There was nothing like keeping up his pluck either, which David did with a vengeance. He was even smiling as he stared up at the range of windows, with their edges so unnaturally abrupt as the moonbeams streamed past them, while one hand went every now and again to the depths of the secret pocket in which his magazine pistol was lying. Then he walked over to the wall and felt the surface with his fingers.
'One could get a grip with these cotton-padded soles, I should say. I'll try a running jump and see where it will land me.'
He went back to the opposite wall, and squeezed hard against it; then he sprang forward, and leaping at the far wall endeavoured to run up it. He succeeded in gaining a point within two feet of the windows, or perhaps it was less. Then he tried again and again till he was exhausted.
'No good; can't do it,' he told himself. 'I shall have to think of something else.'
He sat down on the basket and cudgelled his brains, but the more he thought and worried, the longer he stared at the range of windows, the more impossible the task seemed. Then he swung round swiftly. There was a clatter outside the door, the bolts were being pushed back from their sockets. A moment or two later the hinges creaked, while the door was thrown open. A coolie entered at once, while a second held a lamp behind him. There were half a dozen more just outside in a dimly lit passage, while in their midst stood none other than the Tartar under-officer. David rubbed his eyes, and wondered where he had seen the fellow before. Then hearing him speak, he remembered.
'Put the food and water down,' he commanded, 'and leave. It is time that we were all in our beds. Do not go near the foreign devil. There is never any saying when he and his may do injury to one of our people.'
He eyed his prisoner with none too friendly a glance, and hurried the coolie from the room. David heard the bolts shot to again, and the faint slither of departing feet. Then he rose to his feet with flushed face and a new hope in his heart. Not a second thought did he give to the food and water, for who could say that it was not poisoned? If Ebenezer Clayhill could hire a ruffian to come all that way to molest him anything might be expected. No, the food and drink did not attract him. Our hero was roused by the help which the lamp had brought him; for it had shone on the basket on which he was seated, and in a flash David realised that the affair was not merely a flimsy collection of wicker, but a well-made basket of considerable length, strengthened with pieces of bamboo, which, although light, kept the whole in shape, and gave it considerable power to resist weights placed within it. He picked it up with an effort, and running his fingers along it, came upon the holes left for the bamboo runners with which it was hoisted on the bearers' shoulders. Then, with the utmost care, and in deadly silence, he propped it up on end against the wall, at the summit of which ran the range of windows. Would it reach high enough? David stepped back, and cast an anxious eye upward.
'Might,' he said, with a doubtful shake of his head. 'Might not; anyway, I'm going to reach those windows.'
He gathered his somewhat ample allowance of Chinese garment about his knees so as to free his legs, and began to clamber upward; and presently he had reached the summit. To stand there and balance himself on the end was no easy matter, and as if to persuade him of that fact the basket suddenly canted, bringing itself and our hero with a crash to the ground. Instantly his hand went to his pistol, while he crouched over the fallen basket, endeavouring to regain his breath, for the jar of the fall had driven it out of his body. But there was not a sound from the passage; not a sound from outside his prison. Not a foot stirred; no alarm was given.
'Shows I'm in an out-of-the-way place, for that basket made no end of a clatter. When once beat, try again. Don't give up in a hurry.'