to the
nabob that the prisoner committed to his charge had escaped.

"Of course, I can't see you very well," Ada said, "but I should not
have known you, in the least."

"No, I am got up like a peasant," Charlie answered. "We shall have to
dress you so, before morning. We have got things here for you."

"Oh, how delighted I was," Ada exclaimed, "when I got your note! I
found it so difficult to keep on looking sad and hopeless, when I
could have sung for joy. I had been so miserable. There seemed no
hope, and they said, some day, I should be sent to the nabob's
zenana--wretches! How poor mamma will be grieving for me, and papa!--

"Ah! Captain Marryat, he is dead, is he not?"

"Yes, my dear," Charlie said gently. "He was killed by my side, that
afternoon. With his last breath, he asked me to take care of you."

"I thought so," Ada said, crying quietly. "I did not think of it at
the time. Everything was so strange, and so dreadful, that I scarcely
thought at all. But afterwards, on the way here, when I turned it all
over, it seemed to me that it must be so. He did not come to me, all
that afternoon. He was not shut up with us in that dreadful place, and
everyone else was there. So it seemed to me that he must have been
killed, but that you did not like to tell me."

"It was better for him, dear, than to have died in that terrible cell.
Thank God your mamma is safe, and some day you will join her again.

"We have news that the English are coming up to attack Calcutta. A
party are already in the Hoogly; and the nabob is going to start, in a
few days, to his army there. I hope, in a very very short time, you
will be safe among your friends."

After travelling for several hours, they stopped. Charlie gave Ada
some native clothes and ornaments, and told her to stain her face,
arms, and legs, to put on the bangles and bracelets, and then to
rejoin them. Half an hour later, Ada took her seat in the cart, this
time transformed into a Hindoo girl, and the party again proceeded.

They felt sure that Ada's flight would not be discovered until
daybreak. It would be some little time before horsemen could be sent
off in all directions, in pursuit; and they could not be overtaken
until between eleven and twelve.

The waggon was filled with grain, on the top of which Charlie and Ada
were seated. When daylight came, Charlie alighted and walked by the
cart. Unquestioned, they passed through several villages.

At eleven o'clock