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But the Captain, knowing all this beforehand, had an advantage, and he showed no sign of trepidation. Then the thin drawn face of the Resident was flattened out by control, and he commanded the decoit to talk on. "I tried to save the two sepoys, and one was a sergeant, but I was stricken down with a wound and it was in the way of treachery."
When the confession was finished Kassim commanded the Mullah to rub his cube of India ink over the thumb of the decoit and the mark was imprinted on the paper. Then he was taken to one of the cave cells cut out of the solid rock beneath the palace, and imprisoned for the night.
Bootea clawed at his face; she kicked and fought; her voice screaming a call to Ajeet. There was a heavy rolling thump of hoofs upon the roadway, unheard of Hunsa because of the vociferous struggle. Then from the shimmer of moonlight thrust the white form of a big Turcoman horse that was thrown almost to his haunches, his breast striking the back of the decoit.
"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.
The Resident took from a drawer a form, and his pen scratched irritably at blanks here and there. He tossed it over to Barlow saying, "I'm going to give this decoit this provisional pardon; perhaps it will nail him. What he has confessed is of value. You translate this to him while I think; I can't make mistakes I must not."
We've got to lay hands upon her, Captain she's the key-note." Barlow had waited until the decoit would have gone before showing the papers that were in his pocket because it was an advantage that the enemy should think them lost. He was checked now as he put a hand in his pocket to produce them by the entrance of Elizabeth, and he fancied there was a sneer on her thin lips.
There was another band of muslin passed around the leaf, and as the Gulab turned away, she said: "Think you, Sookdee, that Bhowanee will be offended because of mercy. Some day, Jamadar, fire will be put upon your face, when the head has been lopped from your body, to hide the features of a decoit that it may not bear witness against the tribe."
And there three more bodies lay upon the ground, and beside them, held, were two horses. "It is Ajeet Singh," Sookdee said pointing to where the Chief lay with his head in the lap of a decoit. "These two native soldiers of the English came riding in with swiftness, for behind them raced Ajeet who must have seen them pass."
This elimination of individuals gave the Dewan a fine opportunity; promises made without witnesses were sure to be of a richer texture; also surely the word of a Dewan was of higher value than the word of a decoit if, at a future time, their evidences clashed. Then Hunsa was entrusted with a private matter that filled his ugly soul with delight.
This was the allegorical representation, so general all over Mewar, of Rana Pertab charging a Mogul prince mounted on an elephant. Thus Hunsa had seen the tall Patan and heard him make the request for an audience with Amir Khan. It was the walk, the slight military precision, that caused the decoit to mutter, "No hill Afghan that."
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