Maloosray saw the intelligence of the advice, and acted promptly upon it, while the two men, well accustomed to such proceedings, crept warily along under cover of bushes and inequalities, of the ground, till they entered a tall field of grain, in which they could move without chance of observation up to the very party itself, and from which they looked with safety upon the horsemen.
As they had supposed, the body was drawn up across the road. One flank overlapped the corn-field, on the path by which they had come; the other rested upon a declivity where the same path descended to the westward. It was clear that the position could not be turned without great risk, and it was impossible to say whether the path to Hórtee might not be guarded also.
In front of the party, and near a man who held a torch which he replenished with oil from time to time, were two persons mounted on powerful horses, whose wet coats and panting flanks showed that they had been ridden at a rapid rate; and it was also evident from the condition of the rest, splashed with mud and with similar evidences of fatigue, that, whatever might be the object, speed had not been spared in its pursuit.
"They cannot pass this unobserved," said the elder of the two, "and there can be no suspicion that we are on this road. Ah, there is no such trap, boy, in the country, not a rat could get by it. Well, we have not been idle; first Khan Mahomed, second the Kótwal, and now Maloosray and his friend Nettajee."
"You have not got them yet," thought Ramjee, "and Tannajee is not game for you, old fox. But for him, my dagger would have made acquaintance with you that day in the Gosai's Mutt at Tooljapoor. Ah! who could have told him of us?"
"I think, uncle, we had as well put out the torch," said a man, coming forward, riding a tall grey mare. "Tannajee is not a moth to fly into a candle."
"Good, Lukshmun," said the chief; "put it out."
"I think we were wrong, father," said the other leader; "a few men would have surrounded that den under the tomb, and no one could have escaped."
"True; but you would not have taken Tannajee alive, and here he will be helpless. No, it is better as it is; and he shall sit under the Goruk Imlees, and die like Jehándar Beg, before me."