Their preparations were made with the utmost secrecy. The same men who sold Bahadur Shah's cause to the British were also the professed spies of the rebels. They were utterly unreliable, yet their tale-bearing in Delhi might bring instant disaster to Malcolm and his native comrade. Nejdi was in good condition again after the tremendous exertions undergone since he carried his master from Lucknow. Malcolm was in two minds whether to take him or not, but the chance that his life might depend on a reliable horse, and, perhaps, a touch of the gambler's belief in luck, swayed his judgment, and Nejdi was saddled. Chumru rode a spare charger which Malcolm had purchased at the sale of a dead officer's effects. Fully equipped in their character as rebel non-commissioned officers, the two rode forth, crossed the Jumna, reached the Meerut road unchallenged and turned their horses' heads toward the bridge of boats that debouched beneath the walls of the King's palace. Provided they met some stragglers on the road they meant to enter the city with the dawn. By skilful expenditure of money on Malcolm's part and the exercise of Chumru's peculiar inventiveness in maintaining a flow of lurid language, they counted on keeping their new-found comrades in tow while they made the tour of the city. The curiosity of strangers would be quite natural, and Malcolm hoped they might be able to slip out again with some expedition planned for the night or the next morning. Of course, having undertaken an unpleasant duty he intended to carry it through. If he did not learn the nature and extent of the enemy's batteries, the general dispositions for the defense and the state of feeling among the different sections that composed the rebel garrison, he must perforce remain longer. But that was in the lap of fate. At present he could only plan and contrive to the best of his ability. Fortune favored the adventurers at first. They encountered a score of ruffians who had cut themselves adrift from the Gwalior contingent. Among these strangers Chumru was quickly a hero. He beguiled the way with tales of derring-do in Oudh and the Doab, and discussed the future of all unbelievers with an amazing gusto. Malcolm, whose head was shrouded in a gigantic and blood-stained turban, listened with interest to his servant's account of the actions outside Cawnpore and on the road to Lucknow. It was excellent fooling to hear Chumru detailing the wholesale slaughter of the Nazarenes, while the victors, always the sepoys, found it advisable to fall back on a strategic position many miles in the rear after each desperate encounter. In this hail-fellow-well-met manner the party crossed the bridge, were interrogated by a guard at the Water Gate and admitted to the fortress. It chanced that a first-rate feud was in progress, and the officer, whose duty it was to question new arrivals, was taking part in it.