Only one more bolt now!
Roy's long fingers were at it—his whole strength went to it—it creaked—groaned—slid, and with a sob of exultation Roy felt the fresh air of dawn in his face as he stood outside the Bala Hissar.
But he had still much to do. The city must be skirted, the hill of Arkabân gained, and already a faint primrose streak in the eastern sky told of coming light.
CHAPTER XXI
DAWN
Upon the Arkabân hill the artillery men were already at work. In those days guns were not what they are now, quick loading, quick firing.
It needed a good hour to ram the coarse powder down, adjust the round ball and prepare the priming; to say nothing of the task of aiming. So, long ere dawn, the glimmering lights were seen about the battery, which, perched on a hill, gave on the half-breached bastion. Between the two stretched an open space of undulating ground. Sumbal, "the master fireworker," as he is called in the old history books, was up betimes seeing to his men, and with him came a grave, silent man, who, though he had no interest in the quarrels of Humâyon and his brothers, was as eager as any to get within the walls of Kâbul and find what he sought—a Râjput lad of whom word had been brought to a little half-desert Râjput state lying far away in the Jesulmer plain.
For the grave, silent man, who showed so much knowledge of warfare, who was keen to see everything new in weapons and the handling of them, was a messenger sent by a widowed mother to see if indeed it could be her long-lost son, of whom a certain old trooper had spoken on his return from Kâbul.