The first development in the affair took place under the King's eye.
Waiting in ambush was by no means new to him. He was not in the least troubled by impatience. To be sure, he would have felt more comfortable with a piece of bread and a cup of water; yet deprivations of the kind were within the expectations; and while there was a hope of good issue for the enterprise, he could endure them indefinitely. The charge given him pertained particularly to Demedes. No fear of his not recognizing the Greek. Had he not enjoyed the delight of holding him out over the wall to be dropped to death?
He was eager, but not impatient. His chief dependence was in the sense of feeling, which had been cultivated so the slightest vibration along the ground served him in lieu of hearing. The closing of the front door by the keeper—felt, not heard—apprised him the day was over.
Not long afterward the pavement was again jarred, bringing a return of the sensations he used to have when, stalking lions in Kash-Cush, he felt the earth thrill under the galloping of the camelopards stampeded.
He drew the curtain aside slightly, just as a man stepped into the court from the passage. The person carried a lighted lamp, and was not Demedes.
The cistern-keeper—for he it was—went to the curbing slowly, for the advance airs of the gale were threatening his lamp, and dropped dextrously through the aperture to the upper landing.
In ambush the King never admitted anything like curiosity. Presently he felt the pavement again jar. Nobody appeared at the passage. Another tremor more decided—then the King stepped softly from the sedan, and stealing barefooted to the curbing looked down the yawning hole.
The lamp on the platform enabled him to see a boat drawn up to the lower step, and the stranger in the act of stepping into it. Then the lamp was shifted to the bow of the boat—oars taken in hand—a push off, and swift evanishment.
We, with our better information of the devices employed, know what a simple trick it was on the keeper's part to bring the vessel to him—he had but to pull the right string in the right direction—but Nilo was left to his astonishment. Stealing back to his cover, he drew the door to, and struggled with the mystery.
Afterwhile, the mist dissipated, and a fact arose plainer to him than the mighty hand on his knee. The cistern was inhabited—some person was down there to be communicated with. What should the King do now?