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When I left the hotel I hurried with all the speed I could command in the direction I knew the gaol to lie. As I went, I kept my eyes open for a kharti of the required description. It was late, I knew, for a cabby to be abroad, but I had little doubt that I should soon find some driver who would be glad to earn a few additional guilders, in spite of the dangerous nature of the business for which I wanted him. Apart from any consideration of the time to be saved by driving, it was very necessary that I should obtain a conveyance soon, or my wanderings with a large and heavy parcel (for sixty feet of stout rope is no light burden) would be more than likely to attract the attention and suspicion of some of the curious night watchmen, one of whom I passed about every hundred yards.
Fortunately, however, it was a wet night, and these gentry preferred the shelter of their boxes to following mysterious pedestrians, otherwise I might have been called upon to stop and give an account of myself, and my reason for being so late abroad.