Find the Next Number in the Sequence

2 9 3 1 8 4 3 6 5 7 ?

Akbar summoned Birbal out of anger.
He told him that he will have to face death.
He asked him to make a statement and if the statement is true he will be buried alive and if the statement is false, he will be thrown at lions.
After hearing Birbal’s statement, Akbar could do nothing but smile.
He gave him 5 gold bars and let him go.

What did Birbal say?

It's a protector.
It sits on a bridge.
One individual can see directly through it, while others wonder what it hides.

What is it?

Find the missing number in the image below.

As a whole I am both
safe and secure.

Behead me and I become
a place of meeting.

Behead me again and I am
the partner of ready.

Restore me, and I become
the domain of beasts.

What am I?

Replace all '*' with digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 to make below statement true.

* *
x *
=====
* * *

In a fruit store, there was a unique weighing machine that was made to weigh only cherries and strawberries as they were priced the same.

Other fruits like watermelons or mango had different machines as they were expensive.

A man successfully buys watermelons at the price of cherries. How?

I can be cracked, made, told, and played. What am I?

What can jump higher than a building?

There are 2 sand hourglasses.

The small one can measure 5 hours and the large one can measure 7 hours.

How can we measure 16 hours with 2 sand hourglasses running together ?