“I've been wishing I was Joshua!” said Brown. “I'd like to make my men march round the city and blow trumpets, and then see the walls fall down. I can think of several things to do, if we could only get inside. But I can't think how to get there.”
“I have found a way in!” said Juggut Khan. “I have cross-questioned that fakir of ours as well, with a little assistance from a cleaning-rod wielded by one of your men. He knows the way too. He says he is the only man who knows it—in which he lies, since I too have discovered it. But his knowledge may help as well.”
“What's that about a cleaning-rod?” asked Brown.
“It was used on him to help him forget his vow of silence.”
“When?”
“When you were up that tree, sahib!”
“Have you been giving my man orders?”
“Nay, sahib!”
“How did he come to beat the fakir, then?”
“We both arrived at the same conclusion at the same moment, and the fakir received the benefit!”