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"We daren't risk taking the women through a running fight in the defile, especially if, as you said last night, Sher Singh is hanging on our heels as well. I'll take the guns and my Granthis and look after the feigned attack, while you get the women through behind the enemy's back, and are ready to support us with the Darwanis if Sher Singh turns up." "All right," said Charteris shortly.
The arrangements of the camp had to be altered again, to allow these children of nature to encamp close to their commander's tent, for the double purpose of keeping the Granthis from interfering with them, and preventing them from attacking the Granthis.
"Ronaldson caught one of his messengers sneaking about in his camp near Shah Bagh, trying to corrupt his escort. That may have been in view of this very plan for a general rising, but he thought it was one of the usual schemes for getting hold of Shah Bagh again." "If Abd-ur-Rashid and the Granthis can manage to agree, we are likely to come off badly," said Cowper. "But they won't," said Nisbet.
Passing on to where the Granthis had slept, he found them, as Warner had said, standing to their arms, but there was evident to his eye a certain amount of hesitation, as though his most recent precaution was not entirely to their liking. Without betraying any suspicion, he rode straight up to Bishen Ram, the Sirdar, and complimented him upon the alertness of his men.
Retreat now would mean not only perfect liberty for Sher Singh to move in any direction he chose, but also that that direction would inevitably be Darwan, where the disaffected artillery and Bishen Ram's Granthis would joyfully flock to his standard.
Another advance, another shell, and then a shower of grape, adroitly directed at a stream of men trying to edge their way down into the plain by a side-path, and after a half-hearted volley directed at the guns over the heads of the fighters below, the Granthis gave up their attempt to move.
In his anxiety to assure the succession to his favourite child, Partab Singh had seriously compromised the jealously guarded independence of his state by his advances to the English as represented by Gerrard, and there could be no doubt that Granthis and Mohammedans would unite in resenting this betrayal.
A day of inglorious waiting, with one half of his force for the better training of the Granthis compensated for the smallness of their numbers in arms against the other half, until either Chand Singh came on in overwhelming strength or Gerrard appeared, seemed to lie before him. And so it turned out.
It's another Granthi War thanks to their delay." "And our Granthis?" "Oh, they marched off bag and baggage to join Sher Singh the other night, when the news came that we were not to be reinforced till the cold weather. I didn't hear of their going till they had nearly reached Agpur, and I wasn't particularly anxious to stop them when I did." "Better rid of them.
"The thieves are bound to fall out." "After a time," said Gerrard, "but they may make it very unpleasant for you first. And suppose your Granthis take sides with the Agpuris? I took Granthis into Agpur and brought them out again, but then I had had them for some time first. I wish you knew more of your escort, and they of you."
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