We took up our quarters for the night in a small tope of trees, near the Home Doongra, the eminence which I have before spoken of. The night being sultry and hot, I slept on the outside of my tent. Close to my feet ran a little rippling stream, the banks of which were thick and bushy. I had not reclined long on my couch, before I heard a rustling noise among the bushes, and the cries of so many animals, that I began to think I was in rather a dangerous neighbourhood, and got my pistols ready, in case a tiger or other beast of prey should have taken a fancy to the body of the baggage-master, in preference to that of some more comely person. I listened attentively for a considerable time, when I heard imitations of the sounds of birds. I then knew I was in the vicinity of thieves, and kept my pistol on the cock. At last, I distinctly heard a low voice say, "He wakes--squat down." I instantly jumped off my cot, and ran towards the place; but they were off, and, from the darkness of the night, I could not see them, or they were so close it was quite impossible they could have escaped. From the noise they made in scampering off, there must have been some five or six of them. I should have changed my quarters after this, but the moon at this time stole from behind a cloud, and illumined all around, and I slept peaceably till the morning dawned. We then commenced our reconnoitring, during which we were frequently saluted with a sixty-four pounder, but escaped unhurt. The remainder of the division arrived this morning, and in the course of the day we completely invested the town and fort. We took up our position on the east side of the fort, having the river Nerbuddah, with a large village and tope of trees, in our front, which completely screened us from view. The information brought into camp by the spy spoken of, with his plans and drawings of the fort, were found, on a minute examination, to be utterly false. It turned out that he had never been near the fort, but loitered about in the woods and villages in its vicinity, and there gained the information from which he drew his plans. The integrity and faith of this native had been such, that his master would have trusted his life on his veracity. For the long period of more than twenty years had this spy borne the toils and risks of his perilous occupation, without once having been detected in a falsehood; but his grey hairs were now, at a late period of his life, disgraced. For his long services, however, he was pensioned off, and placed in a solitary hut in his old age, to repent of this one act of deception. He confessed that his old tottering frame had refused to bear him as heretofore, and that fear had caused him to commit this his first transgression.