A sharp crash, a sudden rise in the babel of voices below, warned him that the gate had given, partially at least. The next instant a soldier or two, ignorant of that dead man with his back against the closed gate, ran lightly down the alley calling on the prisoners to make way. One of them was Roshan Khân; but George Dillon did not waste a cartridge even on him. He was reserving his fire for that storming of the broken stairs which must come when the assailants found themselves still foiled. In truth Roshan Khân had this same storming in his mind as all he cared for, since it would pit him against his rival, against Vincent Dering, who he knew was on the roof. And so, with that odd acquired sense of honour, fair play, God knows what, he had been planning, as his men battered down the gate, how best to compass those fair odds which were necessary alike to his sense of justice and injustice--for the injustice of his own position cried aloud for proof that he was worth a better one. So he had settled to complete that liberating of the prisoners which, with the help of the keys, ought already to be in hand. This done, the general rabble would be eager for freedom, eager for plunder, eager to get to the town and raise it, eager for all things for which he cared no jot. Then would be his time. Then--he did not even try to formulate how--he could find himself face to face, at fair odds, with Vincent Dering. Wild memories of duels he had read about in western books, duels with others, who had nothing to do with the quarrel, looking on, occurred to him. Yes! that would satisfy him. To have it out, till death! He set his teeth as he forced a peremptory way through the crowd at the end of the alley, which hid the closed door until one actually stood beside it. Then he stood transfixed, for he saw Vincent Dering's dead body still backed by that closed door, still guarding it, unarmed. There was a curious look of content in the dead face, and Roshan, grasping its meaning by intuition, turned from it with a curse, knowing himself forestalled, cheated. "'Twas not our fault, _Khân-jee_," protested a voice, quickly; "the swine fought till the other one had locked the door in our faces, and so--" Roshan struck at the voice fiercely. Not forestalled, not cheated, only; but outdone, conquered! His rival had died a hero's death, and he--he might live to be hanged! A rage of despair, of despite, seized on him. His one real object gone, the whole hideous folly of the rest made him fling up his hands passionately as he dashed back to the gate, neither knowing nor caring what he was going to do next. Storm that feeble garrison on the roof? those broken stairs, every crevice, every foothold in which stood out clear, easy, in the light of the search-ray? Was that a man's task? Confused, dazed, he ran on, followed instinctively by the crowd, wondering what he would be at.