Part 14 (1/2)
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.”