Here it sloped gradually for a few
feet. I took off my shoes and went down to the edge. Below, some
ten feet, was a ledge, on to which with care I could get down,
but below that was a sheer fall of some fifty feet. As a means of
escape it was hopeless, but it struck me that if an attack was made
I might slip away and get on to the ledge. Once there I could not
be seen except by a person standing where I now was, just on the
edge of the slope, a spot to which it was very unlikely that anyone
would come.
"The thought gave me a shadow of hope, and, returning to the upper
end of the platform, I lay down, and in spite of the hardness of
the rock, was soon asleep. The pain of my aching bones woke me up
several times, and once, just as the first tinge of dawn was coming,
I thought I could hear movements in the jungle. I raised myself
somewhat, and I saw that the sounds had been heard by the Dacoits,
for they were standing listening, and some of them were bringing
spare firearms from the storehouse, in evident preparation for
attack.
"As I afterwards learned, the police had caught one of the Dacoits
trying to effect his escape, and by means of a little of the ingenious
torture to which the Indian police then frequently resorted, when
their white officers were absent, they obtained from him the exact
position of Sivajee's band, and learned the side from which the
ascent must be made.
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