32 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
In this retreat the fugitive passed the day, sub- 
sisting upon the fare of the poor Hindoos — boiled rice 
saturated with ghee. He had forty gold mohurs, 
which he kept tied up in a muslin belt round 
his waist; these he had purloined from the pay- 
sergeant of his company previously to his desertion. 
During the night his slumbers were disturbed by the 
sound of voices in the chamber beneath ; and his 
attentive ear soon distinguished those of the very men 
to whom he had listened with such trembling anxiety 
from the tree in the jungle, whither he had sought 
refuge from discovery. Immediately ascertaining that 
they were informed of his presence, he determined 
without further delay to make his appearance, and 
endeavour to win their confidence and kind treatment 
by a frank behaviour and a seeming reliance upon 
their good intentions. He had no sooner come to this 
determination than he descended into the lower apart- 
ment, where he found four men ; among these were 
the two whom he had already seen in the forest. 
He at once told them that he had sought refuge from 
oppression in the same ruin whither they had re- 
tired for other purposes ; and mentioned the circum- 
stance of his escape in the thicket by climbing a tree, 
in order the more effectually to enlist their better 
feelings in his behalf, by assuming that air of com- 
municativeness which betokens an utter absence of 
suspicion of evil intentions on the part of those who 
are the objects of such apparently ready reliance. 
The robbers, for such they evidently were, received 
his communication favourably ; but one of these 
seemed to eye him with a sinister scowl, which be- 
