"At the foot of the stairs, sahib, at the main entrance and at the exit from the courtyard. As for the troopers, they are free to move about in their quarters, but they are watched. We have seen men hovering about. This white officer too,"--Owen heard his servant grind his teeth as he spoke of the French colonel,--"sahib, I tell you that he watches every movement and every one of the guards. I have seen him in the courtyard, and I have heard him threaten death to any who allowed his prisoner to escape. Beware, sahib! This man bears you but evil friendship, and would slay you. Who knows, it may be his doing that these orders have been given to the troopers, for here in Indore he commands. Holkar is beneath his thumb, and an order from this white fiend is obeyed as if he were an emperor indeed. Hush! I hear some one moving. We will wait, sahib!" Even Owen behind his prison door could hear the far-off sound of a step, and therefore could not feel surprise when the sounds outside told him that Mulha had moved away. However, in a moment or two he was back, and his voice was heard again. "Farewell, sahib," he whispered. "We will wait. I believe that you will escape. If not, rest assured, we will avenge you." He was gone. Owen could hear his faint footfall as he slipped down the stairs. Then followed silence, complete silence, broken after a little while by the awakening noises from the city outside. "Forewarned!" said Owen as calmly as he could, though his heart beat more forcibly now that he had heard Mulha's news. "So they will murder me, and make that a cause for war, as if there was not enough already! Ah! I know whom I have to thank for this! It is the Frenchman; but why? Why?" Why indeed? Had our hero devoted himself to elucidating the reason for such display of malice for a week or even more he would have been no nearer the answer. The fact remained that Colonel Le Pourton had taken a sudden and none too friendly interest in him, and, moreover, appeared to be in some manner connected with his earlier history. What was there which could possibly make this English youth--a poorhouse boy, a beggar almost till friends came forward to help him--an enemy to be feared by one in such high command as this French colonel? And yet---- "He fears me, and he knows something of my earlier history. His conscience hurts him perhaps. Who knows, he may have been the very one who arranged for my abduction, for I was certainly stolen when I was a child. But a Frenchman! It seems impossible."