True, it might be that Luchman thought it best under the circumstances to wait until they were free from the peril by which they were environed; but, admitting such to be the case, the query naturally presented itself as to why he had given no intimation of his intention to the young lady.
The only answer that Dr. Avery could form was that he had changed his mind. Such a recantation must signify a withdrawal of his loyalty to the missionary and his family. Actuated by friendship, he had still clung to them, in a measure, but where one wavers in such a situation, it may be certain he will soon become the bitterest enemy. In fact, all that Luchman was doing, and all that he had proposed to do, the surgeon set down as part of a plan to deliver the whole party over to the mutineers.
Yet there was a possibility of mistake, and so Avery determined to affect a belief in him, but at the first manifestation of treachery he would shoot the native as if he were a cobra drawn back to strike.
Where there was such panic the means of conveyance like horses and carriages was altogether inadequate to the demand. Many of the native servants had stolen those belonging to their masters, and none was to be obtained elsewhere.
"Whither shall we go?" asked Dr. Avery of Luchman, when they were fairly out of the tower and on the road.
"To Kurnal," was the answer.
"Where is that?" asked the young man, and the missionary took upon himself to answer.
"It is a small town lying directly north, and distant some sixty or seventy miles."
"Why is it safer to go that way than the other?"
"For manifest reasons; we are nearly a thousand miles from Calcutta, the most accessible large city where we would be safe, and between us and that point is the hot bed of revolt. It is death for us to venture to the east or south; the true course is to the north, away from the centers of the mutiny."