Who could they be? Certain it was that the party was now posted there to waylay some one who was expected, and the information they were acting upon was apparently as sure as their movements were methodical. Not a neigh escaped their horses, nor was there any commotion apparently among the men. The place chosen was admirably adapted for a surprise. The road, as we have said, led up a slight ascent or spur of an undulation, the sides of which broke into small but rough ravines and watercourses intermixed with large loose boulders of basalt, difficult to be traversed on horseback even by day, and quite impassable by night. These features were the same on both sides; and the spur itself was a narrow neck, which widened, as the plain above stretched out, into one of the usual broad expanses of waste and cultivated lands. "They have come by Hórtee," said the Hurkara in a whisper--"the village there in the hollow--and are waiting for some one. Master, dost thou fear them?--they will hardly molest travellers such as we are. Shall we go on?" It was a difficult point to decide. There was certainly no way of avoiding them and yet keeping the road. "Go, Ramjee," said Maloosray to his scout; "go and see who they are. Be careful! my mind misgives me about them." "Master," replied the man, "this ground is higher than theirs, and if they put out the light they will see thee against the sky. Retire a little lower, and Enkôba and I will find it all out for you." Maloosray saw the intelligence of the advice, and acted promptly upon it, while the two men, well accustomed to such proceedings, crept warily along under cover of bushes and inequalities, of the ground, till they entered a tall field of grain, in which they could move without chance of observation up to the very party itself, and from which they looked with safety upon the horsemen. As they had supposed, the body was drawn up across the road. One flank overlapped the corn-field, on the path by which they had come; the other rested upon a declivity where the same path descended to the westward. It was clear that the position could not be turned without great risk, and it was impossible to say whether the path to Hórtee might not be guarded also. In front of the party, and near a man who held a torch which he replenished with oil from time to time, were two persons mounted on powerful horses, whose wet coats and panting flanks showed that they had been ridden at a rapid rate; and it was also evident from the condition of the rest, splashed with mud and with similar evidences of fatigue, that, whatever might be the object, speed had not been spared in its pursuit. "They cannot pass this unobserved," said the elder of the two, "and there can be no suspicion that we are on this road. Ah, there is no such trap, boy, in the country, not a rat could get by it. Well, we have not been idle; first Khan Mahomed, second the Kótwal, and now Maloosray and his friend Nettajee."