"You were a fool, Bulger," said Desmond testily. "This may lead to no end of trouble."
Bulger looked penitent, and wrathful, and overwhelmed.
"We must try to hurry," added Desmond to Surendra Nath. "Promise the men more bakshish: don't stint."
For two hours longer they pushed on with all the speed of which the jaded beasts were capable. Every now and again Desmond looked anxiously back, hoping against hope that they would not be pursued. But he knew that Diggle had recognized him, and being prepared for the worst, he began to rack his brains for some means of defense.
Misfortune seemed to dog him. Two of the oxen collapsed. It was necessary to distribute the loads of their hackeris among the others. The march was delayed, and when the convoy was again under way, its progress was slower than ever.
It had, indeed, barely started, when in the distance Desmond spied a horseman cantering towards them. A few minutes revealed him as Diggle. He rode up almost within musket shot, then turned and trotted back.
What was the meaning of his action? Desmond, from his position near the foremost hackeri, could see nothing more. But, a few yards ahead of him, to the right of the track, there was a low artificial mound, possibly the site of an ancient temple, standing at the edge of a nullah, its top some ten or twelve feet above the surrounding plain. Hastening to this he gained the summit, and, looking back, saw a numerous body of men on foot advancing rapidly from the direction in which the horseman had come. In twenty minutes they would have come up with the convoy. He must turn at bay.
He glanced anxiously around. He was in the midst of an almost bare sun-baked plain, the new-sown fields awaiting the rains to spring into verdure. Here and there were clumps of trees--the towering palmyra with its fan-shaped foliage, the bamboo with its feathery branches, the plantain, throwing its immense leaves of vivid green into every fantastic form. There was no safety on the plain.
But below him was the nullah, thirty feet deep, eighty yards wide, soon to be a swollen torrent dashing towards the Hugli, but now dry. Its sides were in parts steep, and unscalable in face of determined resistance. In a moment Desmond saw the utmost of possibility.
Running back to the convoy, he turned its head towards the mound, and, calling every man to the help of the oxen, he dragged the carts one by one to the top. There he caused the beasts to be unyoked, and placed the hackeris, their poles interlocked, so as to form a rough semicircular breastwork around the summit of the mound. For a moment he hesitated in deciding what to do with the cattle. Should he keep them within his little intrenchment? If they took fright they might stampede and do mischief; in any case they would be in the way, and he resolved to send them all off under charge of such of the drivers as were too timid to remain. He noticed that the Babu was quivering with alarm.