"The old Tiger of the Pathans, as I knew well, was prepared to be aroused at any hour of the night. Even his tulwar was buckled to his belt when, in answer to my summons, he stepped forth into the outer chamber. He listened to my eager story, peering at me the while from beneath his shaggy eyebrows. But not even the twitching of a muscle in his face betrayed surprise.
"At the close of my narrative he laid a kindly hand on my shoulder.
"'O son of my dead son,' he said gravely, 'if what you have seen to-night be not a dream, then have you done me great service. But go now and sleep, and prepare yourself for what is to come. Rest assured, more than ever before, that Allah is on our side, and that, even as I said to you last night, our enemies are being delivered into the hollow of our hands.'
"But sleep still refused to come to me that night. The call for morning prayer found me wide awake, turning over in my mind the many perplexities of the situation. Had the quarrel in the camp of our adversaries been nothing but a cunning pretence, the fight among the tribesmen before the dawn a mere sham, even the gathering in of the supposed dead and wounded an artful deception for our eyes, all contrived so that this devil of devils, Mustafa Khan, should gain access to the citadel with skilled sappers and mining munitions? And was the youth who had played the part of a goatherd really a son of the man, or a serpent-tongued liar, a chosen master of craft whose seeming guilelessness had helped to delude us? It had been a crude first idea on his part to suggest the admission as refugees of a swarm of armed men, but, when this had failed, there had been glib readiness with the other and more subtle plan that had so nearly succeeded. And as I reflected on these things, I marked the young hypocrite for my own particular prey.
"During the morning hours I was surprised to see the two khans, guest and host, betrayer and betrayed, walking around the gardens in seeming amity. But after a time my grandsire beckoned me to his side.
"'This is a grandson of mine,' he said, presenting me to Mustafa Khan. 'He has reported to me that the sabat is approaching too close to your present quarters, and that any explosion would endanger the members of your household.'