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The new bearer of the title, with Sher Singh's wives and remaining children, was removed a safe distance into British territory, and the work of pacifying the state, by hunting down the remains of the insurgent army and of the revolted Granthi regiments, proceeded apace. In fact, it was so quickly done that new force was given to a body of opinion that was gradually gathering strength.
Even the political officer whom all natives revered was obliged to take his stand alone before the advancing cavalry, and to warn the Nawab that if he joined the Granthi headquarters that night, it must be over his body, but he succeeded in his mission.
Had he been allowed to sweep unchecked across his borders, and uniting with Abd-ur-Rashid Khan of Ethiopia, stir up the western half of Granthistan against the Durbar and the British, as the discontented Granthi Sirdars and soldiers of fortune had raised the eastern portion, how would it have been possible to cope with the situation?
On returning to his camp that first evening, he had mounted a fresh horse, and ridden on at once towards his headquarters at Dera Galib Khan, whither his messengers had preceded him, warning the Granthi troops there to be ready to take the field at once. Fast though he travelled, however, reaching Dera Galib in two nights of hard riding, he had been outstripped.
It would leave Gerrard's force exposed to the full onslaught of the Agpur army, and even if they succeeded in escaping across the river, would set Sher Singh free to pursue his larger designs, which would probably begin with an invasion of Darwan, and a joyful reception from the unsettled Granthi artillery at Dera Galib.
He had got rid of his full-dress uniform and the garlands with which he had been decorated, and was writing busily by the light of a smoky lantern, when the Granthi commander of his escort came to say that they had caught a man trying to make his way unperceived into the camp, who said that he was a Sirdar who had urgent business with the Sahib. "Tell him to come in the morning," said Gerrard.
But when he woke again, in the grey light of early dawn, the air was full of the sound of wailing, and his Granthi officers and chief servants were gathered round his bed, respectfully waiting for his eyes to open. "Hillo, I must have overslept!" he cried. "Get the men into order of march, Badan Hazari. I shall be dressed in no time."
But they say that the man Sher Singh desires to dissuade your honour from going to Agpur, and that he has given you much abuse." "Evil heart, evil tongue, Sirdar-ji. Yet I go to Agpur, though I would have bidden you and the troop return to Darwan, had I not known that this would be to insult you." The Granthi made a horrified gesture of aversion. "Black indeed would our faces be!" he said.
A Granthi army had made periodic inroads into Darwan, sweeping off all the cattle it could find, by way of collecting the revenue, and the Darwanis retorted by incursions across the Granthi border, designed to assert their independence.
You uttered hastily the words of an impatient mind, not having studied from your youth the art of playing off Granthi against Moslem, and both against Ranjitgarh. But it is a study that you will do well to take in hand now." "I could have no better teacher than your Highness," said Gerrard politely. The Rajah looked at him almost with affection.
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