As for Tom, he laid himself down again, not to sleep this time, but to watch. There was, however, no further alarm, nor, when, long before dawn, the camp began to stir and the morning fires were lighted, was any remark made with regard to the incident of the night. A narrow trench was dug; the robber was laid in it, and, once more, the cavalcade moved forward. Throughout that day they went on steadily. The prisoner was continually on the alert, but he was given no chance either of escaping or of speaking to the veiled lady in the litter. His passionate irritation over the delay grew, meanwhile, to such a height, that he was on the point once or twice of making some mad effort that would have had the effect of either seriously jeopardising his life or putting fetters on his limbs. That he restrained himself was due not so much to prudence as to fatality. He could never find a moment when his will-power and his surroundings leapt together. When he might have acted he could not. When all his nerves were braced and the blood coursed like fire about his heart, something would always happen to make action impossible. So, with throbbing brain and a heart as heavy as lead, he travelled on. Every hour was taking them further away from Jhansi, and nearer Gumilcund, although they were not shaping their course directly for the last-named city. The men were reticent before him, but he gathered from a stray word here and there that they were themselves uncertain about their movements, which would depend upon the result of an enterprise undertaken by some of their comrades. Towards mid-day they halted, and a man, who appeared to be a moulvie, or priest, joined them, was admitted to the tent, and held a conference with the lady, travelling on with the cavalcade as far as the next village, where he took his leave. What news he brought Tom did not hear, but he judged from the jubilant faces of the men, and the laughter and rude jests, some of which made his blood curdle, that there had been another triumph over the Europeans, and that these men were expecting to share in its results. Evening came and they halted again. It was in the neighbourhood of a large village, to the right of which stretched a mere or shallow pond, half covered with red pond-weed and overshadowed with some fine acacia and fig trees. By order of the lady in the litter, her tent, which always formed the centre of the camp, was pitched on the shores of the mere, being separated from the village by its waters. Immediately the men unsaddled, tethered and fed their horses, and lighted their evening fires. The villagers, meanwhile, who were hiding behind every tree and angle of wall, having satisfied themselves that those in camp had no hostile intentions, poled themselves over the mere in flat-bottomed boats, bringing with them fruit and vegetables, and grain and milk, so that presently the camp was like a fair.