CHAPTER IX.
SCOUTING.
Had Mr.Jack Everson spent a few years in Hindoostan he would not have made the blunders that we are obliged to record concerning his movements after parting from his friends on the boat.

He had acquitted himself pluckily while in the house of the physician, but his escape from death at the hands of Mustad and his companion was providential and, under similar circumstances, was not likely to be repeated once in a thousand times.
Moreover, with his knowledge, already gained, of Asiatic cunning, he ought to have reflected that if two of their dusky enemies were within the house there were likely to be others in the immediate neighborhood.
It looked as if Mustad had entered the dwelling expecting to find the physician there.

He was prepared with an excuse for his abrupt departure and an explanation that would satisfy his indulgent master and mistress.

Keeping his companion in the background the wretch could then complete his plans for turning the party over to the fury of their brother murderers, who probably were calmly waiting on the outside for the signal.
Nothing of all this, we repeat, entered the head of Jack until he had made the change in the course he was following and had passed down the slope to the river bank.

His effort to mislead his enemies necessarily took him some distance above the point where he had left the boat, and he now set out to find his way to it.