"First, tell me, Thakurpo,[1] who could be the two Jama-dut[2]-like men who just now ran away from here? I wonder what business you could have had with people of that description, and here in our house too? One of them gazed at me fixedly when I stood there in the veranda, and perhaps taking me for a ghost fled precipitately."
"Was it you then who opened this door and clanked the chains?"
"Yes, I opened the door, and was making towards the room from which you came out, but the appearance of these Jama-duts frightened me, and I was returning."
"And whence came the sounds?"
"What sounds?"
"Have you heard nothing strange?"
"Yes, a freezing shriek of woe; but I thought it was coming from your room."
"No."
"No? You frighten me. I shall return."
"Without hearing; hearing why I am here?"
"I must hear it, and I must also tell you why I came here. Be quick then."
"Gladly," replied Madhav, "but I must take some precautions from interruption which you will by and by understand."
Madhav went out, and drew the massive bar of the door which led from the godown-mahal at once out of the house. He then re-entered the apartment which had so lately been his prison,
