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The instant the shot flew overhead, however, Sivajee Punt beckoned to me, and motioned me to take my seat on the wall facing the guns. Hesitation was useless, and I took my seat with my back to the Dacoits and my face to the hill. One of the Dacoits, as I did so, pulled off the native cloth which covered my shoulders, in order that I might be clearly seen.

"A yell of rage and surprise was heard, and the Dacoits, all desperate men, came bounding out, firing as they did so. Half of their number were shot down at once and the rest, after a short, sharp struggle, were bound hand and foot. "That is pretty well all of the story, I think. Sivajee Punt was one of the killed. The prisoners were all either hung or imprisoned for life.

Quickly we advanced and took up a position to command the door of the underground chamber; while one of the police waved a white cloth from his bayonet as a signal to the gunners to cease firing. Then the officer hailed the party within the cave. "'Sivajee Punt! you may as well come out and give yourself up! We are in possession, and resistance is useless!

Sivajee Punt spoke to him for some time, and the fellow then told me in English that I was to write at once to the officer commanding the troops, telling him that I was in his hands, and should be put to death directly he was attacked. "'Ask him, I said, 'if he will take any sum of money to let me go? "Sivajee shook his head very decidedly.

I escaped my blowing up for having gone down the Ghauts after the bear, because, after all, Sivajee Punt might have defied their force for months had I not done so. "It seemed that that scoundrel Rahman had taken back word that I was killed.

The Peshwas, as their title implies, had been hereditary Ministers who governed in the name of the reigning dynasty founded by the famous Maratha leader Sivajee, whose successors they set aside.

From what they said, I gathered that the rest of the band had dispersed, trusting either to get through the line of their pursuers, or, if caught, to escape with slight punishment, the men who remained being too deeply concerned in murderous outrages to hope for mercy. Sivajee himself handed me a letter, which the man who had taken my note had brought back in reply.

Our longest and most severe contests were with the Mahrattas, a warlike tribe of Hindus in Western India, who came first into prominence in the seventeenth century under Sivajee, a petty chieftain, and gradually advanced under various leaders till they became for a time the paramount power.

The leaders with whom we had most to do, sometimes in the way of friendship, far more frequently in the way of warfare, were the Peshwa, the head of the Mahratta confederacy, the heir of Sivajee; Ranojee Bhonsla, a private horseman, who became Prince of Nagpore; Pilajee Gaikwar, a cowherd, who ruled in Baroda; Ranojee Scindia, a menial servant of the Peshwa, who made Gwalior his capital; and Mulhar Rao Holkar, a shepherd, who became Maharajah of Indore.

"'What is your name, sahib? he asked in Mahratta. "'Hastings Lieutenant Hastings, I said. 'And yours? "'Sivajee Punt! he said. "This was bad. I had fallen into the hands of the most troublesome, most ruthless, and most famous of the Dacoit leaders.