canal. Once over, they were, they knew, fairly safe. They kept on at a
rapid walk until well in the country, and then sat down by the roadside
for a consultation as to their best course of proceeding. The lads were
both of opinion that the dangers which would lie in the way of their
reaching Cawnpore would be very great. This road was now occupied by great
numbers of troops, determined to bar the way to Lucknow against General
Havelock. They had advanced without question, because it was natural that
Sepoys should be making their way from Cawnpore to Lucknow; but it would
not be at all natural that a fakir should at this time be going in the
opposite direction. Moreover--and this weighed very strongly with them--
they knew that General Havelock would advance with a force wholly
inadequate to the task before him; and they thought that even should he
succeed in getting into Lucknow, he would be wholly unable to get out
again, hampered, as he would be, with sick, wounded, women, and children.
In that case he would have to continue to hold Lucknow until a fresh
relieving force arrived, and the lads had already had more than enough of
the confinement and horrors of a siege such as that of Cawnpore.

Animated by these considerations, they determined to push to Delhi, where
they hoped that they might arrive in time to see the end of the siege, at
whose commencement they had been present.

No suspicion would be likely to be excited by their passage through that
line of country, which, indeed, would be found altogether denuded of the
enemy's troops, for all the regiments that had mutinied along this line
had marched off, either to Delhi or Lucknow, and the country was in the
hands of the zemindars, who would neither suspect nor molest a wandering
fakir. It certainly was unusual for a fakir to be accompanied by a bear,
but as the fakir they had killed had a bear with him, it was clearly by no
means impossible. Dick protested that it was absolutely essential that