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Updated: June 8, 2025
When she remained without answer, Barlow tapped his fingers lightly upon her shoulder, saying, "Tell me, girl." "I have heard nothing of war," she said. "There was a something though that men whispered in the dark." "What was it?" "It was of the Chief of the Pindaris." She felt the quivering start that ran through Barlow's body; but he said quietly: "With the Pindaris there is always trouble.
To speak of it would be to start a rumour that would run across India that the British had negotiated with the Pindaris, and if the paper weren't found there which it wouldn't be he wouldn't be believed. Better to accept the roll of the dice as they lay, that he had lost, and die as an Afghan rather than as an Englishman, a spy who had killed their Chief.
Even then it proved a most difficult enterprise to root out the Pindárís, who were not a race, or a tribe, or a sect, but bands of lawless men of all faiths; for they met and vanished like birds of the air, outstripping regular cavalry by the length and rapidity of their marches, and carrying off their booty almost under the eyes of their pursuers.
It was a plausible story, and avoided interference, for while the Pindaris might be turned back if there was a force handy, to interfere with a lady of the King's harem might bring a horde of cut-throat Mahrattas down on them with a snipping off of official heads.
"Yes, Commander; the Rana has put his seal upon it that he will join his Rajputs with the British and the Pindaris to drive from Mewar Sindhia the one whose Dewan sent Hunsa to slay your Chief." "Thou sayest so, but how know I that Hunsa is not in thy hand, and that thou didst not prepare the way for the killing?
Still no effective action against the Pindárís was possible until the Maráthá lords who harboured and encouraged them had been crippled and overawed.
Massed together Pindaris and Bundoolas assailed by the trained hordes of Mahrattas, with their French and Portuguese gunners and officers, would be slaughtered like sheep. And against the war-trained Line Regiments of the British foot soldiers they would meet the same fate.
Though filled with a sense of shuddering horror, he was compelled involuntarily to admit that it had been a most just punishment; less brutal, even more impressive almost taking on the aspect of a religious execution than if the Bagree had been tortured to death; hacked to pieces by the tulwars of the outraged Pindaris.
"Yes, Captain Sahib, we Pindaris ride north, and east, and south, and west; we are almost as free as the eagles of the air, claiming that our home is where our cooking-pots are. We do not trust to ramparts such as Fort Chitor where we may be cooped up and slain such as the Rajputs have been three times in the three famed sacks of Chitor but also, Sahib, this is all wrong."
Those that were here in the camp with her fled at the first alarm, and my riders discovered to-day, too late, that they hid in an old mud-walled fort about three miles from here whilst my Pindaris scoured the country for them; then when my riders returned they escaped. So the Gulab is alone.
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