It was too late to appeal to the manager babu to correct his oversight. We turned in side by side on the pool table and took turns in falling off at regular intervals through the night.
With the first grey of dawn we slipped out the back door of the bungalow and struck off through the forest towards the uninhabited river bank beyond. For in spite of the warning of the chief of police and Rice’s protest that we should “hold down such a swell joint” as long as possible, we had decided by majority vote to attempt the overland journey.
To elude the police force was easy; to escape the jungle, quite a different matter. A full two hours we tore our way through the undergrowth along the river without finding a single break in the sheer eastern bank that we should have dared to swim for. Rice grew petulant, our appetites aggressive, and we turned back promising ourselves to continue the search for a route on the following day.
The servants at the Home, knowing the predeliction of sahibs for morning strolls, greeted our return with grinning servility and an ample chotah hazry. While we were eating, the chief of police bounded into the room with a new story and the information that the commissioner wished to see us at once; and bounded away again, protesting that he was being worked to death.
In his bungalow on the hilltop, the ruler of the district was pacing back and forth between obsequious rows of secretaries and assistants.
“I have given orders that you are not to start for Mandalay,” he began, without preliminary.
“And how the deuce will we get out any other way?” demanded James.
“If you were killed in the jungle,” went on the governor, as if he had heard nothing, “your governments would blame me. But, of course, I have no intention of keeping you in Chittagong. I have arranged, therefore, with the agents of the weekly steamer to give you deck passages, with European food, to Rangoon. Apply to them at once and be ready to start to-morrow morning.”
This proposition found favor with James, and with two against me I was forced to yield or be unfaithful to our partnership. We returned to the monastery that afternoon to bid the Irish bishop farewell and to get the note that he had promised us. In a blinding tropical shower we were rowed out to the steamer Meanachy next morning and for four days following lolled about the winch, on the drum of which the Chinese steward served our “European chow.” The steamer drifted slowly down the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal, touching at Akyab, and, rounding the delta of the Irawaddy on the morning of May thirteenth, dropped anchor three hours later in the harbor of Rangoon.