It had, indeed, barely started, when in the distance Desmond spied a
horseman cantering towards them. A few minutes revealed him as Diggle. He
rode up almost within musket shot, then turned and trotted back.
What was the meaning of his action? Desmond, from his position near the
foremost hackeri, could see nothing more. But, a few yards ahead of him,
to the right of the track, there was a low artificial mound, possibly the
site of an ancient temple, standing at the edge of a nullah, its top some
ten or twelve feet above the surrounding plain. Hastening to this he
gained the summit, and, looking back, saw a numerous body of men on foot
advancing rapidly from the direction in which the horseman had come. In
twenty minutes they would have come up with the convoy. He must turn at
bay.
He glanced anxiously around. He was in the midst of an almost bare
sun-baked plain, the new-sown fields awaiting the rains to spring into
verdure. Here and there were clumps of trees--the towering palmyra with
its fan-shaped foliage, the bamboo with its feathery branches, the
plantain, throwing its immense leaves of vivid green into every fantastic
form. There was no safety on the plain.
But below him was the nullah, thirty feet deep, eighty yards wide, soon
to be a swollen torrent dashing towards the Hugli, but now dry. Its sides
were in parts steep, and unscalable in face of determined resistance. In
a moment Desmond saw the utmost of possibility.
Running back to the convoy, he turned its head towards the mound, and,
calling every man to the help of the oxen, he dragged the carts one by
one to the top.
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