As soon as I had satisfied myself by this experiment that my disguise was accurate, I returned towards the fort, and commenced walking about it, observing the persons who came in and out on their business. But though my suspicions were once or twice attracted to different ones, yet I found nothing to go upon. In this way not only one day passed, but several others, and I began to despair of success.
On the fourth day of my watch, however, about seven o’clock in the evening, as I happened to be looking abroad of the river, which is here pretty wide, and contained a good deal of small shipping, I noticed a man in a boat, which he rowed himself, who appeared to be lurking about for no very honest purpose. Instead of either landing or going off in some fixed direction, this man plied to and fro, close under the wall of the fort, which he seemed to examine very closely from time to time. As well as I could make out he was a Moor, and my instructions were to watch for a Frenchman, yet I was rendered so uneasy by the movements of this individual that I resolved to go out on the water, and examine him more closely. Accordingly I left the place where I was, near the north gate of the fort, and strolled down to a small flight of stairs on the river bank, where some boats lay for hire. Stepping into one of these, I cast off, and taking the oars, which I had learned to handle during my term of service on board the Talisman, rowed slowly out towards the spy, as I believed him to be.
When he saw me coming towards him, he at first pulled a few strokes as if to make away, but being, as I suppose, reassured by the sight of my costume, he ceased rowing and waited for me to come up alongside. Glancing round from time to time as I drew near, I soon perceived that I had no Frenchman to deal with, or at least that, if I had, he had taken the same precaution as myself in assuming the dress of the country. Feeling desirous to test him, I hailed as soon as I came up, in the native tongue.
“Does my lord seek for anything that his servant may procure him?” I said, using their fulsome style.
He at once replied, in what was evidently a phrase learnt by rote—
“I cannot speak your language, but I am a friend of Omichund.”
Now this Omichund was a great, rich Gentoo, a banker and merchant who, having made huge profits as a broker in the matter of the Company’s investment for many years, had recently had his services dispensed with, and was believed to be disaffected on that account, and in correspondence with the Moorish Court. I needed no more to convince me that this was most likely the man whom I had been employed to apprehend. Not daring to speak English, and it being useless to address him in the Indostanee, I made signs that he should follow me, and commenced to row to the shore.
But here I was disappointed, for the fellow, instead of following me, at once began to move off in the opposite direction. Seeing this I at once turned, shouting after him, and pointing where I would have him go. He merely grinned and rowed further off, nor was it any better when I showed him one of my pistols, for he then merely increased his speed, so that I was obliged to pick up my oars again pretty quickly in order to pursue him.
Seeing that it was become a race between us, he bent to his oars, and I did the same, so that the two boats flew down the river, one about twelve lengths behind the other. But taking advantage of a string of barges which lay anchored out in the stream, he presently dodged me, running in round the tail of the line, and so altering his course up the stream. If I had not turned my head constantly to watch him, I should soon have lost him among the shipping, and these frequent turnings hindered my rowing, so that I could not gain on the other boat so fast as I should otherwise have done. For I soon perceived that I was the better rower of the two, or else had the quicker boat; and the spy seemed to perceive it too, for after taking me some distance up the middle of the river, he suddenly struck off towards the bank, rowing hard for a house which had come in sight, standing on the river’s edge.
As we approached this house I could just see (for it was growing dark) a large window standing open, not above a man’s height from the water. To this my fellow rowed, and having brought his boat beneath it, threw down his oars, stood up on the gunwale, and with a desperate leap which nearly sunk the boat, gained the sill of the window and disappeared inside.