Owen looked at the matter from all sides, and could not fail to see the unlikelihood of this man having had anything to do with him in former days; for, as he had just said, Colonel Le Pourton was a Frenchman, and we had been at war with his country for a long while. True, there had been a truce every now and again, even in India, where the two nations had been struggling the one against the other. English possessions had been captured and handed back again at the end of hostilities, and the same could be said of Pondicherry and other French holdings. It was possible that this Frenchman had known, in times of peace, some of the British officers, and then---- "What is the good of worrying about the matter?" thought Owen peevishly. "My life is of far more value to me than is this matter, and I will leave it. Now, how to escape? I will get away if it is possible. But how?" He went over to the window again and stood there, leaning against the wall and staring down at the streets beneath. And as he did so he noted the surroundings of the palace, the courtyard below with its outer gates, the sentries stationed there, magnificent men of Holkar's bodyguard. And outside the very building to which Mulha had alluded. Yes, and as he looked there was the figure of the faithful servant entering the quarters allotted to his comrades. Owen waved his hand to him, and Mulha, happening to look up at his window, as he had done many a time in the last few hours without doubt, wondering behind which his master lay a prisoner, saw the signal and answered it. Then he disappeared, and our hero saw no more of him. He followed the courtyard round to its limits, and then traced the walls which surrounded the palace. They were evidently part of the defences of the town, and were armed with heavy guns, some of brass and some of iron, and all of large proportions. "That is certainly the largest I have ever seen in my life," thought Owen as his eye lit on one piece of gigantic size which towered over the others. "Its muzzle must be a couple of feet across."