p, and the jamadars, standing together
for a little, settled it that the omens being favourable, and the wrath
of the Dewan feared, they would take the way to the Pindari camp next
day.

CHAPTER XIX

Dewan Sewlal had warned Hunsa and Sookdee against their natural
proclivities for making a decoity while travelling to the Pindari camp,
as the mission was more important than loot--an enterprise that might
cause them to be killed or arrested. Indeed the Gulab had made this a
condition of her going with them. She was practically put in command.
Both Nana Sahib and the Dewan were pleased over what they deemed her
sensible acquiescence in the scheme. As has been said, the Dewan,
recognising the debased ferocity of Hunsa, had promised him the torture
when he returned if Bootea had any cause of complaint.

The decoit, believing that Bootea was designed for Nana Sahib's harem,
knew that as one favoured in the Prince's eyes, he would surely be put
to death if he offended her.

So, travelling with the almost incessant swift progress which was an
art with all decoits, in a few days they arrived at Rajgar, the town to
which Amir Khan had shifted. He had taken possession of a palace
belonging to the Rajput Raja as his head-quarters, and his army of
horsemen were encamped in tents on the vast sandy plain that extended
from both sides of the river Nahal: the local name of this river was
"The Stream of Blood," so named because a fierce force of Arab
mercenaries in the employ of Sindhia, many years before, had butchered
the entire tribe of Nahals--man, woman, and child,--higher up in the
hills.

As had been planned, some of the decoits had come as recruits to the
Pindari standard. This created no suspicion, because free-lance
soldiers, adventurous spirits, from all over India flocked to a force
that was known to be massed for the purpose of loot. It was an easy
service; little discipline; a regular Moslem fighting horde, holding
little in reverence but the daily prayer and the trim of a spear, or
the edge of a sword. Amir Khan was the law, the army regulation, the
one thing to obey. As to the matter of prayers, for those who were not
followers of the Prophet, who carried no little prayer carpet to kneel
upon, face to Mecca, there was, it being a Rajput town, always the
shrine of Shiva and his elephant-headed son, Ganesh, to receive
obeisance from the Hindus. And those who had come as players,
wrestlers, were welcomed