What did this mean? What was the explanation of the stealthy, furtive manner in which the khansaman had acted? Ahmed would have liked to follow him; it crossed his mind that the man might have a secret hoard of valuables belonging to his late master; but the urgency of his duty to Hodson Sahib forbade any delay. He was in a quandary. How was he to get out of the house? He had heard the bolt of the front door shot; it was too much to hope that he could descend the stairs, draw back the bolt, and open the door without attracting the attention of the darwan, whose shed was close by, and who might not yet be asleep. There was no doubt a back entrance; could he discover that without making a noise? This seemed the only course. He crept from his hiding-place, stole to the door, listened: all was silent. Then he tiptoed along the landing until he came to the dark passage at the end. It ran across the breadth of the house. He went along it, past a closed door which might be the door of Minghal Khan's bedroom, and reached a staircase. Without doubt this would bring him to the back door. He went down, passed the kitchens, which were in darkness, and came to a door which a rapid inspection assured him was neither bolted nor locked. Opening it just enough to allow him to squeeze through, he gently closed it behind him, and found himself in a walled-in garden, with a circular fountain in the middle. A colonnade ran along three sides of it, supported on slender pillars. There was a door on the fourth side, but this he soon proved to be securely locked. It was an easy matter to swarm up one of the pillars, climb the roof of the colonnade, and from that gain the top of the wall a little below. Then dropping on the outer side he alighted in a narrow lane. It was pitch dark; he could not see his way, and knew not whether to turn to the right hand or to the left; but choosing the left at random, he groped his way along, through puddles and heaps of ill-smelling refuse, following the erratic windings of the lane until he came, as he had hoped, to the street in which the house was situated. Here he got a little light from a few smoky oil-lamps that hung at irregular intervals from brackets on the walls. From the sounds he heard before him he guessed that the street led into the Chandni Chauk, and in less than a minute he came to that thoroughfare. There were many people about; though the gates of the city were shut, the hour was not yet late; and he judged from the laughter proceeding from many half-open doors that some of Bakht Khan's soldiers were being entertained by the residents.