r our release from the Black Hole.

"By the Lord Harry, I don't know what you can do!" cried Rupert. "I
had overlooked that part of it. Unless you were to cut down one of
these black rascals in the dark, and exchange suits with him?"

I declined to do what I thought would amount to committing a murder,
although it were to be done upon an Indian; whereupon my cousin
offered to kill the man, if I would wear the clothes. At last we
agreed to procure the dress by peaceful means, if that should be
possible, and set out on our return to the centre of the town.

Sure enough we had not gone a great way when we met a man of the city,
a Gentoo, wearing a loose woollen robe and white turban, which we
thought would pass, and which he agreed very easily to part with for
five rupees. I offered him my canvas suit into the bargain, but this
he rejected with disdain, on account of his religion, and walked off
from us stark naked, but for a loin-cloth.

It was now time that we should repair to the meeting appointed by the
eunuch. We found the postern without any difficulty, and as soon as my
cousin had knocked twice in a peculiar manner the eunuch came and
admitted us. This eunuch appeared to be a very civil, worthy person,
very different to most of his kind, whom I have found to be full of
spite and malice, and untrustworthy in all their dealings.

As soon as we were entered in the garden the eunuch conducted us
through an orchard and down a grove of persimmons, to where there was
a fountain, and close by it a square marble tank bordered by roses in
white marble boxes. Here he left us for a moment, while he went
forward to examine the summer-house, if there were any one stirring
within. While we were waiting I took an interest in gazing at the
clear water of the tank, and picturing the scene when the Nabob's
women came thither to bathe, as I heard was their daily custom.

Presently the eunuch returned, and beckoned to us.

"The Sahibs may go forward now," he said. "The cage is shut and the
birds are asleep."

We followed him, and he brought us out upon an open space, and in the
midst of it a small pavilion, like a temple, built in white stone or
marble, in two storeys, very elegantly, with small pillars before it
and a dome above, the whole covered over with fantastical designs of
trees and flowers, curiously wrought in the stone.

The door of the pavilion was closed. In the upper storey I saw several
lattices open, but no lig