"I cannot speak your language, but I am a friend of Omichund."

Now this Omichund was a great, rich Gentoo, a banker and merchant who,
having made huge profits as a broker in the matter of the Company's
investment for many years, had recently had his services dispensed
with, and was believed to be disaffected on that account, and in
correspondence with the Moorish Court. I needed no more to convince me
that this was most likely the man whom I had been employed to
apprehend. Not daring to speak English, and it being useless to
address him in the Indostanee, I made signs that he should follow me,
and commenced to row to the shore.

But here I was disappointed, for the fellow, instead of following me,
at once began to move off in the opposite direction. Seeing this I at
once turned, shouting after him, and pointing where I would have him
go. He merely grinned and rowed further off, nor was it any better
when I showed him one of my pistols, for he then merely increased his
speed, so that I was obliged to pick up my oars again pretty quickly
in order to pursue him.

Seeing that it was become a race between us, he bent to his oars, and
I did the same, so that the two boats flew down the river, one about
twelve lengths behind the other. But taking advantage of a string of
barges which lay anchored out in the stream, he presently dodged me,
running in round the tail of the line, and so altering his course up
the stream. If I had not turned my head constantly to watch him, I
should soon have lost him among the shipping, and these frequent
turnings hindered my rowing, so that I could not gain on the other
boat so fast as I should otherwise have done. For I soon perceived
that I was the better rower of the two, or else had the quicker boat;
and the spy seemed to perceive it too, for after taking me some
distance up the middle of the river, he suddenly struck off towards
the bank, rowing hard for a house which had come in sight, standing on
the river's edge.

As we approached this house I could just see (for it was growing dark)
a large window standing open, not above a man's height from the water.
To this my fellow rowed, and having brought his boat beneath it, threw
down his oars, stood up on the gunwale, and with a desperate leap
which nearly sunk the boat, gained the sill of the window and
disappeared inside.

But I was close behind, running up against the side of his boat at the
moment when he passed in at the window, s