Desmond thought over this piece of information.  He had noticed that the Gujarati was left much alone by the others.  They were outwardly civil enough, but they rarely spoke to him of their own accord, and sometimes they would break off in a conversation if he appeared interested.  Desmond had put this down to the man’s temper; he was a sullen fellow, with a perpetually hangdog look, occasionally breaking out in paroxysms of violence which cost him many a scourging from the overseer’s merciless rattan.  But the attitude of his fellow prisoner was more easily explained if the Babu’s hint was well founded.  They feared him.

Yet, if he had indeed betrayed his comrades, he had gained little by his treachery.  He was no favorite with the officers of the yard.  They kept him hard at work, and seemed to take a delight in harrying him.  More than once, unjustly, as it appeared to Desmond, he had made acquaintance with the punishment tank.  In his dealings with his fellows he was morose and offensive.  A man of great physical strength, he was a match for any two of his shed companions save the Biluchis, who, though individually weaker, retained something of the spirit of their race and made common cause against him.  The rest he bullied, and none more than the Bengali, whose weaklier constitution spared him the hard manual work of the yard, but whose timidity invited aggression.

Now that the subject which constantly occupied his thoughts had been mooted, Desmond found himself more eagerly striving to find a solution of the problem presented by the idea of escape.  At all hours of the day, and often when he lay in sleepless discomfort at night, his active mind recurred to the one absorbing matter:  how to regain his freedom.  He had already canvassed the possibilities of escape by land, only to dismiss the idea as utterly impracticable; for even could he elude the vigilance of the sentries he could not pass as a native, and the perils besetting an Englishman were not confined to Angria’s territory.

But how stood the chances of escape by sea?  Could he stow himself on board a grab or gallivat, and try to swim ashore when near some friendly port?  He put the suggestion from him as absurd.  Supposing he succeeded in stowing himself on an outgoing vessel, how could he know when he was near a friendly port without risking almost certain discovery?  Besides, except in such rare cases as the visit of an interloper like the Good Intent, the Pirate did little trade.  His vessels were employed mainly in dashing out on insufficiently-convoyed merchantmen.

But the train of thought once started could not but be followed out.  What if he could seize a grab or gallivat in the harbor?  To navigate such a vessel required a party, men having some knowledge of the sea.  How stood his fellow prisoners in that respect?  The Biluchis, tall wiry men, were traders, and had several times, he knew, made the voyage from the Persian Gulf to Surat.  It was on one