“Cats,” said poor Head-nurse, as she sat opposite Foster-mother, grinding for all they were worth at a stone hand-mill in order to gain enough to keep Bija from starving, “are of all God’s creatures the most contented; and so little pleases them.  Hark! to Down how she purrs, just because she has found us poor miserable women.”

“Allah!” replied Foster-mother more cheerfully.  “Is love such a little thing?  I think not, and Down hath seen my darling.  Of that I feel sure; she would not come and purr otherwise.”

Still it was silent comfort and there was so much going on; so much that even the “miserable women” could not hear, though they were free to come and go.  But one day when Down was purring on Bija’s lap in the straw thatch which was all the three had for lodging, a passer-by paused to say: 

[Illustration:  And one day the door did open....  “My son—­my little son."]

“That is the cat I used to see with the little King.  Have you ought to do with him, sister?”

“I am his sister,” replied Bija haughtily, whereat the sentry, for it was he, laughed; but for all that he paused to tell the two women what he knew; though that was not much.  It could not be long, however, he said, before news of one sort or another came to them; for King Humayon was, so they said, within a day’s march of Kabul, and any time they might hear the guns begin.  Then would be his turn.  He would fight till all was blue, and then if the outsiders won, turn round and fight for them as hardily, since all he required was plenty of fighting and plenty of food and wine.

He was right in one thing.  The very next day about noon, a sudden pouf—­bing-bing—­thud, told that the first shot had been fired.  And after that there was no peace and little safety.  Only Foster-father in his dungeon was free even from anxiety; for fever had seized on him and he lay unconscious.  And in his close prison room, where there was little air and less light, and where Roy racked his brain for stories wherewith to while away the leaden-footed hours, the little Heir-to-Empire lay listless also, yet not ill.  Only weary, weary.

“I want Tumbu,” he would say, “I want to run a race with him.  I want to be out of doors.”

And so while the city was alive with armed men, when there were assaults and repulses and sorties and forlorn hopes going on day after day, Roy would tell Mirak that some day something would happen.  Some day the door would open and——­

And one day the door did open.  And a tall man stood for a second, half-blinded by the darkness.  But the next he strode forward and caught the little Heir-to-Empire to his heart, murmuring, “My son—­my little son!”

It was King Humayon; for Kumran, after pleading for a few hours’ truce to allow him to make submission, had taken advantage of this breathing time to make his escape with the more desperate of his followers.  Fear had overcome him once more.  Having nothing in himself on which he could rely, he could not trust to the generosity of his brother.