The Adventures of Akbar Part 19

So she had found them at last--no! not _them_, for the Heir-to-Empire was not there--he had been stolen away! Roy could have leaned his head on Down's soft fur and cried his heart out in despair at his own helplessness, but he set his teeth instead and dug harder with the sword point.

Would the bar never loosen? So the minutes pa.s.sed without a sound save the grating of the eager sword and the soft, soothing purr of the cat as she sat beside him watching him indifferently. Then suddenly the latter ceased and Down leaped swiftly to the floor of the cell. Doubtless she heard something. Cats hear so many things humans do not hear, and they seem to know so many things humans do not know, so perhaps she heard a mouse far down the arched pa.s.sage, or even in the next cell. Anyhow she marched straight to the door and stood by it, _miaowing_ to be let out.

Ah! if he only could let her out! If the door were only open, thought poor Roy, as he worked away at the still immovable bar.

"No! Down, no! I can't," he murmured bitterly as the cat _miaowed_ more and more insistently.

But still the _miaowing_ went on. Down became quite plaintive, then ill-used; finally she leaped onto Roy's shoulder, licked his ear with her rough red tongue as if to coax him, and was back again at the door asking to be let out.

Why was she so set on it? Roy turned to look at her half stupidly and for a moment forgot his task; forgot how rapidly time was pa.s.sing; forgot everything save that Down was asking to be let out. So wearily he pa.s.sed to the door, and scarcely conscious of what he was doing, laid his hand on the latch.

"I can't, Down," he said; "I can't open--" He broke off hurriedly.

For the latch yielded, the door opened!!

It could never have been locked!!

Had they forgotten, or, having secured the Heir-to-Empire, had they not cared what became of the henchman? The latter, most likely, for there was no sentry in the arched pa.s.sage along which Down had already disappeared.

Another second and Roy, sword in hand, had disappeared down it also, remembering as he ran a certain little fretted marble balcony which gave on the gardens below. For Roy, of course, knew every turn of the Bala Hissar. This balcony opened onto an unused gallery room. To gain this, bolt the heavy door behind him, and so, secure from interruption, set to work twining a rope from strips torn from his turban and waistband did not take long; but it was a good twenty minutes before he had knotted all fast; though while he worked he thought of nothing else; of nothing but somehow reaching the garden. Once there he would face the next difficulty. One was enough at a time. And then, when he had made the rope fast to one of the marble pillars and slid down it, it proved too short. He swung with his feet just touching the topmost branch of a blossoming peach tree. There was nothing for it but to let go, s.n.a.t.c.h at the branches as he fell and trust to chance for safety. He found it; and dropped to the ground amid a perfect shower of shed peach petals.

So he stood for an instant to consider what must come next. A gate! Aye!

but which? The farthest from the point of attack would be the best, as there would be less vigilance there. That meant the Delhi gate, and meant also a long round; yet he must be quick, for already there was a faint lightening of the eastern sky. But the moon had set and the shadows, always darker in the hour before dawn, lay upon all things.

And luckily he knew every turn of the Bala Hissar garden, knew every point where danger might be expected. So he began to make his way carefully. He dodged more than one sentry by creeping on through the bushes while the man pa.s.sed away from him, and crouched among them, still as a mouse, while the measured march came toward him. And once he had to run for bare life from a shower of arrows which a company of soldiers sent into the darkness after a suspicious rustling in the bushes. But mostly the men on duty had too much to think of outside the walls to trouble themselves much about the things inside them.

So with doublings and turnings he came at last on the Delhi gate, a small, round, flat-roofed building pierced by a high archway. It was too dark for him to see its outline, but he knew it well, and paused against the outside wall to consider what he had to do next. The place seemed almost deserted, but a glimmer of light from the archway and the even tramp of a sentry's footstep told it was not all unguarded.

What was he to do? It would be useless for him to try and steal past the sentry, as the gate beyond must be locked, or at any rate bolted and barred. He must either, therefore, try and overpower the man or else try to gain the flat roof by the stairs--of which he knew the position--and, trusting to find a rope or something of the sort in the upper room of the gate, let himself down into the ditch outside.

Now, Roy was a well-grown lad of nigh fifteen, tall for his age, and with his light, youthful sinews of iron might well be a match for many a man, especially as his purpose was like steel, and that is ever half the battle. But there was the chance of other soldiers being within call, and that might mean failure. Now, _that_ must not be. Roy had to succeed--he must!

Therefore the roof was the wiser, safer plan; he must make for the stairs, trusting to escape notice when the sentry's back was turned.

Till then--silence!

But even as he settled this in his mind Fate was against him. As he crouched in the darkness something cold suddenly touched his face, and the next moment a clamour of excited yappings and joyful barks arose, as something warm and furry and cold and s...o...b..ry flung itself all over him.

Tumbu! It could be nothing but blundering, b.u.mbling Tumbu! He made one useless effort to still the dog, then rose to his feet feeling himself discovered, prepared to run for it. But it was too late. A sentry, lantern in hand, roused by the commotion, barred the way. All seemed lost, but a ray of hope shone when the familiar voice of the Afghan sentry, the unrepentant turncoat, was heard as the lantern waved in Roy's very face.

"By my word, one of the Kings! How come you hither at this time o'

night, friend?"

The voice was a little thick, as if the owner, finding the quiet of the Delhi Gate wearisome, had sought amus.e.m.e.nt in a skin of wine.

Roy gave a gasp--he was too confused for thought. "The dog--" he began.

"Aye! The dog that was yours and is mine," jeered the sentry. "So he nosed you out, did he? Knows his duty--good dog, Tumbu! Knows his master now! Knows who saved him from starvation when he was lurking about in the gutter. Eh! you brute!"

He lunged a kick at Tumbu, who retreated a step, looking from the new to the old master, feeling, in truth, a trifle confused. For the Afghan sentry had certainly found him homeless, friendless, and the dog had stuck by him, feeling that here at least was something vaguely connected with the past life. But now he stood doubtful, expectant, his little ears p.r.i.c.ked, his small eyes watchful.

"Well," continued the sentry with a half-drunken laugh, "dog or no dog, you've no business here, so come along with me, my King."

He reached out a heavy hand, and Roy shrunk from it. As he did so there came a sound which sent the blood to Roy's heart with a spasm of instant hope, of possible escape. It was Tumbu's low growl as he realised that some one wanted to touch his old master and that his old master did not want to be touched.

"At him, Tumbu! At him, good dog!" The words came to Roy in a flash, and like a flash the great, powerful dog leaped forward, his fur a-bristle, his white teeth gleaming, and the next instant, taken by the suddenness of the attack, the sentry lay on his back half stunned by the fall, while Tumbu, on the top of him, checked even a cry by a clutch at his throat. A soft clutch so far; but one that would tear through flesh if needful.

Roy was on his knees beside the fallen man.

"Hist! not a sound or the dog shall kill you. He can. Give me the keys.

I want to get out of the gate! The keys, do you hear?"

The sentry tried to struggle, but warned by the weight of the dog on his breast and those sharp teeth ready to close upon his throat, murmured hoa.r.s.ely, "It is only barred, but the bolts are difficult. If you will let me get up and call off your dog----"

But Roy took no heed of his words. "Keep him there, Tumbu," he whispered as he ran to the gate.

Bolted and barred it was, and in the darkness of the archway it was hard to see, for the lantern had gone out in the scuffle. But there was no time to lose, for already beyond the archway it showed faintly light.

One bar down! The sentry made a faint effort to stir, that was answered by an ominous growl from Tumbu.

Only one more bolt now!

Roy's long fingers were at it--his whole strength went to it--it creaked--groaned--slid, and with a sob of exultation Roy felt the fresh air of dawn in his face as he stood outside the Bala Hissar.

But he had still much to do. The city must be skirted, the hill of Arkaban gained, and already a faint primrose streak in the eastern sky told of coming light.

CHAPTER XXI

DAWN

Upon the Arkaban hill the artillery men were already at work. In those days guns were not what they are now, quick loading, quick firing.

It needed a good hour to ram the coa.r.s.e powder down, adjust the round ball and prepare the priming; to say nothing of the task of aiming. So, long ere dawn, the glimmering lights were seen about the battery, which, perched on a hill, gave on the half-breached bastion. Between the two stretched an open s.p.a.ce of undulating ground. Sumbal, "the master fireworker," as he is called in the old history books, was up betimes seeing to his men, and with him came a grave, silent man, who, though he had no interest in the quarrels of Humayon and his brothers, was as eager as any to get within the walls of Kabul and find what he sought--a Rajput lad of whom word had been brought to a little half-desert Rajput state lying far away in the Jesulmer plain.

For the grave, silent man, who showed so much knowledge of warfare, who was keen to see everything new in weapons and the handling of them, was a messenger sent by a widowed mother to see if indeed it could be her long-lost son, of whom a certain old trooper had spoken on his return from Kabul.

"See you!" said Sumbal, who was a bit of a boaster, "give me time to aim and I'll warrant me 'Thunder of G.o.d'" (that was the name let in with gold on the breech of the gun) "will hit the mark within a yard every time. Thou shalt see it ere-long. There is a sort of pigeon place on the face of the bastion where I will aim, and thou shalt see the splinters of it spin!" He shaded his eyes with his hand and looked piercingly into the shadows. "'Tis too dark to see it yet, but so soon as it shows I will let fly, and then----"

And then?

Roy, who had never stopped for a breath yet in his headlong race, was at that very moment rounding on the bastion, and looking up, saw what he had feared to see--a little figure bound hand and foot to a framework of wood that hung close to what Sumbal had called the pigeon place, seeming to form part of it. The child was not crying. Perhaps he was past that.

Perhaps he had never cried, but had taken this last and urgent danger as he had taken others, with grave dignity.

All we know is that he hung there on the wall, and that before his very eyes the light was growing in the east, and over in the hill battery a dozen men were sweating away to bring the "Thunder of G.o.d" into position. Roy gave a gasp. Should he call to the little Heir-to-Empire and let him know that a friend was near, that help might come? No!

perhaps he did not realise his danger. It was better to let be.

So gathering all his forces for a last effort, he dashed into the open for the final five minutes' run. And there could be no dodging here.

Every loophole of the bastion was, he knew, crammed with the matchlocks of many marksmen. And there was now, worse luck, little darkness to cover him!