"'Villain, this ring is yours!' he cried, struggling to his feet.
"'Not mine, my lord,' I protested, flinging myself at full length before him.
"But at that very moment there rang forth the sharp tattoo of a horse's hoofs on the paved courtyard without, followed by the sharp challenge of a sentry, the bang of a matchlock, and then a very babel of excited yelling.
"Every one in the audience hall swept outside, even the zemindar, his dignity all forgotten. Left alone, with swift consciousness of the suspicion that had fastened itself upon me, and of my powerlessness to deny connivance with the escape of my friend, I gathered myself up and fled by a side passage to a ghat on the river. Here I had a boat prepared for just the emergency that had happened, and because of this happy foresight I am enabled to-day, after more than two score of years, to tell the tale."
"And the zemindar?" asked the Afghan soldier.
"Dead long since."
"The hollow marble column?" pressed the interlocutor.
"Its secret remained unrevealed," replied the tax-collector. "Trusty friends told me later that the flight of Abdul on a fiery stallion, with a female figure clinging to him on the saddle behind, ever remained a mystery. So the youth had had the presence of mind to close the sliding panels above and below."
"He escaped? He lived?" queried the Rajput.