Akram Chunder was silent. He could not gainsay Percy's argument, and it seemed to him that Ghoolab Singh had indeed the game completely in his hands.
"I am afraid it is as you say, sahib," he remarked after a while, "and that we shall have, as we agreed, to slip out of their hands somehow. I see no chance at present."
"Certainly not," Percy agreed; "we have no arms, and though they have not tied us this time, they must be sure that we dare not try to escape, surrounded as we are by them, for they would be able to shoot us down before we had ridden ten yards. Moreover, the wood is too dense for us to force our way through, and even if we got away at first, we should be overtaken."
The road they were traversing was a mere track cut through the dense forest, and it was with difficulty that they rode two abreast. Six of the dacoits rode ahead of them, six behind, those immediately following them having, as they observed when they mounted, their pistols in their hands, in readiness to shoot at the first indication of an attempt to escape.
"Do you think we are going towards Jummoo?" Percy asked after they had ridden for some three hours.
"I cannot say for certain, sahib, but I think not. I feel sure that Jummoo lies much to the right, and I believe that we shall come down into the valley of Cashmere somewhere between that and Serinagur. Winding about as we have been doing in the bottom of valleys, it is very difficult to judge which way we are really going."
"I agree with you, Akram. I have been watching the way in which the sun falls upon us, and as you say, though we have wound and turned a good deal, I do not think we have ridden to the right as we should have done had we been making for Jummoo. It does not make much difference whether we are taken there or to Serinagur," Percy said; "the end of the journey will be a prison in any case."
"There is no doubt about that, but I would rather they took us to Serinagur, sahib. Ghoolab Singh has been years at Jummoo, and you may be sure that in that time he has built new and strong prisons, from which it would be very hard to escape. Serinagur is an old place, and its prisons would not be like those of Jummoo, and ought to be much easier to get out of; besides, being so much farther from the frontier, they might not watch us so closely, thinking we should know it would be next to impossible for men ignorant of the language to make their way down the valley, however disguised."
PERCY AWAKES, TO FIND THAT THE GUARDS ARE VIGILANT