Moreover, with his knowledge, already gained, of Asiatic cunning, he ought to have reflected that if two of their dusky enemies were within the house there were likely to be others in the immediate neighborhood.  It looked as if Mustad had entered the dwelling expecting to find the physician there.  He was prepared with an excuse for his abrupt departure and an explanation that would satisfy his indulgent master and mistress.  Keeping his companion in the background the wretch could then complete his plans for turning the party over to the fury of their brother murderers, who probably were calmly waiting on the outside for the signal.

Nothing of all this, we repeat, entered the head of Jack until he had made the change in the course he was following and had passed down the slope to the river bank.  His effort to mislead his enemies necessarily took him some distance above the point where he had left the boat, and he now set out to find his way to it.  It was while he was engaged in doing so that he became aware that he was followed.

“Well, I’ll be hanged!” he muttered, coming to an abrupt stop; “it seems to me that these infernal imps are everywhere.”

He had not seen any one, but a rustling, grating noise in the shadow of the nearest tree told him where the immediate danger lay.  Believing that an unexpected course was best he wheeled and ran at full speed toward the tree, which contained a large number of dense, wide-spreading branches.

The result was surprising.  Instead of one native, two leaped out from cover and ran away at full speed.  They had been stealing after him, on the watch for a chance to bring him down by a blow in the back, when the tables were turned in this unexpected manner.  Jack, therefore, had no hesitation in firing at the one on his right, and immediately after at his companion, whose superior speed had placed him considerably in advance.  As a consequence, he missed the latter, while the first emitted a screech, leaped high in air and sprawled forward on his face as dead as Julius Caesar.

The fact that his pursuers were two in number led the young man to believe they were Mustad and his companion, whom he had heard in the house.  A few minutes later he made another halt.  He was able, despite the gloom, to identify the spot where he had left the boat, but it was not in sight.

“I told them not to wait for me, and they acted on my suggestion.  They can’t be far off, and I hope have run into no trouble.”

The occurrences of the last quarter of an hour gave Jack a vivid idea of the increasing peril.  The natives from the nearby town were hunting for the physician, his daughter and himself, all of whom had not left the house a minute too soon and now, while he paused on the shore of the river and listened, he too caught the sound that had filled his friends with dread.  There were no noises from the jungles to the eastward, though at times the outcries are terrifying, and the shouts and shrieks of the mutineers and their victims at Meerut and Delhi were too far away to reach his ears, but he heard now and then the faint sound of paddles out on the stream.