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Updated: May 14, 2025
"Lucker khan Bhaina, Bowree," the Gulab said in a low voice, and the woman's eyes took on a startled look for it was a decoit password, and the Bowrees were a clan of decoits akin to the Bagrees. From the woman Bootea learned where she could find a good resting place with the family of a shop-keeper.
In addition there was a fourth officer, Hunsa, who was a jamadar, a lieutenant, to Ajeet Singh. And if then and there the ugly head had been cut from his body, the things that happened would not have happened. From the advent of the Bagrees, even on their way from Karowlee, Hunsa had been plotting evil.
I knew that Hunsa had the ruby sewn in a corner of the turban, and when I had taken the stone I burned the turban in the fire, for it was like Hunsa very dirty." "Where did Hunsa get it?" "When the Bagrees killed the jewel merchant, that time the Sahib saved Bootea, he stole it from the other decoits, hiding it in his turban, because the Dewan wanted it."
The voice of the Bagree Chief, somewhat coarse in its fulness, its independence, now was heard saying: "Sirdar Sahib, and Dewan Sahib, we men of the nine castes of the Bagrees now make the sacred oath. Come close that ye may observe." Jean Baptiste edged his horse to the side of the road, and the Dewan, heaving from the palki, stood upright.
In the hearts of the Bagrees there was unholy joy, an eager anticipation, a gladsome feeling toward Bhowanee who had certainly guided this rapacious merchant with his iron box full of jewels to their camp. Indeed they would sacrifice a buffalo at her temple of Kajuria, for that was the habit of their clan when the booty was great. The taking of life was but an incident.
She prayed to her own village god to breathe mercy into the hearts of those who marched in war, and if it were the Bagrees, that Bhowanee would vouchsafe them an omen that to harm the one on a white horse would bring her wrath upon their families and their villages. Captain Barlow reined in the grey on the roadside, for those that marched were close.
Ajeet consulted a little apart with Sookdee and then coming forward said: "We Bagrees are an ancient people descended from the Rajputs, and we keep our word to our friends; therefore we will take the oath after the manner of Bhowanee, beneath the pipal tree. If Your Honour will give us but an hour we will take the oath."
So now, at a hint from Nana Sahib, the Dewan seized upon Ajeet, voicing a righteous indignation at his crime of decoity, and gave him the alternative of being strangled with a bow-string or forcing the Gulab to go to the camp of Amir Khan to betray him. Not only would Ajeet be killed, but Bootea would be thrust into the seraglio, and the other Bagrees put in prison some might be killed.
Some of the Bagrees issued from their tents having suddenly become canonised, metamorphosed from highwaymen to devout yogis, their bodies, looking curiously lean and ascetic, now clothed largely in ashes and paint.
It had been arranged that Ajeet would escort Bootea, with two Bagrees as attendants, to the grove of trees half a mile down the road. He had insisted on this in the way of a negative support to the murder. As there would be no fighting this did not reflect on his courage as a leader. And as to complicity, Hunsa knew that as the leader of the party, Ajeet would be held the chief culprit.
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