efore it could be
withdrawn, dragging the spearman forward. Two others--they were Sherdil
and Ahmed--seized the occasion to squeeze past him; but they gained the
top of the flight only to see the two men who, behind him, had been
content to let him bear the brunt of the attack, dash back across the
narrow passage to a door on the other side. The passage was lit by a
small oil lamp--a wick floating in a shallow saucer. By its light
Sherdil and Ahmed saw the men fling themselves through the door into the
room beyond. They sprang after them, but the door was slammed in their
faces and the bolt shot.

And now great shouts floated up the stairway from below. They were cries
of surprise and fear, calls for arms, mingled with the fierce war-shout
of Pathan warriors. Some little while after the party of merchants had
found entrance to the village, Rahmut Khan with all his fighting men had
come up in the darkness and lain in hiding beyond the walls. The
explosion had been the signal for an attack on the village. They had
dashed forward; some had forced the gate, others had scaled the walls,
and they now held the village at their mercy, for the explosion had been
so startling, and the attack so sudden, that any effective defence was
out of the question.

Meanwhile, Sherdil and his band, finding themselves blocked by the
bolted door, had sought for some means of breaking it down. Their
chief's quarrel was with Minghal Khan, and it was Minghal Khan whom they
were most eager to secure. Some minutes passed before axes could be
found, then with a few shattering blows the door was broken in. Sherdil
sprang into the room, followed closely by Ahmed and the rest. The birds
had flown. The room was small, with one narrow window in the outer wall.
A rope hung from it; the men had descended by this and made their
escape. Ahmed rushed down the stairs to inform his father, and to send
men out in pursuit. Sherdil hastened to the upper apartments in the hope
that Minghal might not have been one of the two who had escaped. But he
found no one in the tower except the women and children.

The surprise had been entirely successful save in this one matter of the
escape of Minghal. The village had fallen to Rahmut almost without a
blow. Indeed, save for the one man who had been speared at the head of
the steps, and one who had been shot by the sentry before he himself was
cut down, the victory had been bloodless. Rahmut's men patrolled the
streets u