These considerations passed through Ahmed's mind in a flash. A few seconds after he entered the room he was under the divan, with the flounce pulled down, not a movement of it to betray that anything had happened during the men's absence. He wondered whether the beating of his heart could be heard; it was thumping much more violently now than when he was deciding what to do. The officers stayed in the surgery some time; Ahmed heard Minghal Khan talking and laughing; and by the time they came back his pulse had quietened. They returned to their seats, and drank, and talked--of the weaknesses of the king, the vices of the princes, the temper of the queen, the desperate straits of the English at Lucknow, the glorious future before them when the English had been annihilated. Ahmed wondered whether all the risks he had dared were to be rewarded with no better pribble-prabble than this. But by and by the Mirza Mogul was announced, and a few minutes after him Khuda Baksh Khan, one of the chief sirdars of the rebel forces, and then the conversation took a turn which engaged the listener's attention to the uttermost. At first he had difficulty in making it out. The speakers referred to matters which had previously been discussed at the king's palace. But gradually he was able to piece things together; allusions became clear; he grasped the whole. That very night, a brigade of four thousand men, horse, foot and artillery, was to march out secretly, slip by the right of the British position, and move on to the village of Alipur, several miles in the rear. The villagers had proved loyal to the British; they constantly supplied the camp with provisions; and General Barnard had recently established there a small post of some sixty Sikhs. The first object of the proposed night attack was to destroy the village with its guard, and carry off a great amount of stores which was believed to be there. But it had a second object. While the attention of the British was diverted to this movement, twenty thousand men were to parade under arms at dawn near the mosque, in readiness for a sortie. Bakht Khan meant to signalize his elevation to the post of commander-in-chief by a tremendous stroke against the besiegers. The men would issue in two great columns from the Kashmir and Lahore gates. Outnumbering their enemy by nearly four to one, they would overwhelm them.