"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, nobody 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," Dick broke in, "let us talk about tigers. While you have been speaking, those soldiers have passed 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.