For Roshan Khân had not returned. And yet, as he sat in a quiet courtyard of the city, with closed doors, realizing how late it was growing, he had no fear of further reprimand. On the contrary, his pulses were bounding with the certainty that he would gain praise. And there was something beyond this mere desire for personal advantage in the keen-witted diplomacy with which he listened, with which he suggested, with which he led the talkers on to tell what it was of the utmost importance that he should know, not so much to himself, as to the Government he served. For his vague discontent had vanished, his well-reasoned, well-founded loyalty returned at this, the first hint at anything beyond the wild, aimless intrigue with which every Indian bazaar teems. But here, in this definite plan, by the collaboration of his troopers, of liberating fifteen hundred scoundrels,--or, at least, desperadoes,--of aping the stroke of action which made the great mutiny of '57 possible, was something tangible. Something which, when known to the uttermost, must be told without delay to his superior officer. A vast pride swept through him, as, when the gongs were striking one,--short, yet with lingering vibration in the dull, still air,--he made his way, fast as he could, back to the Fort. Without him, and such as he, faithful despite limitations, what would the Masters know? Hours before, as he went out, he had arranged with Akbar Khân that the palace door giving on the great square between it and the Fort should be on the latch only, so that he might slip in at any time and take his chance of hiding in the garden, his chance of seeing Laila before the dawn came and he had to go back to the Fort. The old sinner, indeed, had jumped at this indefinite arrangement, which bound him to nothing; which made it unnecessary for him even to broach the subject of an interview to his mistress. Since what was easier to say than that it had been impossible; as, indeed, it was! Perhaps Roshan Khân had himself grasped this fact; perhaps in insisting on this entry to the garden he had been backing more than his own luck, and had been meditating a _coup d'état_ of his own. However that may have been, all was forgotten in his newly recovered loyalty, his keen ambition, as he hurried back to the Fort intent on but one thing--the forewarning and forearming of those whom he had long ago deliberately chosen as his masters. Some of his men were still lounging about on their beds, and he spoke a word to them as he passed, warning them to be ready if wanted. So, leaving them in sudden vague excitement, he passed on to the inner court. Here, where Lance Carlyon's small band of Sikh pioneers were quartered in the long, low building in which the fortified gateway stood, no one was astir. And no lights were visible in the opposite building where Lance and Vincent lived. Doubtless everyone was in bed.