But most of all, I did
not try to escape because I found that, if I did so, it would
certainly cost my companions their lives. That was the way that
scoundrel Tippoo kept us from making attempts to get off.
"Well, soon after the last of the other captives was murdered, we
moved away to Kistnagherry, which was a very difficult place to escape
from; and besides, very soon after we got there, I heard of the war
with our people, and hoped that they would take the place. It was, as
you may suppose, a terrible disappointment to me when they failed in
their attack on it. Still, I hoped that they would finally thrash
Tippoo, and that, somehow, I might get handed over to them. However,
as you know, when peace was made, and Kistnagherry had to be given
over, the governor got orders to evacuate it, without waiting for the
English to come up to take possession.
"Well, since I have been at Savandroog, I have thought often of trying
to get away. By the time I got there, I had learned to speak the
language fairly enough to make my way across the country, and I have
been living in hopes that, somehow or other, I might get possession of
a rope long enough to let myself down the rocks. But, as I told you, I
have never so much as seen one up there twenty feet long.
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