334 THE GUNS OF BURRISAUL. 



when stretched in a hammock reading or smoking, I instinctively felt that some 

 danger was near, and, looking about sudoenly, four.d him standing a few paces off, 

 watching me with strange intensity. The moment he saw he was discovered, he 

 would move away with the same noiselessness, only to fix his stare upon me from 

 some other point where he fancied he was invisible. 



"One Sunday morning Kush-awa asked permission to be absent until nightfall, 

 and I willingly granted it, for, to tell the truth, I felt that it would be a vast relief 

 to be rid of the fellow, even for a day. You see, I had made myself at home in 

 cousin Fred's house, for that was just what he would have wanted me to do had he 

 known I was there. 



" So Kush-awa took his departure and I settA d down to enjoy, or rather to 

 worry through the day as best I could. 



" Whew ! wasn't it hot ? I had eaten lightly of fruit in the morning, had taken 

 a draught of goat's milk, and would not need another mouthful of food before night. 

 I did little but loll in one of the hammocks, smoking cheroots and reading. I 

 dawdled over a novel until the letters ran together, the thread of the story melted 

 into nothingness, and I sank into sleep. 



"When I awoke, the afternoon was well along and I felt disgusted and sticky. 

 A species of green-winged fly was boring into my nostrils, and several millions, 

 more or less, of red-legged ants were crawling down my back. Sitting upright, I 

 sniffed vigorously, slapped spitefully and brushed furiously, anathematizing, mean- 

 while, the oven-like climate that caused all this suffering. 



" My hammock was swung between two trees in front of the house. To my left 

 wound the road to Dacca, there being a dense wood on both sides of the highway, 

 so that it may be said the bamboo house stood in a sort of clearing in the Indian 

 forest. Still, the shade was so plentiful that hardly a ray of sunlight forced its 

 way through the exuberant vegetation. But to me the heat seemed all the more 

 oppressive on that account. 



" Looking to the wood or jungle on the left, I suddenly became aware that it 

 contained a number of men, approaching with such stealth that there could be no 

 doubt they meant to surround the house, or perhaps to rush upon me before I could 

 take refuge within doors. 



" It flashed upon me at once that these natives, of whom I caught glimpses, 

 were Sepoys whom Kush-awa had brought from Dacca to kill me. He had gone to 

 town that morning for the express purpose of guiding them thither, and had I not 

 opened my eyes when I did, I never would have opened them in this world. 



" Now, it was a custom with me, when stretching out in the hammock, to lean 

 my rifle against the nearest tree. Like all new-comers in India, I had magnified 

 ideas of the perils which impended, though it may seem that that was impossible, 

 since the Sepoy mutiny was fairly under way. 



"The instant I discovered the swarthy figures moving among the trees like so 

 many Indians, I sprang up, seized my gun, took a quick aim at the nearest wretch 

 and pulletl nigger. 



