But Ramabai might die suddenly and accidentally in the recapture of the Colonel Sahib.

An accidental death would certainly extinguish any volcanic fires that smoldered under Allaha.

So, with this secret determination in mind, Umballa set forth.
Ahmed, his mind busy with a thousand things, forgot the thousand and first, at that stage most important of all; and this was the short cut, a mere pathway through the jungle, but which lessened the journey by some thirty miles.

And this pathway Umballa chose.

The three hours' headway was thus pared down to minutes, and at the proper time Umballa would appear, not behind the pursued, but in the road in front of them.
There was, to be sure, a bare possibility of the colonel and his party getting beyond the meeting of the path and the road, that is, if he kept going forward all through the night, which, by the way, was exactly what the astute Ahmed did.