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Ali Partab's heart began to go out to him "an officer, I think, once of the Rajput Horse, who very kindly carried letters for me. Perhaps you know of some other gentleman of your race about to travel northward? He could earn, at least, gratitude." "So-ho!" thought Ali Partab to himself. "I have known men of his race who would have offered money, to be spat on! Not now, sahib," he answered aloud.
For ten minutes longer, Jaimihr sat still and flicked at the stone column with his whip, then he sent for his master of the horse, whose mistaken sense of loyalty had been the direct cause of Ali Partab's capture.
The girl's eyes sparkled as the reassurance came that at least one good fighting man was waiting to do nothing but assist her. For the moment she threw caution to the winds and remembered nothing but her plight and her father's stubbornness. "My father will not come away, but " Ali Partab's eyes betrayed no trace of concern. "But I thought Are you all alone?"
Then, at last, he read over a composition that satisfied him and set his seal at the foot. He placed the whole in a silver tube, poured wax into the joint, and called for the fat man who had been responsible for Ali Partab's capture. "Dog!" he snarled. "Interfering fool! All this was thy doing! Didst thou see the guard beaten awhile ago?" "I did. It was a lordly beating.
Fifteen minutes later she emerged with Ali Partab, who looked sleepy, but still more ashamed of his unmilitary dishabille. Rosemary McClean glanced left and right forgot about the awning and the custom which decrees aloofness ignored the old woman's waving arm and Ali Partab's frown, and rode toward him eagerly. "Did Mahommed Gunga-sahib leave you here with any orders relative to me?" she asked.
For the same reason he dared not put him to the torture, to discover, or try to discover, what Mahommed Gunga's real leanings were in the matter of loyalty to the Raj or otherwise. He dared not let the man go, for forgiveness is not one of the virtues held in high esteem by men of Ali Partab's race, and wrongful arrest is considered ground enough for a feud to the death.
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