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That evening, when the prisoners were squatting outside the shed for the usual hour of talk before being locked up for the night, a new feature was added to the entertainment. One of the Marathas had somehow possessed himself of a tom tom, and proved himself an excellent performer on that weird instrument.
No time was lost in unloading the portion of the cargo intended for Angria. The goods were carried along the jetty by stalwart Marathas clad only in loincloths, and stored in rude cabins with penthouse roofs. As Desmond knew, the heavy chests that taxed the strength of the bearers contained for the most part muskets and ammunition.
Desmond walked towards the dais, feeling woefully out of place amid the brilliant costumes of Angria's court. Scarcely two of the Marathas were dressed alike; some were in white, some in lilac, others in purple, but each with ornaments after his own taste.
The lashings of their feet were cut in turn; each man was carefully searched, deprived of all weapons, and escorted from the one vessel to the other, his feet being then securely bound as before. On board the smallest gallivat were now Desmond, five of his companions, and eleven helpless Marathas.
The cannon-balls were made of clay moulded round a pebble, and were found sufficiently effective in the level country. Soon after they arrived at Delhi, only to find the Marathas masters of the situation and in actual possession of the person of the Shahzada, or Crown Prince.
For the defense of this little piratical state Angria's Marathas constructed a number of forts, choosing admirable positions and displaying no small measure of engineering skill.
Still there was nothing to guarantee its continuance if the fear of the native Government and of the Marathas were once removed, and if any one of the three nations happened to find itself much stronger than the others. The fear of the Marathas had nearly disappeared, but that of the Government still remained.
He found himself in a large chamber, its walls dazzling with barbaric decoration figures of Ganessa, a favorite idol of the Marathas, of monstrous elephants, and peacocks with enormously expanded tails. The hall was so crowded that his first confusion was redoubled. A path was made through the throng as at a signal, and at the end of the room he saw two men apart from the rest.
These, my bedfellows of misfortune, are Indians, not of Bengal, like myself; two are Biluchis hauled from a country ship; two are Mussulmans from Mysore; one a Gujarati; two Marathas. We are a motley crew a miscellany, no less." "What do they do with you in the daytime?"
Nor can we linger over the fortunes of the Marathas who took the place of Vijayanagar as the Hindu opposition to Mohammedanism. They are, however, important for us in so far as they show that even in matters political the long Moslim domination had not broken the spirit of the Hindus.
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