"'Look!' said I to my father, 'we are waylaid, there are people behind the hedge; look, there are three lighted matches!' "'You are a fool,' cried he, 'they are fire-flies: are you afraid? has my son become a coward?' "The words were hardly out of his mouth, when there were three sharp cracks close to us. My father fell on his face without uttering a sound, and I felt a coldness and numbness all down my back, with a sharp pain, and the same feeling in my leg. I became sick, staggered a few paces, and then fell; but I was not insensible. Three men rushed out from the hedge, and ran towards us with drawn swords. Seeing that neither of us moved, one of them turned me over on my back, and looked into my face. I shut my eyes, for I knew if they were open I should not live an instant. "'This is not the man,' said the fellow standing over me; 'we have missed them.' "Another came up. "'It is nearly as good,' said he, 'it is the young devil, the son: the father, depend upon it, is the other; come and see.' And they left me. "They went to where my poor father lay, but I could not see what they did. I suppose they examined him, for one cried, 'Alhumd-ul-illah! we have been successful; our faces will be bright in our employer's sight for this. And only think, to have succeeded so easily after this long watching! The old dog was as wary as a fox.' "'You may thank me,' said another, who had not as yet spoken: 'if I had not dogged him to the sugar-cane field, and found out his nearest way homewards, we might have had a long continuance of our fruitless watching, of which I was heartily tired. Come,' continued he, 'we must not stay, the country will be too hot to hold us. Madhoo will help us on to Nagpoor, and the sooner we get to him the better; the horses I know are all ready.' "I heard no more. I was sick and faint, and lay almost insensible for a long time: the pain of the wounds was horrible, and I writhed in torment; the night too, was dreadfully cold, and I became so stiff I could not move. I tried even to get as far as my poor father's body, which I could just see lying on its back; but motion was denied me. I lay and moaned bitterly. I heard the voices of persons not far off, and shouted as loud as I could, but they did not hear me. There were shots fired, as I afterwards heard, as signals to us; but I could not answer them: what could I do, lying as I did like a crushed reptile? My senses went and returned, as though I were dead, and again alive. Oh, my friends, how can I describe to you the misery of that night! At last I was roused out of a faint by some persons with a torch standing over me. I quickly recognized them as some of the labourers of the village; they had searched every lane, and at length found me. I knew not what they said or did; but they broke out into lamentations on seeing my father's body, and taking me up in a blanket they carried me to the village, and set me down at the door of my father's house: alas! his no longer.