"'I will not,' said my father; 'your words are friendly, and I drink them in as grateful sherbet. But this Brij Lall must have long arms and powerful if he can reach Mahommedjee Patel.'
"In a very few days after, we took our leave and returned home; but, as had been predicted, in a few months strange men began to be seen about the village; and my father, strange to say, disregarded all our prayers to stay at home, especially after dusk; he would not listen to us, called the men we had seen travellers, and staid from home late of nights out of bravado. However, my mother grew at last so anxious and so alarmed about these repeated visits of unknown people, that she begged of me never to leave my father's side by day, and always to bring him home with me from the fields in the evening. This I did for a long time; but one night, one cursed night—would that I had never seen the dawn of the day preceding it!—having been delayed in a field of sugar-cane to arrange about the cutting of it the following day, we were late in returning home: we were accompanied part of the way by some men of a neighbouring village, but they separated from us about half a coss from ours; and the remainder of the way (if we followed the straight road) was one which was not thought safe, and by which no one went after nightfall if he could help it. I attempted to take another; but the old man observed it, and said sharply, 'That is not the way—that road will keep us out an hour longer.' I had no reason to give to dissuade him from the road I wished to avoid, though an ill-defined feeling that there was danger in the one before us had led me to endeavour to take the other. But, my friends, who can avoid his fate? If it is the will of Alla that one is to die, of what use is human foresight? We went on, and soon reached the inclosed fields, between the high milk-bush hedges of which the path wound. It was scarcely light enough for us to see our way, but we knew every foot of the road. All at once, as we proceeded, I thought I saw in a hedge which crossed the road a glimmer, as if of the match of a gun.
"'Look!' said I to my father, 'we are waylaid, there are people behind the hedge; look, there are three lighted matches!'
"'You are a fool,' cried he, 'they are fire-flies: are you afraid? has my son become a coward?'
"The words were hardly out of his mouth, when there were three sharp cracks close to us. My father fell on his face without uttering a sound, and I felt a coldness and numbness all down my back, with a sharp pain, and the same feeling in my leg. I became sick, staggered a few paces, and then fell; but I was not insensible. Three men rushed out from the hedge, and ran towards us with drawn swords. Seeing that neither of us moved, one of them turned me over on my back, and looked into my face. I shut my eyes, for I knew if they were open I should not live an instant.
"'This is not the man,' said the fellow standing over me; 'we have missed them.'
"Another came up.
"'It is nearly as good,' said he, 'it is the young devil, the son: the father, depend upon it, is the other; come and see.' And they left me.
"They went to where my poor father lay, but I could not see what they did. I suppose they examined him, for one cried, 'Alhumd-ul-illah! we have been successful; our faces will be bright in our employer's sight for this. And only think, to have succeeded so easily after this long watching! The old dog was as wary as a fox.'
"'You may thank me,' said another, who had not as yet spoken: 'if I had not dogged him to the sugar-cane field, and found out his nearest way homewards, we might have had a long continuance of our fruitless watching, of which I was heartily tired. Come,' continued he, 'we must not stay, the country will be too hot to hold us. Madhoo will help us on to Nagpoor, and the sooner we get to him the better; the horses I know are all ready.'