Page:Confessions of a Thug.djvu/44

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CONFESSIONS OF A THUG.

as I can remember, there was but little light, and a slight rain falling, which obliged us to travel very slowly. After we had proceeded a few coss, the bearers of the dooly put it down, saying that they could not get on in the dark and the mud, and proposed to wait till daylight. My father had a violent altercation with them; and as I was now wide awake, and it had ceased to rain, I begged to be taken out of the dooly, and allowed to ride with my friend. He did not assent as readily as usual; yet he took me up when the bearers had been scolded into going on. I remarked to him that some of the soldiers, as I thought them, were absent. My remark attracted my father's notice to the circumstance, and he asked our companion where they were. He replied carelessly, that they were gone on in advance, as we had travelled as yet so slowly, and that we should soon overtake them.

We proceeded. We came at last to the deep bed of a river, on the sides of which there was some thick jungle, when my friend dismounted, as he said, to drink water, and told me the horse would carry me over safely. I guided him on as well as I could; but before I had got well across the stream, I heard a cry,