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When the Afghan comes have him brought up." Hunsa had stood among the Pindaris, shoved hither and thither as they surged back and forth. Once the flat of a tulwar had smote him across the back, but when he turned his face to the striker who recognised him as a man of privilege, one of the amusers, he was allowed to remain.
Boastfully Hunsa declared: "The ordeal will prove that I am thinking only of our success. This method of livelihood has been our profession for generations, and yet when we are in the protection of the powerful Dewan Ajeet says I am a traitor to our salt." For an hour they discussed the best manner of sallying forth in a way that would leave them unsuspected of robbing.
His head wrapped in the folds of a turban so that his ugly face was all but hidden, he was talking to the guard when Barlow gave the latter his yellow slip of passport; and as the guard left his post and entered the dim entrance to call up the stairway for one to usher in the Afghan, Hunsa slipped nonchalantly through the gate and stood in the shadow of a jutting wall, his black body and drab loin-cloth merging into the gloom.
"Between ourselves I think the Resident's jackal, the impressionable young Captain, was rather taken with her. I'm giving a nautch this week, and the presence of Miss Gulab is desired commanded." "But Ajeet " Nana Sahib smiled sardonically. "You and Hunsa are planning to send her on a more difficult mission, so I have no doubt that this can be accomplished. The Ajeet should esteem it an honour."
Ajeet was opposed to the killing of Ragganath and his men, but Hunsa pointed out that it was the only way: they were either decoits or they were men of toil, men of peace. Dead men were not given to carrying tales, and if no stir were made about the decoity until they were safely back in Karowlee they could enjoy the fruits Of their spoils, which would be, undoubtedly, great.
"It is well," Kassim declared; "as to this that is in the message, to-morrow, with the aid of a mullah, we will consider it. And now as to Hunsa, we would have from him the truth." He turned to the Gulab; "Go thou in peace, woman, for our dead Chief had high regard for thee; and Captain Sahib, even thou may go to thy abode, not thinking to leave there, however, without coming to pay salaams.
When the jamadars, and some of the Bagrees who were good story tellers, and one a singer, did him the honour of coming to sit at his camp-fire he was pleased. "Sit you here at my right," he said to Hunsa, for he conceived him to be captain of the Raja's guard.
"Lovely! the 'One' will be, and his name is Ajeet," Nana Sahib cried gleefully. But Hunsa plodded steadily on. "In that case Ajeet as Chief would be in the hands of the Dewan; then it could be mentioned to him that the Gulab was desired for this mission." "That might be," the Dewan said quietly.
He turned to face Barlow more squarely: "Captain Sahib, the one who suffered the wrath of Allah to-day last night sent a salaam that I would listen to a matter of value. Not wishing to have the hated presence of the murderer in the room near where was Amir Khan I went below to where in a rock cell was this Hunsa.
The Guru strode over to Hunsa, and holding out his thin skinny palm commanded, "Jamadar, from you a rupee; and to-morrow I will put upon the shrine of Kali cocoanuts and sweet-meats and marigolds as peace offerings."
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