Two of the men dismounted, and giving their horses to their comrades went on ahead searching for some track across the fields. After half an hour’s riding one was found, it was a mere pathway used by peasants, and turning off on it the party followed it in single file.
"Would it not be better to leave the baggage behind us," Percy asked the officer. "Then we could go on at a gallop. It would be a nuisance to lose all the things, but that would be of no odds in comparison to our lives."
"No, sahib, the colonel’s boxes may be of importance. And at any rate, it has not come to that yet. If we are attacked and have to ride for it, of course we must leave them, for whatever may be in the boxes the colonel sets your life at a much higher value. But I hope now we shall outwit them. The road we were travelling will be known to them, and it is along that they will be gathering, therefore we may well give them the slip. We will cross the Chenab at daylight at Gazerabad, and cross the Jhelum by boats a few miles below Jetalpore. They would be on the watch for us there. Then I think we shall be safe till we get near the colonel’s fortress. That of course will be the most dangerous portion of the journey, since they will know by whatever road we travel it is for that point we are making. We will halt in a grove, and I shall send two of the men off on horseback by different roads. We may calculate that one of them at least will reach the fortress, and the colonel will then send out a force sufficient to beat off any attack likely to be made, for, as our strength is known, some thirty or forty men will have been considered ample for the work."
"That seems a very good plan," Percy agreed. "I wonder that they should dare to venture into my uncle’s district, where, as you say, the people are all favourable to him."
"There are many valleys and nullahs in which they could conceal themselves; besides, much of the country is uncultivated, and they could lie hid for a fortnight without much fear of being discovered if they took provisions with them and encamped near water."
All night the journey continued. Percy was so sleepy that he several times dozed off in his seat, and woke with a start, finding himself reeling in the saddle. At times, however, he was obliged to pay attention to their course, for it was often a mere track, that even the men walking ahead had difficulty in following. There were deep nullahs to be crossed, and once or twice wide water-courses, dry now, but covered with stones and boulders. These were, as Nand Chund told him, foaming torrents in the wet season, and at such times quite impassable. Occasionally the track turned off in a direction quite different to that they were following; and they then directed their course by the stars, a man going ahead with a torch until they came again upon cultivated ground and struck upon a path leading in the right direction.