for an attack.

Phillips looked across the city. On the hill the Palace was alive with
moving lights--lights that flashed from room to room as though men
searched hurriedly.

"Surely they must already have guessed," he murmured to himself. The
moving lights in the high windows of the Palace held his eyes--so swiftly
they flitted from room to room, so frenzied seemed the hurry of the
search--and then to his astonishment one after another they began to die
out. It could not be that the searchers were content with the failure of
their search, that the Palace was composing itself to sleep. In the city
the