A moment later, a figure crept out from beneath a divan against the wall of the dining-room. He crossed the landing to the opposite room, went to the almirah, and slid back the panel. But then he was baulked--the wall appeared solid. There was no lock, no handle by which the door in it could be opened. Ahmed felt up and down, from right to left, and was almost in despair, when the wall opened slowly, as of itself. He started back, thinking the khansaman was returning; but finding that all was silent he approached again. Unknowing, he had pressed a little wooden button cunningly let into the stone, and released the spring that held the slab in place. He crept through, and took the precaution of pushing the stone back, then began to descend the steps of the narrow spiral staircase on which he found himself. He counted the steps--they were thirty; and then he came to a low passage, as narrow as the staircase, through which only one person could pass at a time. It was so low that he knocked his head against its roof in the darkness. But some few paces in front of him he saw a thin line of light across the floor. He stealthily approached; there was a door. He heard voices, but could not distinguish words. Was the door fastened? He pushed it gently--it yielded. "If I could but be sure she was safe!" he heard a low voice say. "Without doubt she is safe, sahib," was the reply. The voice was the khansaman's. Ahmed thrilled. The khansaman was faithful after all. He had his old master here in hiding. Who would have suspected so unlikely a place? And he was trying to cheer the doctor's despondency as to the fate of his daughter. Clearly he had not told him what Ahmed had said of the capture of the English girl by a zamindar. "You have no news of her?" said the first voice. "None, sahib; but that is not strange. The missy sahib would fear to send a messenger, lest he should betray your presence. And it is harder now than it was for folk to go in and out of the city. This very day the order has gone forth that none shall enter or depart without a written word. A man--his name is Gordohan Dass, and he lives at Lattu--was going out at the Delhi gate this morning in a shigram, and the guard stopped him and searched his cart, and there they found cartridges and bullets. They were but for his own protection, he declared. Nevertheless they beat him, and took his cart and all that was in it, and sent him to the Kotwali. There is little hope of news until the sahibs come and take the city." "Will that ever be? What are they doing? Will they never begin the assault?"