It was the second day one of the horses in the tonga showing lameness, or perhaps even weariness, for the yoke of the tonga across their backs did not ride with the ease of a man, the jamadar went into a village and came forth with his men leading two well-fed horses.  Again when Barlow spoke of pay for them the jamadar answered, “We will leave these two with the unbelievers, and a message, in the name of Allah, that when we return if the horses we leave are not treated like those of the Sultan there will be throats slit. Bismillah! but it is a fair way of treating these unbelievers; they should be grateful.”

The road ran through the large towns of Bhopal and Sehore, and at each place Jamadar Jemla explained to all and sundry of the officials that the Patan, meaning Barlow, was a trusted officer with Sindhia and they were escorting a favourite for Sindhia’s harem.  It was a plausible story, and avoided interference, for while the Pindaris might be turned back if there was a force handy, to interfere with a lady of the King’s harem might bring a horde of cut-throat Mahrattas down on them with a snipping off of official heads.

On the fourth day, and now they were on a good trunk road that ran to Indore, and branching to the left, that crossed the Nerbudda River at Mandhatta, they were constantly passing pilgrims on their way to the Temple of Omkar.  In the affrighted eyes of the Hindus Barlow could read their dread of the Pindaris; they would cringe at the roadside and salaam, as fearful were they as if a wolf-pack swept down the highway.

The jamadar would laugh in his deep throat, and twist his black moustache with forefinger and thumb, and call the curse of Mahomet upon these worshippers of stone images and foul gods.  He loved to ride stirrup to stirrup with the Englishman, and Barlow found delight in the man’s broad conception of life; the petty things seemed to have no resting place in his mind, unless perhaps as a matter for ridicule.  The sweep of a country with free rein and a sharp sword, and always the hazard of loot or death was an engrossing subject.  Even the enemy who fought and bled and died, were like themselves—­by Allah! men; but the merchants, the shop-keepers, and the money-lenders, who cringed and paid tribute when the Pindaris drove at them in a raid, were pigs, cowardly dogs who robbed the poor and gave only to the accursed Brahmins and their foul gods.  He would dwell lovingly upon the feats of courage of the Rajputs, lamenting that such fine men should be excluded from heaven, dying as they did such glorious deaths, sword in hand, because of their mistaken infidelity; they were souls lost because of being led away from a true god, the one god, Allah, through false priests.