work, cutting down, breaking off, and tearing up large reeds with which to make floats. The boys had knives, but the others had been stripped of everything they had at the time of their capture. In about an hour, however, five bundles were made, each some six feet long, and nearly three feet thick. The muskets and ammunition pouches were fastened on these, and soon after it was quite dark they entered the water.
"There are no crocodiles, I hope," Dick whispered to Ned.
"Nothing to fear in these large rivers; the chances of meeting one are very small."
"All right," Dick said. "Of course we've got to risk it. But they're as bad as sharks; and sharks, as the Yankees said, is pisin. Well, here goes."
When the bundles were placed in the water they were lashed side by side with long trailing creepers which grew abundantly among the rushes, and they were thus secured from the risk of turning over from the weights on the top. Upon the raft thus formed their clothes were placed and then, side by side, pushing it before them, the party shoved off from shore. In twenty minutes they touched ground on the other side. They dressed, examined their muskets to see if they were in good order, and then started in the direction in which they knew Meerut to be. Several times they paused and listened, for they could occasionally hear the noise of galloping men, and it was evident that there were troops of some kind or other moving about.
They walked for some hours, until they thought that they could not be far from their destination, and had begun to congratulate themselves upon being near their friends, when the sound of a strong body of men was heard sweeping along the level plain across which they were now passing.
