Frank spent a quarter of an hour in inspecting some maps of the
country, and had a talk with the native who was to act as guide.
When the little force was drawn up, he marched off in quite another
direction from that in which the village lay. Being in command, he
was mounted for the first time during the campaign. The lieutenant
in command of the Sikhs presently rode up to him.

"I beg your pardon, Captain Mallett, but I cannot but think that
your guide is taking you in the wrong direction. I looked at the
map before starting, and find that Dousi lies almost due north. We
are marching west."

"You are quite right, Mr. Hammond, but, you see, I don't want any
of the natives about the camp to guess where we are going. None of
these Oude fellows bears us any goodwill, and one of them might
hurry off, and carry information as to the line we were following.

"We will march four miles along this road, and then strike off by
another leading north. We must surprise them if we can. We don't
really know much about their force, and even if we did, they may be
joined by some other body before we get there--there are numerous
bands of them all over the country. And in the next place, if they
knew that we were coming, they might bolt before we got there.

"Besides, some of these villages are very strong, and we might
suffer a good deal before we could carry it if they had notice of
our coming. However, you were quite right to point out to me that
we were not going in what seemed the right direction."

The column started at four o'clock in the afternoon. It had been