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Updated: May 19, 2025
"Very well," declared Ajeet, "we will go on this mission. But remember this, Hunsa, that if there is treachery, if we are cast into the hands of the Dewan, I swear by Bhowanee that I will have your life." "Treachery!" It was the snarl of an enraged animal, and Hunsa sprang to his feet. He whirled, and facing Sookdee, said: "Let Bhowanee decide who is traitor let Ajeet and me take the ordeal."
Ajeet was forced to admit that it was the one thorough way, but he persisted that they were decoits and not thugs. At this Sookdee laughed: "Jamadar," he said, "what matters to a dead man the manner of his killing? Indeed it is a merciful way. Such as Bhowanee herself decreed in a second it is over. But with the spear, or the sword ah!
"You have delayed the ordeal," Sookdee answered surlily, "and because of that Bhowanee will have anger." The blacksmith, though pumping with both hands at his pair of bellows, had felt the impress of the two silver coins in his loin cloth, and, true to the bribe from Hunsa, had adroitly doctored his fire by dusting sand here and there so that the shot had lost, instead of gained heat.
"Yes, Ajeet," Sookdee said with a suspicion of a sneer, "we will give the merchant the consideration of a decent burial, and not leave him to be eaten by jackals and hyenas as were the two soldiers you finished with your sword when we robbed the camel transport that carried the British gold in Oudh." "If it is to be, cease to chatter like jays," Ajeet answered crossly.
"That is but fair," Sookdee declared. "The ordeal of the heated cannon ball will surely burn the hand of the traitor if there is one," and he looked at Ajeet; and though suspicious that this was still another trap, Ajeet without cowardice could not decline. "I will take the ordeal," he declared.
Ajeet would be represented as a petty raja, with his retinue of servants and his guard. The Gulab Begum would be convincing as a princess, the wife of the raja. The wife of Sookdee could be a lady-in-waiting. As a respectable strong party of holy men, and a prince, they would gain the confidence of the merchant, even of the patil of the village where he would rest for a night.
He tore it open, and a blaze of blood-red light glinted at him evilly where a ruby caught the flame of the torch that Sookdee had thrown to the earth floor as he fled. With a snarl of gloating he rolled the ruby in a fold of his turban, locked the box, and darted after Sookdee. He all but fell over the seven dead bodies of the merchant and his men as he raced to where a group was standing beyond.
He lifted a large square emerald entwined in a tracery of gold, delicate as the criss-cross of a spider's web, and held it to his thick lips. "A bribe for a princess!" he gloated. "Take you this, Sookdee, and hide it as you would your life, for a gift to the son of the Peshwa, who, methinks, is behind the Dewan in this, we will be men of honour.
Either Hunsa or Sookdee was now always trailing Barlow his every move was known. And then, as if some evil genii had taken a spirit hand in the guidance of events, Hunsa's chance came. Barlow, who had tried three times to see Amir Khan, one day received a message at the gate that he was to come back that evening, when the Chief, having said his prayers, would give him a private audience.
Ajeet consulted a little apart with Sookdee and then coming forward said: "We Bagrees are an ancient people descended from the Rajputs, and we keep our word to our friends; therefore we will take the oath after the manner of Bhowanee, beneath the pipal tree. If Your Honour will give us but an hour we will take the oath."
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