Six weeks later a heavily-laden petala, with a dinghy trailing behind, was dropping down the river above Hugli.  Its crew numbered four.  One was Hossain, the serang, who had left Fulta with Desmond on the day after his interview with Major Killpatrick.  Two were dark-skinned boatmen, Bengalis somewhat stupid in appearance.  The fourth, who was steering, was rather lighter in hue, as well as more alert and energetic in mien:  a lascar, as Hossain explained in answer to inquiries along the river.  He had lately been employed on one of the Company’s vessels, but it had been sunk in the Hugli during the siege of Calcutta.  He was a handy man in a boat, and very glad to earn a few pice in this time of stagnant trade.  Things were not looking bright for boatmen on the Hugli; as only a few vessels had left the river from Chandernagore and Chinsura since the troubles began there was little or no opening for men of the shipwrecked crew.

The petala made fast for the night near the bank, at a spot a little below Hugli, between that place and Chinsura.  When the two Bengalis had eaten their evening rice, Hossain told them that they might, if they pleased, take the dinghy and attend a tamasha {entertainment} that was being held in Chinsura that night in honor of the wedding of one of the Dutch Company’s principal gumashtas.  The Bengalis, always ready for an entertainment of this kind, slipped overboard and were soon rowing down to Chinsura.  Their orders were to be back immediately after the second watch of the night.  Only the lascar and Hossain were left in the boat.

Ten minutes after the men had disappeared from view, the serang lit a small oil lamp in the tiny cabin.  He then made his way to the helm, whispered a word in the lascar’s ear, and took his place.  The latter nodded and went into the cabin.  Drawing the curtains, he squatted on a mattress, took from a hiding place in the cabin a few sheets of paper and a pencil, and, resting the paper on the back of a tray, began to write.

As he did so he frequently consulted a scrap of paper he kept at his left hand; it was closely covered with letters and figures, these latter not Hindustani characters, but the Arabic figures employed by Europeans.

The first line of what he wrote himself ran thus: 

29 19 28 19 36 38 32 20 21 39 23 34 19 29 29 35 32 38 24 38 23 32 {constructed from the cipher actually used by Mr. Watts at Murshidabad}.

The letter or message upon which he was engaged was not a lengthy one, but it took a long time to compose.  When it was finished the lascar went over it line by line, comparing it with the paper at his left hand.  Then he folded it very small, sealed it with a wafer, and, returning to the serang, said a few words.  Whereupon Hossain made a trumpet of his hands, and, looking toward the left bank, sounded a few notes in imitation of a bird’s warble.  The shore was fringed here with low bushes.  As if in answer to the call a small boat darted out from the shelter of a bush; a few strokes brought it alongside of the petala; and the serang, bending over, handed the folded paper to the boatman, and whispered a few words in his ear.  The man pushed off, and the lascar watched the boat float silently down the stream until it was lost to sight.