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Updated: May 21, 2025
As we reached greater elevations it grew colder, and the wind became more piercing. Every few minutes we were compelled to halt and sit close together in order to warm ourselves and get fresh breath. The air was so rarefied that we could barely proceed under our heavy loads. We heard a whistle and faint sounds like distant voices. My men collected round me, whispered "Daku! daku!"
The daku picked himself up and ran, and Dennis buzzed his carbine after him, and it caught him on the back of his head and knocked him silly. You never saw anything so funny in your life. I doubled up on the top of the palisade and hung there, yelling with laughter. But Dennis began to weep like anything. 'Oh, I've killed a man, he said.
The daku knew that I carried a large sum of money. During the last two days his behavior had been more than strange. Had he come across some of his mates, or had he heard from the soldiers that they were in the neighborhood? The daku had a bundle of blankets strapped on his back in readiness to leave me. My men, distressed at this new danger, came to report it to me. I sent for him.
'I've killed a man, and I shall never know another peaceful hour in my life. Is he dead? Oh, is he dead? Good Lord, I've killed a man! I came down and said, 'Don't be a fool; but he kept on shouting, 'Is he dead? till I could have kicked him. The daku was only knocked out of time with the carbine.
He wriggled loose and bounded over the other side. I came after him; but when I had one leg one side and one leg the other of the palisade, I saw that the daku had fallen flat on Dennis's head. That man had never moved from where I left him. They rolled on the ground together, and Dennis's carbine went off and nearly shot me.
We had hardly gone half a mile over the rolling country, and I had stopped behind my men to take observations with my prismatic compass, when my carriers suddenly threw themselves flat on the ground and began to retreat, crawling on hands and knees. "Daku! daku!" It was too late. We had been detected, and a number of dacoits, armed with matchlocks and swords, came rapidly toward us.
Then we used to catch the simple daku before breakfast, and made him very sick. It's a ghastly country on the Hlinedatalone; all bamboo jungle, with paths about four feet wide winding through it. The daku knew all the paths, and potted at us as we came round a corner; but the mounted police knew the paths as well as the daku, and we used to go stalking 'em in and out.
Greedy hog! I took some, and offered some to Dennis. 'How can I eat? he said. 'How can you ask me to eat? His very blood is on your hands now, and you're eating my sandwiches! 'All right, I said; 'I'll give 'em to the daku. So I did, and the little chap was quite pleased, and wolfed 'em down like one o'clock."
I laughed till I couldn't stand, and Hicksey was cursing me for not helping him; so I left him to fight it out and went into the village. Our men were slashing about and firing, and so were the dacoits, and in the thick of the mess some ass set fire to a house, and we all had to clear out. I froze on to the nearest daku and ran to the palisade, shoving him in front of me.
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