"Is it true? You do not mock me?" he cried. "Who are you?"
"I am Ahmed Khan, of Lumsden Sahib's Guides, and I am sent into this city by Hodson Sahib, to say that the hazur's daughter is safe at Karnal."
The shock of this good news rendered the doctor speechless. He was seized with a violent trembling, and the khansaman hastily poured a little liquid into a glass and gave it to his master. When he had recovered he asked Ahmed many questions: whether he had seen the missy sahib, how she looked, whether she had received his note, why the messenger had not returned. To these Ahmed replied as well as he could, but he said nothing of the part he had himself played in the saving of the girl.
Then he himself asked questions, and learnt from the khansaman the simple story of the doctor's rescue. He had been left for dead by the mutinous sepoys a few yards from his door, and had there been found by Kaluja Dass, who had conveyed him by night to the secret underground chamber. It was situated immediately below the fountain in the garden, and was ventilated and dimly lit in the daytime through an ingenious series of openings in the ornamental stonework at the base of the fountain. What appeared to an observer in the garden as a delicate pattern of tracery was really the ventilating system of the room below. There he had remained ever since. The healing of his wounds had been slow, and his anxieties and the deprivation of fresh air had retarded the full recovery of his strength. No one but the khansaman knew of the secret entrance through the surgery wall, and it had been a happy thought of his to place the almirah against it, and to make the sliding panel. The blanket was stretched across the ceiling so as to prevent a stray beam of light from the oil-lamp from filtering through the apertures to the garden.
The doctor was much gratified that Ahmed had been allowed to enter the city to search for him. He inquired for his old friend General Barnard, to learn with sorrow of his death. He asked eagerly what steps had been taken to capture the city, and sighed heavily when he heard how the little army on the Ridge was waiting until the reinforcements and the siege-train which Sir John Lawrence was collecting in the Panjab should arrive. Again he pleaded with the khansaman to take him from the city, but Ahmed supported the good servant's contention that to attempt to escape now would be to court innumerable perils, and that it was better to remain in hiding until the city should be retaken. Ahmed promised to acquaint General Wilson—who had succeeded General Reed in the command—of the doctor's safety, and to send word to his daughter in Karnal. The khansaman asked very anxiously how the information was to be conveyed to the British lines. He was greatly disinclined to trust any messenger whom he did not know.
"I will take it myself," replied Ahmed.
During the conversation Dr. Craddock kept his eyes fixed on Ahmed's face, in the manner of a man seeking to recall something.
"Surely I have seen you before!" he said at length. "Have you been in Delhi before?"
"Never, sahib."
"Perhaps it was in Lahore?"