92 RETIREMENT FROM PLANTING. 



for the five days before ; however, I had no time to think 

 of bad legs, and ran well until overtaken with cramps. 

 The feeling I had during the attack was, that the mo- 

 ment was to be my last, and I felt a savage determina- 

 tion to make the most of it. When a little way from 

 the house 1 got a cramp and rolled over. On rising up 

 again, I saw two men quite close. I knew I could not 

 g*t away, so I drew myself up against the matted brus 

 wood, and darted on the first, who fell in a lump unde 

 me. I had his dah (sword) half drawn ready to strike 

 him, when the second came up and cried, " Chaprasee, 

 sahib !" They turned out to be my own teklah and 

 Captain Butler's chaprasee (chaprasee, a police court mes- 

 senger, and teklah, a pike bearer), and my meeting them 

 saved me from a jungle death ; for the road or pathway 

 (made by wild elephants through the underwood) was so 

 full of water I never could have found my way to " Nin- 

 grew." It was as dark as it could be, and pouring rain 

 in torrents. All is burned down ; my pony is at Nin- 

 grew ; he broke loose and would not allow the rascals to 

 lay hands on him. The only thing I brought away was 

 the night-shirt on my back. 



I should say several Singphoos were wounded ; but no 

 person knows anything, all my servants having run away 

 when they heard the gun. 



One of the two men who I so fortunately met with, I 

 started off to the nearest military post to call out the 

 military, the other, I kept with me : from frequent at- 

 tacks of the cramp, and my naked feet being full of 

 thorns from the cane briars, and the painful state of my 

 legs, I was obliged to sit down in the forest. I made the 

 servant sit down, much against his will, with his back to 



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