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Updated: June 17, 2025
For myself, I detest the English, and should delight in seeing them driven out of the whole of India." Balkishen assured Khan Cochut that his services should be amply rewarded; and they agreed to remain a day or two longer in the fort, and then to proceed leisurely to Allahapoor, calculating that they should receive the expected intelligence of the rajah's death just before they reached the city.
Their trials, however, were not over. Intelligence sufficient to alarm the most stout-hearted came in: that a force of upwards of twenty thousand men was marching on Allahapoor, with the intention of occupying that city, and that they threatened to take the fort and destroy its garrison before doing so. Colonel Ross did not conceal the information he had received.
Then the hunt for the day being over, the party encamped, tents having been brought from Allahapoor for their convenience; and the next day they returned to the city. "And how did you enjoy the sport?" asked the rajah, when Reginald and his friend again had the honour of an audience. "Very well indeed," was the answer. "Then I will enable you to have some more," said the rajah.
Andre Cochut accompanied them home, and by the questions he put it was evident that he wished to ascertain their real object in coming to Allahapoor. Captain Burnett replied cautiously, and took an opportunity of whispering to Reginald to be on his guard as to what he said. "I do not trust that individual," he observed as soon as the khan had taken his departure.
Let the princes and nobles grumble as they will, all those cities are the most prosperous which are under the protection of the English." "Your words are full of wisdom," answered Captain Burnett. "I will, with your permission, report the state of affairs at Allahapoor; when the Company, I have no doubt, will attend to your wishes."
Though Reginald, of necessity, assumed the character of a chief among the natives, he did duty with the English officers, visiting the outposts and sentries whenever his turn came. The strictest watch was kept, for their position was well known at Allahapoor, and it was more than probable that an expedition from that city would set out to attack them.
He knew Violet's opinion of Captain Hawkesford, however; and he believed that her father did not hold him in much higher estimation. The fact was that Captain Hawkesford felt almost confident that Reginald had left the casket, with its valuable contents, behind at Allahapoor; and he calculated, not without reason, that they would never be recovered.
That he was her brother's friend, he naturally felt was much in his favour; and he believed he was not too presumptuous in thinking she would regard him with interest. He was able to converse with her in her native tongue; and for the next few days, till their arrival at Allahapoor, he would enjoy her society far more easily than he could expect to do when she had returned to the rajah's court.
The man was a fakir, one of a class of religious fanatics, who, ignorant of a God of love and mercy, believe that holiness can be obtained by practising the most rigid self-denial and the infliction of every variety of torture on themselves. Burnett inquired whence he had come. "From Allahapoor," he answered. "Night and day I have travelled, to see the rajah on a matter of importance.
"Please your worships, I am sent by my master, the young Rajah of Allahapoor as he now is, seeing that his grandfather, the old rajah, has ordered him to tack that title to his name to tell your worships that the rascally natives have determined, if they can get the chance, to cut the throats of every mother's son among the English, on the first opportunity.
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