he had just taken his leave, when Gurgan Khan seized one of his boats. Recriminations followed between Amyatt and the Nawab. At last it was settled between Amyatt and Foster that, if the Nawab would release the boat in the meantime, well and good; otherwise, the next morning, Foster would leave the boat of arms behind, and pursue his journey to Patna.
Both the boats of Foster had been fastened to the bank of the river. One was a country junk, very large, and the other, a barge. On the junk a few of the Nawab’s sepoys were mounting guard. A few more sepoys were also stationed on the bank. This was the boat in which arms had been stowed away and Gurgan Khan wanted to intercept.
The barge did not carry any arms. It was lying about fifty cubits off the junk. There was no guard of the Nawab on it. An English sentry, commonly called Telinga, was sitting on the roof and keeping watch.
It was nearly half—past one in the morning. The night was dark, but clear. The sentries on the barge now stood up, then sat down, and again drowsily nodded. On the bank was a small reed—copse. Behind it a man was watching. The watcher was Protap Ray himself.
Protap Ray marked the sentry’s drowsy nodding and he quietly glided into the water. Hearing the splash, the sentry drowsily called out, “who come there”? Protap Ray did not answer. The sentry went on nodding away as before. Inside the boat, Foster lay in vigilant wakefulness. At the sentry’s challenge, he threw his eyes round from within the barge and saw a man had got into the water for a bath.
At this moment suddenly the crack of a musket was heard in the direction of the reed-thicket. The sentry on the barge, hit by the bullet, fell into the water
