He could hardly drag himself into the house.  But a bath, and some food that I found in the larder restored him considerably.  He helped me carry out the table.  He chose a book of Schiller’s poems to take with him, but did not read it; he sat with his elbows on the table and his back toward the front door, resting his chin gloomily on both fists.  He remained in that attitude all afternoon, and for all I know slept part of the time.

Between him and the window of the room I sat in were some shrubs that obscured the view considerably.  I could see Scharnhoff through them easily enough, but I don’t think he could see me, and certainly no one could have seen me from the road.  I felt fairly sure that no one saw me until it began to grow dark and I carried out the lamp.  Even then, it was Scharnhoff who struck the match and lit it, so that I was in shadow all the time—­ probably unrecognizable.

It had been fairly easy to keep awake until then, but as the room grew darker and darker, and nothing happened, the yearning to fall asleep became actual agony.  It was a rather large, square room, crowded up with a jumble of antiquities.  The only real furniture was the window-seat on which I knelt, and an oblong table; but even the table was laid on its side to make room for a battered Roman bust standing on the floor between its legs.

I had left the door of the room wide open, in order to be able to hear anything that might happen in the house; but the only sound came from a couple of rats that gnawed and rustled interminably among the rubbish in the corner.

It must have been nearly eight o’clock, and I believe I had actually dozed off at last, kneeling in the window, when all at once it seemed to me that the rats were making a different, and greater noise than I ever heard rats make.  It was pitch-black dark.  I couldn’t see my hand in front of me.  My first thought was to glance through the window at Scharnhoff, but something—­ intuition, I suppose—­made me draw aside from the window instead.

Then, beyond any shadow of a doubt, I heard a man move, and the hair rose all up the back of my head.  I remembered the pistol, clutched it, and found voice enough for two words:  “Who’s there?”

“Hee-hee!” came the answer from behind the table.  “So Major Jimgrim lied about a broken leg, and thought to trap Noureddin Ali, did he!  Don’t move, Major Jimgrim!  Don’t move!  We will have a little talk before we bid each other good-bye!  I cannot last long in any case, for the cursed Sikhs are after me.  I would rather that you should kill me than those Sikhs should, but I would like to kill you also.  If you move before I give you leave you are a dead man, Major Jimgrim!  Hee-hee!  You cannot see me!  Better keep still!”

If it was flattering to be mistaken for Grim in the dark, it was hardly pleasant in the circumstances.  For a moment I was angry.  It flashed across my mind that Grim had planned this.  But on second thought I refused to believe he would deceive me about Scharnhoff and use me as a decoy without my permission.  I decided to keep still and see what happened.