For something very funny had happened there, which, though the flicker of the fire had died down, she could see with her cat’s eyes.

A lad had slipped in, carrying the end of a rope, to which was attached a network bag.  And now, since it was dark, he was striking a light.  A feeble little glimmer, but sufficient to show the two sleeping nurses and the comfy little nest of quilts between them.  But it was empty!

The boy seemed puzzled, and went into the inner room, only to return without what he sought.  Then he stole into the outer room, but came back softly with a puzzled look on his face.  Then he began to peer about him on the floor, and in the corners, holding the feeble light in front of him.  Whereupon Down, apparently to satisfy herself that her kitten really was safe in the corner of the charcoal bunker where she had left it, retreated for a moment, so that as the searcher came round he saw nothing but the low, round arch.  The next he gave a stifled yell, for something white that was all claws leaped right in his face, over he went and out went his light.

“I look no more,” he said, shivering as, after five minutes’ hasty retreat, he stood on the roof among those who had sent him down.  “Let some one else go; but I tell you the child is not there.”

But one of the crafty, cruel men had sharp wits.  “Could he have crept into the charcoal bunker?” he suggested, and the faces round him lit up.  But the lad’s remained sullen, as he wiped the blood from Down’s scratches.

“Mayhap,” he said. “But I go not near that cat again!”

So, as no one else was small enough to slip through the narrow slits of windows, the conspirators could only curse their bad luck.

Thus it came to pass that the hours passed by without further attempt at baby-theft, while Foster-father snored and Head-nurse dreamed the most heavenly dreams of wonderful court ceremonials, and all the others were wrapped in the profoundest slumbers.

But they all woke at last, and once more there was the most terrible hullabaloo until Foster-mother recollected the kitten in the charcoal bunker.  Whereupon every one in turn flattened themselves on the floor and reached in, and Roy actually got his head and one shoulder in; but no one could feel anything or find out how big it was or anything about it.  Whereupon the two women began mutual recriminations and the men stood helpless, when suddenly Down appeared with the kitten in her mouth, and Baby Akbar, who had evidently been comfortably asleep on the blanket amid the straw, came crawling after his new pet.

“So far so good!” said Foster-father, who, noticing a fallen piece of mortar at the window-sill, had been carefully examining certain signs and scratches both without and within, “but if I be not much mistaken, some one hath been through here this night.  And that we were all drugged ye must know if the inside of your mouths be like mine!  So we have to thank Heaven and the cat for an escape!”