Just as he grasped a
thick one, clutching it with both arms and legs, and swaying
desperately in the dark, he felt a rush of wings across his face,
and a great white owl flew out hooting in her panic. The boy
almost missed his catch with fear, and the Maharajah, wakeful in
his apartments, lost another good hour's sleep through hearing the
owl's cry. It was the worst of omens, the Maharajah believed, and
sometimes he believed it with less reason.

As quickly as he dared, Sunni let himself down branch by branch
till he reached the level of the wall. Presently he stood upon it
in the subsiding rustle of the leaves, breathless and trembling..
He seemed to have disturbed every living thing within a hundred
yards. A score of bats flew up from the wall crevices, a flying
fox struck him on the shoulder, at his feet something black and
slender twisted away into a darker place. Sunni stood absolutely
still, gradually letting go his hold upon the pipal twigs.
Presently everything was as it had been before, except for the
little dark motionless figure on the wall; and the south wind was
bringing across the long, shrill, mournful howls of the jackals
that plundered the refuse of the British camp half a mile away.

Then Sunni lay down flat on the top of the wall, and began to work
himself with his hands and feet towards the nearest embrasure. An
old cannon stood in this, and threatened with its wide black mouth
any foe that should be foolish enough to think of attacking the
fort from the river. This venerable piece of ammunition had not
been fired for ten years, and would burst to a certainty if it were
fired now; but as nobody had ever dreamed of attacking Lalpore from
the river that didn't particularly matter. When Sunni reached it,
he crouched down in its shadow--the grayness behind the palms was
spreading--and took the rest of his turban cloth from his waist.
Then he took off his coat, and began to unwind a rope from his
body--a rope made up of all sorts of ends, thick and thin, long and
short, and pieced out with leather thongs. Sunni was considerably
more comfortable when he had divested himself of it. He tied the
rope and the turban cloth together, and fastened the rope end to
the old gun's wheel. He looked over for a second--no longer--but
it was too dark to tell how far down the face of the thirty-foot
wall his ragged contrivance hung. It was too dark as well to see
whether the water rippled against the wall