Suddenly and unexpectedly and sweetly, like a voice in the night that spoke of hope and strength and the rebirth of order out of chaos, a bugle gave tongue from where the lanterns swung in straight-kept lines.

“Oh, Juggut Khan!  Oh, Juggut Khan!”

Bill Brown’s voice boomed through the opening in the dome, and spread down the walls of the powder-magazine as though in the inside of a speaking-trumpet.

“Brown sahib?”

“The army has got here from the north!  It has come down here from Harumpore!  It’s outside the walls now, lying on its arms, and evidently waiting to attack at daylight!”

“I, too, have news, Brown sahib!  All four are living!  All four lie here on the floor of the magazine, and they recover rapidly.  They are all but strong enough to stand.”

“Good!  Then come up here, Juggut Khan!”

That winding pathway up the inside of the dome took longer to negotiate than an ordinary stairway would have done, but presently the Rajput leaned against the parapet and panted beside Brown.

“D’you see them?  There they are!  Now, look on this side!  D’you see the preparations going on?  D’you realize what the next thing’s going to be?  They’ll come for powder for the guns, so’s to have it all ready for the gun-crews when the fun begins at dawn!  Listen!  Here they are already!”

A thundering had started on the great teak door below—­a thundering that echoed through the dome like the reverberations of an earthquake.  It was punctuated by the screams of women.  The prisoners changed their attitude, and eyed Brown and the Rajput with an air of truculence again.

“They’ll be up this causeway in a minute, sahib!  Listen.  There!  They’ve seen the dead bodies that you tossed over.  Better it had been to keep them up here for a while.”

“Never mind!  We can hold this causeway until morning!  Men!  Take close order.  Line up at the causeway-entrance.  Kneel.  Prepare for volley-firing.  Now, let ’em come!”

“I am for making an immediate escape, sahib!”

“Go ahead!” said Brown, almost dreamily.

He seemed to be thinking hard on some other subject as he spoke.

“Sahib, one of the women there—­she who is maid to the other two—­ asked me where Bill Brown might be!  She swore to me that she had recognized his voice when the trapdoor opened up above her.  Are you not Bill Brown?”

“Yes, I’m William Brown!”

“Her name, she says, is Emmett!”

“You don’t surprise me, Juggut Khan!  I thought I had recognized her voice.  It seemed strangely familiar.  Well—­here come the rebels up the causeway.  See?  They’re at the bottom now with lanterns!  Ready, men!”

There came the answering click of breech-bolts, and a little rustling as each man eased his position, and laid his elbow on his knee.

“Can you find your way out through the way we came, Juggut Khan?”