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Rh "First, tell me, Thakurpo, who could be the two Jama-dut -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,