Ahmed passed on. But instead of striking into the Nasirganj Road, which would bring him direct to the Kashmir gate and the main guard, he made his way by quiet and tortuous lanes, among the gardens of some of the principal residents, towards a point about half-way between the Kashmir gate and the Mori bastion. He was aware that, besides the heavy guns at the bastions, there were light guns along the whole of this part of the wall; but these could only be effectively used if the besiegers approached the city, and were, perhaps, hardly likely to be manned in force now. But when he came near enough to see them, he saw also that the gunners were on duty beside the guns, huddled together--the night was damp and chilly--and most of them, to all appearance, asleep. Now and then, however, he heard voices from these little knots of men; it behoved him to go warily. He passed along, keeping in shadow, until he reached a part of the wall where all was quiet. There was no firing either from the British lines or from the defences of the city, and the night was so still, with the brooding stillness of an imminent storm, that the slightest sound in his vicinity would have reached his ear. Pausing for a few moments for reassurance, he at length ventured to creep to the foot of the wall, and grope his way up the steps leading to the battlements, eight feet below the parapet. Half-way up he heard a faint call somewhere to his left, but it was not answered, and he went on till he gained the top. Stealing along the battlements, he sought for some fissure in which he might plant his lathi. But he found none, and the masonry of the wall was far too hard to allow him to bore a hole in it without making a noise that was bound to attract attention. He wished he could have gone to one of the embrasures and tied his rope to the gun itself; but even if the gunners were asleep, it involved a risk he dared not run. He was at his wit's end to know what to do. Flat on his belly, to lessen the chances of being seen, he crawled along, seeking for a hole, and becoming more and more anxious as the moments fled. What if his warning should reach Hodson Sahib too late? The parapet was loopholed for musketry, but the loopholes afforded him no assistance. At length, when almost in despair, he came to a spot where a shot from one of the British guns had made a jagged rent in the parapet. Here, surely, at this fortuitous embrasure, he could put his fortune to the test. Gently unwinding the rope from about his body, he fixed the slip-knot on the lathi, and having laid this transversely across the gap, he paid out the rope until he felt it touch bottom.