But there was little or no chance of the same good fortune at Hugli. The prize was so valuable that every effort would certainly be made to stop them. A whole day or more might pass before the reason of Coja Solomon's absence was discovered. But when the discovery was made fast runners would be sent to Khulna and Hugli, and by relays the distance between Cossimbazar and Hugli could be covered in twenty-four hours. Supposing such a messenger started at nightfall on June fifth, nearly twenty-four hours after Coja Solomon's disappearance, he might well get to Hugli long before the fugitive boats, even if they were rowed all night without cessation; and the men were already so much fatigued that such continuous exertion could hardly be expected of them.

There was a further danger. If the news of the capture of Cossimbazar Fort had preceded him, he might be stopped at any of the riverside places without any reference to Coja Solomon's abduction, pending orders from the Nawab. Desmond's anxiety would have been largely increased had he known that Sirajuddaula, before his men had actually marched into the fort, had already started with the bulk of his forces on his fateful march to Calcutta.

Desmond was still in conversation with the Babu when the little flotilla came in sight of Patli. Its approach was observed. A boat put off from the ghat, and awaited the arrival of Desmond's boat in midstream. As it came alongside an official ordered the men to cease rowing and demanded to know who was the owner of the goods on board and to see the dastaks.

The Babu, to whom Desmond had intrusted the papers, showed them to the man; he scanned them, said that he was satisfied, and rowed back to the ghat.

Evidently he had no suspicions. During the short colloquy Desmond kept close beside the Armenian, who was well known to the riverside official; but Coja Solomon was thoroughly scared, and had not the presence of mind to do anything more than to acknowledge the customary salaam.

Desmond breathed freely once more now that Path was passed. But two-thirds of the journey still remained to be completed, and he dare not hope that at his slow rate of progress he would be able always to keep ahead of information from Cossimbazar. Seeing that he could not hasten his journey, he wondered whether it was possible to put pursuers off the scent. After thinking for a while he said to the Babu, out of hearing of the Armenian:

"I have an idea, Surendra Nath: tell me what you think of it. Did you not tell me as we came up that there is a gumashta {agent} of the Company at Santipur?"

"Certainly I did, sir."

"Well, as we are, I fear, sure to be cut off by water, may we not take to the land? Could not the gumashta get us a dozen hackeris {bullock carts}?

We could transfer the goods to them and elude our pursuers perhaps long enough for help to arrive from Calcutta."

"That is good counsel, sir; why should we not do so?"

Accordingly, when they came to the spot where the high road crossed the river by a ford, Desmond ordered his men to row in to the left bank.

Selecting two men who knew the country, he bade them land and make the best speed in carrying out instructions which he proceeded to give them.

"You, Mohun Lal," he said, "will go to Santipur, quickly, avoiding observation, and request the gumashta in Merriman Sahib's name to have twelve hackeris, or as many as he can collect, ready to receive loads two or three hours before tomorrow's dawn. He must get them from the villages, not from Khulna or Amboa, and he must not tell anyone why he requires the carts.

"You, Ishan, will go on to Calcutta, find Merriman Sahib, and ask him to send a body of armed men along the Barrakpur road towards Santipur. You will tell him what we have done, and also that Cossimbazar Fort is in the hands of the Nawab, and Watts Sahib a prisoner. He may know this already.

You both understand?"

The men salaamed and started on their journey.

Chapter 22: In which is given a full, true, and particular account of the Battle of the Carts.

Desmond expected that Mohun Lal would reach Santipur shortly after nightfall. He himself might hope to arrive there, if not intercepted at Khulna or Amboa, at any time between midnight and three o'clock, according to the state of the river.

It was approaching dusk when he drew near to Khulna. The boats having been tied up to the bank, as the custom was, Desmond sent the Babu to find out from the Company's gumashta there whether news of the capture of Cossimbazar Fort had reached the bazar, and if any runner had come in from the north. In an hour the Babu returned. He said that there was great excitement in the bazar: no official messenger had arrived, but everybody was saying that the Nawab had captured the English factory at Cossimbazar, and was going to drive all the Firangi out of Bengal.

Desmond decided to take a bold course. Official news not having arrived, he might seize the moment to present his dastaks and get away before the customs officers found any pretext for stopping him. Everything happened as he hoped. He met with no more difficulty than at Path, and informing the official who examined the dastaks that he would drop down to Amboa before tying up for the night, he drew out again into the stream.

He spent some time in consultation with the serang. In a rather desolate reach of the Hugli, he learned that in the middle of the stream there was a small island, uninhabited save by teal and other waterfowl, and not known to be the haunt of tigers or other beasts of prey. Reaching this islet about ten o'clock at night, when all river traffic had ceased, he rowed in, and landed the Armenian with his crews.

"I thank you for your company, Coja Solomon," he said blandly. 'We must here part, to my regret, for I should like to have the pleasure of witnessing your meeting with Mr. Merriman. The nights are warm, and you will, I am sure, be quite comfortable till the morning, when no doubt a passing boat will take you off and convey you back to your business at Cossimbazar."

"I will not stay here," protested the Armenian, his face livid with anger.

"Believe me, you have no choice. Let me remind you that had you behaved honestly there would have been no reason for putting you to the inconvenience of this tiring journey. You have brought it on yourself."

Coja Solomon sullenly went up the shore. Desmond then paid the men handsomely: they had indeed worked well, and they were abundantly satisfied with the hire they received.

Leaving Coja Solomon to his bitter reflections, Desmond dropped down to Santipur, arriving there about two o'clock in the morning. Just before dawn ten hackeris, each yoked with two oxen, drew up near the Company's ghat. They were accompanied by a crowd of the inhabitants, lively with curiosity about the engagement of so many vehicles. The gumashta came up with the first cart, his face clouded with anxiety. He recognized the Babu at once, and said that while he had fulfilled the order he had received on Mr. Merriman's behalf, he had done it in fear and trembling.

The whole country knew that Cossimbazar Fort was in possession of the Nawab, and, more than that, the Nawab had on the previous day set out with an immense army for Calcutta. Santipur was not on the high road, and the Company was respected there; yet the gumashta feared the people would make an attack on the party if they suspected that they carried goods belonging to an Englishman.

Hitherto Desmond had kept himself in the background. But now he had an idea inspired by confidence in his costume. Introducing himself to the gumashta, he asked him to give out that the party was in command of a Firangi in the service of the Nawab, and was conveying part of the Nawab's private equipage in advance to Baraset, a few miles north of Calcutta, there to await the arrival of the main army. To make the imposition more effective, he called for the lambadar of the village and ordered him in the Nawab's name to despatch a flotilla of twenty-five wollacks {barges} to Cutwa to convey the official baggage.

The trick proved effective. Desmond found himself regarded as a person of importance; the natives humbly salaamed to him; and, taking matters with a high hand, he impressed a score of the village idlers into the work of transferring his precious bales from the boats to the hackeris. The work was accomplished in half an hour.

"Bulger," said Desmond, when the loading was done, "you will consider yourself in charge of this convoy. The Babu will interpret for you. You will hurry on as fast as possible toward Calcutta. I shall overtake you by and by. The people here believe that I am a Frenchman, so you had better pass as that, too, for of course your disguise will deceive no native in the daylight."

"Well I knows it." said Bulger. "They've been starin' at me like as if I was a prize pig this half hour and more, and lookin' most uncommon curious at my little button hook. But, sir, I don't see any call for me to make out I'm a mounseer. 'T'ud make me uneasy inside, sir, the very thought of eatin' what the mounseers eat."

"My good man, there's no need to carry it too far. Do as you please, only take care of the goods."

Except Desmond and four men whom he retained, the whole party moved off with the hackeris towards Calcutta. The road was an unmade track, heavy with dust, rough, execrably bad; and at the gumashta's suggestion Desmond had arranged for three extra teams of oxen to accompany the carts, to extricate them in case of necessity from holes or soft places.

Fortunately the weather was dry: had the rains begun--and they were overdue--the road would have been a slough of mud and ooze, and the journey would have been impossible.

When the convoy had set off, Desmond with three men, including the serang, returned to the empty boats. The lookers-on stared to see the craft put off and drop down the river with a crew of one man each: Desmond in the first, and the smaller boat that had contained Bulger and his party trailing behind. Floating down some four or five miles with the stream, Desmond gave the order to scuttle the three petalas, and rowed ashore in the smaller boat. On reaching land he got the serang to knock a hole in the bottom of the boat, and shoved it off towards midstream, where it rapidly filled and sank.

It was full daylight when Desmond and his party of three struck off inland in a direction that would bring them upon the track of the carts.

He had a presentiment that his difficulties were only beginning. By this time, no doubt, the news of his escapade had been carried through the country by the swift kasids of the Nawab. His passing at Khulna and Amboa would be reported, and a watch would be kept for him at Hugli. If perchance a kasid or a chance traveler entered Santipur, the trick he had practised there would be immediately discovered; but if the messenger only touched at the places on the direct route on the other bank, he might hope that some time would elapse before the authorities there suspected that he had left the river. They must soon learn that three petalas lay wrecked in the stream below Amboa; but they could not satisfy themselves without examination that these were the vessels of which they were in search.

Tramping across two miles of fields newly sown with maize and sorghum, he at length descried the trail of his convoy and soon came up with it. If pursuers were indeed upon his track, only by the greatest good fortune could he escape them. The carts creaked along with painful slowness; the wheels halfway to the axles in dust; now stopping altogether, now rocking like ships in a stormy sea.

With his arrival and the promise of liberal bakshish the hackeriwallahs urged the laboring oxen with their cruel goads till Desmond, always tender with animals, could hardly endure the sight. By nine o'clock the morning had become stiflingly hot. There was little or no breeze, and Desmond, unused of late to active exercise, found the heat terribly trying. But Bulger suffered still more. A stout, florid man, he toiled along, panting, streaming with sweat, in difficulties so manifest, that Desmond, eying him anxiously, feared lest a stroke of apoplexy should bring him to an untimely end.

The country was so flat that a string of carts could not fail to be seen from a long distance. If noticed from the towers of Hugli across the river, curiosity, if not suspicion, would be aroused, and it would not take long to send over by a ford a force sufficient to arrest and capture the party. To escape observation it was necessary to make wide detours.

At several small hamlets on the route Desmond managed to get fresh oxen, but not enough for complete changes of team.

So, through all the broiling heat of the day, at hours when no other Europeans in all Bengal were out of doors, the convoy struggled on, making its own road, crossing the dry beds of pools, skirting or laboring over rugged nullahs.

At nightfall Desmond learned from one of the drivers that they were still six miles short of being opposite to Hugli. The patient Bengalis could endure no more; the oxen were done up, the men refused to go farther without a rest. Halting at a hamlet some five miles from the river, they rested and fed till midnight, then set off again. It was not so insufferably hot at night, but on the other hand they were less able to avoid obstructions: and the rest had not been long enough to make up for the terrible exertions of the day.

By daybreak they were some distance past Hugli, still keeping about five miles from the river. Desmond was beginning to congratulate himself that the worst was over; Barrackpur was only about twelve miles away. But a little after dawn he caught sight of a European on horseback crossing their track towards the river. He was going at a walking pace, attended by two syces {grooms}. Attracted, apparently, by the sight, unusual at this time of year, of a string of hackeris, he wheeled his horse and cantered towards the tail of the convoy, which was under Bulger's charge.

"Hai, hackeriwallah," he said in Urdu to the rearmost driver, "to whom do these hackeris belong?"

"To the great Company, huzur. The sahib will tell you."

"The sahib--what sahib?" asked the rider in astonishment.

"The sahib yonder," replied the man, pointing to Bulger.

Bulger had been staring at the horseman, and growing more and more red in the face. Catching the rider's surprised look, he could contain himself no longer.

"By thunder! 'tis that villain Diggle!" he shouted, and rushed forward to drag him from his horse.

But Diggle was not taken unawares. Setting spurs to his steed, he caused it to spring away. Bulger raised his musket, but ere he could fire Diggle was out of range. Keeping a careful distance he rode leisurely along the whole convoy, and a smile of malignant pleasure shone upon his face as he took stock of its contents.