He told me that he was working it out a year and a half
ago, and how he was working it out night after night when the boat had gone
away, and he could get out near the quicksand safely. Then he said that we
would get away together. But I was afraid that he would leave me behind one
night when he had worked it all out, and so I shot him. Besides, it is not
advisable that the men who once get in here should escape. Only I, and I am a
Brahmin."
The prospect of escape had brought Gunga Dass's caste back to him. He stood
up, walked about and gesticulated violently. Eventually I managed to make him
talk soberly, and he told me how this Englishman had spent six months night
after night in exploring, inch by inch, the passage across the quicksand; how
he had declared it to be simplicity itself up to within about twenty yards of
the river bank after turning the flank of the left horn of the horseshoe. This
much he had evidently not completed when Gunga Dass shot him with his own gun.
In my frenzy of delight at the possibilities of escape I recollect shaking
hands effusively with Gunga Dass, after we had decided that we were to make an
attempt to get away that very night. It was weary work waiting throughout the
afternoon.
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