They sauntered along with the men, talking as they went, and so escaped being questioned by other soldiers. Presently, they made the excuse that they wanted, to buy some flour and ghee before the shops were closed; and, with a friendly nod to the two soldiers, stopped before the stall of a peasant who had, on a little stand in front of him, a large jar of ghee. Having purchased some, they went a little farther, and laid in a fresh supply of flour.

"Things are very dear," Surajah remarked.

"There is very little left in the village," the man said. "All the flour was bought up yesterday, for the sultan's army, which, they say, is coming in this direction; and I have only got what you see here. It has been pounded, by my wife and some other women, since morning."

"That is good enough," d.i.c.k said, as they walked away. "Our work is done, Surajah, and it is not likely that we should learn anything more, if we were to stop here for a week. Let us turn down between these houses, and make our way round behind. We might be questioned again, by a fresh party of soldiers, if we were to go along the street."

They kept along on the outskirts of the village, regained the road by which they had come, and walked on until they reached the edge of the jungle. Going a short distance among the trees, they collected some sticks, lit a fire, and sat down to cook their meal.

At the last village or two, they had heard but little of tigers, and now agreed that they could safely lie down, and that it would not be necessary for them to rig up their blankets as hammocks, as they had done on the first two nights.

Chapter 6: A Perilous Adventure.

They retraced their steps, without adventure, until they reached the village they had first stopped at.

"There are soldiers here," Surajah exclaimed, as they entered.

"We can't help it, now," d.i.c.k said. "There is nothing for it, but to go on boldly. I suppose that Tippoo has sent troops into all these frontier villages, to prevent any chance of news of his movements being taken to the plains.

"Ah! There is the old chap who spoke to us last time. Let us stop at once, and talk with him."

"So you are back again," the peasant said, as they came up to him.

"Yes," Surajah replied. "We told you we should come back here, unless we got news of some tiger being marked down near one of the other villages. We have been as far as the edge of the jungle, and although we have heard of several, not one of them seems to be in the habit of coming back regularly to the same spot; so we thought we could not do better than return here, at once, and make it our headquarters.

"I see you have got some soldiers here."

"Yes," the old man said, discontentedly, "and a rough lot they are.

They demand food, and instead of paying for it in money, their officer gives us bits of paper with some writing on them. He says that, when they go, we are to take them to him, and he will give us an order equal to the whole of them, for which we can receive money from the treasury at Seringapatam.

"A nice thing, that! None of us have ever been to Seringapatam, and should not know what to do when we got there. Moreover, there would be no saying whether one would ever come back again. It is terrible.

Besides, we have only grain enough for ourselves, and shall have to send down to the plains to buy more; and where the money is to come from, n.o.body can tell."

"I think I could tell you how you had better proceed, if you will take us into your house," Surajah said. "This is not a place for talking.

There are four or five soldiers there, watching us."

The old man entered the house, and closed the door behind them.

"How would you counsel us to proceed?" he asked, as soon as they had seated themselves on a divan, formed of a low bank of beaten earth, with a thick covering of straw.

"It is simple enough," Surajah said. "One of you would take the order, on the sultan's treasury, to a large village down in the plain. You would go to a trader, and say that you wished to purchase so much grain and other goods, and would pay for them with an order on the sultan's treasury. It would probably be accepted as readily as cash, for the trader would send it to a merchant, or banker, at Seringapatam to get it cashed for him, to pay for goods he had obtained there; and either to send him any balance there might be, or to retain it for further purchases. An order of that kind is better than money, for trading purposes, for there would be no fear of its being stolen on the way, as it could be hidden in the hair, or shoe, or anywhere among the clothes of the messenger."

"Wonderful!" the old peasant said. "Your words are a relief, indeed, to me, and will be to all the village, when they hear them."

"And now," d.i.c.k broke in, "let us talk about tigers. While you have been speaking, those soldiers have pa.s.sed the door twice, and have been looking suspiciously at the house. If they take it into their heads to come here, and to ask who we are and what is our business, it would not do to tell them that we have been discussing the value of the orders on the sultan's treasury.

"Now, if our advice has been of any a.s.sistance to you in this matter, you, in turn, can render us aid in our business of killing tigers. We want you to find out, for us, when a tiger was last seen near the village; where its lair is supposed to be; and whether, according to its situation, we should have the best chance of killing it by digging a pitfall, on the path by which it usually comes from the jungle; or by getting a kid and tying it up, to attract the tiger to a spot where we shall be stationed in a tree."

"I will a.s.suredly do that, and every one here will be glad to a.s.sist, when I tell them the advice I have received from you--and would, indeed, do so in any case, for it will be a blessing to the village, if you can kill the tiger that so often carries off some of our sheep and goats."

At this moment, there was a loud knocking at the door. On the peasant opening it, a group of soldiers demanded to see the men who had entered.

"We are here," Surajah said, coming forward. "What do you want?"

"We want to know who you are, and where you come from."

"Any one in the village could have told you that," Surajah said. "We are shikarees, and have come here to destroy tigers. We were arranging, with this old man, to find us guides who can point out the tracks of the one which has, for some time, been preying on their animals."

"Yes, and our children," the old man put in; "for three of them were carried off, from the street here, within the last month."

The soldiers looked doubtful, but one of them said:

"This is for our officer to inquire about. The men are strangers to the village, and he will want to question them."

"We are quite ready to be questioned," Surajah said. "Our host, here, will bear me out in what I say, and there are others in the village who will tell you that we have been arranging, with them, to kill tigers in this neighbourhood; though as yet we have not settled what they will pay us for each beast we destroy."

Accompanied by the peasant, they went with the soldiers to the guard house, with which each of the frontier villages was provided. It consisted of a group of huts, surrounded by a thick wall of sunburnt bricks. They were taken into the largest hut, where the officer of the party was seated on a rough divan.

"Who have you here?" he asked irritably, for he had been awakened from a doze by their entry.

"They are two young fellows, who are strangers here. They say they are shikarees, who have come into the village to gain a reward for killing a tiger that has been troublesome."

"They were here three days ago, Sahib," the villager said, "and asked us many questions about the tigers, and were, when the soldiers came to the door, questioning me as to the tiger's place of retreat, and whether a pitfall, or a kid as a decoy, would be most suitable."

"Where do you come from?" the officer asked Surajah.

"We live in a little village, some distance down the ghauts. We heard that tigers were more abundant, in the jungle country up here, than they are below; and thought that we would, for a time, follow our calling here. We can get good prices for the skins, down below; and with that, and what we get from the villages for freeing them from the tigers, we hope, in a few months, to take back a good store of money."

"Your story is a doubtful one," the officer said, harshly. "You may be what you say, and you may be spies."

"If we had been spies," Surajah said, "we should not be here, but at Bangalore or Seringapatam. These villages are not the places where news is to be gained."

This was so self evident that the officer had nothing to say against it.

"At any rate," he said, after a pause, "there is no confirmation to your story, and, as I have orders to put all suspicious persons under arrest, I shall detain you."

"It is very hard--" Surajah began; but the officer made an impatient gesture, while two of the soldiers put their hands on the shoulders of the prisoners, and led them from the hut.

"You need not look so downcast," one of them said good naturedly. "I don't suppose you will be kept here long; and will, no doubt, be released when the sultan has gone down the pa.s.ses, with his army. A week or two here will do you no harm--the tigers can wait for a bit.

"There, give us your weapons. I daresay you will get them back again, when we go on; as I hope we shall do, for there is nothing to eat and nothing to do in this miserable place."

The arms were taken into the officer's hut, and as there was a sentry at the gate, no further attention was paid to them.

"I will get you some provisions, and bring them in," the old man said.