Akram Chunder shook his head. "You are his son by adoption," he said, "and to save your life he will give up the fortress."
"Well, I hope at any rate he will negotiate for some time, Akram, in which case it will be hard if we don't manage to slip away somehow. I wish we had our knives with us."
"What for, sahib? The stonework of the windows is solid, and it would take us an immense time to enlarge one of the loopholes so that we could slip through."
"I was not thinking of that; but if we had our knives we could get off one of the back legs of the charpoy, so that its loss would not be noticed, and cut it up into wedges, which we could drive in all round the door if we heard a row going on outside. The door is a very strong one, and if we could fasten it like that inside they might not be able to break it open before Ghoolab's men could fight their way in."
"That is a good idea, sahib, and if we had knives we would carry it out, but without them I don't see that we could do anything. We might move the two charpoys against the door, but half a dozen men pushing on the other side would soon drive them out of the way."
"No, there is nothing to be done," Percy agreed; "and I do hope that Ghoolab will quite see that in the event of his trying to take the place, the dacoits will be pretty sure to finish me before his men can get in."
That evening they unlashed the thin binding that held one of the beds together, and each armed himself with one of the legs.
"It is not much of a weapon," Percy said, "but it is something anyhow, and it would be a thousand times better to make a fight of it than to stand still and have one's throat cut. We will take it by turns to keep awake to-night, so as to hear if there is anything stirring."
The night, however, passed without any unusual sound being heard. Just after daybreak they heard a shout.
"That is likely to be the messenger returning," Akram Chunder said. "If it had been an enemy, they would have come in the dark."