We have been as far as the edge of the jungle, and although we have heard of several, not one of them seems to be in the habit of coming back regularly to the same spot; so we thought we could not do better than return here, at once, and make it our headquarters.
"I see you have got some soldiers here." "Yes," the old man said, discontentedly, "and a rough lot they are.
They demand food, and instead of paying for it in money, their officer gives us bits of paper with some writing on them.

He says that, when they go, we are to take them to him, and he will give us an order equal to the whole of them, for which we can receive money from the treasury at Seringapatam.
"A nice thing, that! None of us have ever been to Seringapatam, and should not know what to do when we got there.

Moreover, there would be no saying whether one would ever come back again.

It is terrible.
Besides, we have only grain enough for ourselves, and shall have to send down to the plains to buy more; and where the money is to come from, nobody can tell." "I think I could tell you how you had better proceed, if you will take us into your house," Surajah said.

"This is not a place for talking.
There are four or five soldiers there, watching us." The old man entered the house, and closed the door behind them.
"How would you counsel us to proceed ?" he asked, as soon as they had seated themselves on a divan, formed of a low bank of beaten earth, with a thick covering of straw.
"It is simple enough," Surajah said.