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Updated: June 12, 2025
Few things are more harrowing and depressing to the unappreciative Ferenghi ear than Persian sowars singing, and three most unmelodious specimens of their kind at it all at once are something horrible.
Two old muzzle-loading nine-pounder guns, their teams of powerful bullocks lying contentedly behind on the grass, formed the right of the line. Then came the cavalry, consisting of twenty sowars on squealing white stallions with long tails dyed red.
Pomegranate, almond, and apricot trees abound, and produce a charming contrast to the prevailing crenellated mud walls. A very conspicuous feature of the village is a cluster of some half-dozen venerable cedars. The stable roof provides sleeping accommodation for the chief of the sowars, Kiftan Sahib, and myself, the remainder of the party curl themselves up beneath the apricot-trees below.
"Nervous? No furious!" Her low tone was as tense as her whole attitude. "Mud and stones! Good heavens! Why don't they shoot?" "They will at a pinch," Roy assured her, feeling oddly rebuffed, and as if he were addressing a stranger. "Stay here. Don't stir. I'll glean a few details from one of our outlying sowars." The nearest man available happened to be a Pathan.
"O, O, pool koob; rupee koob; sowari neis, sowari khylie koob adam." In this brief interchange of disconnected Persian the khan has asked me whether the sowars have stolen money from me, and I have answered that they have not, but that, on the contrary, they are most excellent men, both "trustie and true." May the recording angel enter my answer down with a recommendation for mercy!
The rain has cleared up, but the weather looks unsettled, as about eight o'clock next morning our little party starts eastward under the guidance of a villager whom I have employed to guide us out of the immediate range of mountains, the sowars betraying a general ignorance of the commencement of the route. My escort are a great improvement as regards their arms and equipments upon "The Aged."
It had been Amir Khan's policy to strike with the winning force; perhaps his big body of hard-riding sowars being the very power that would throw the odds to one or other of the contenders. Their reward would be loot, unlimited loot, so dear to the heart of the Pindari, and an assignment of territory. To know, beyond doubt, who had instigated the murder of the Chief was precious knowledge.
This man Rukn-ud-din and these few sowars were all that came, and when we had burnt the body of my son, we took up his ashes and departed many desiring to stop us, but no man caring to strike the first blow to ride hither and demand justice on Sher Singh. And this, O Jirad Sahib, was Kharrak Singh, my son."
The night seemed long and unrefreshing, and in the grey of the morning we found our blankets were wet with fog. But that was down below, now we are up on higher ground, and the air is drier and pleasant. In early morning we drove in the pony cart half the way from Momouk to this Kalychet, the sowars riding behind with the four ponies.
"But who is to see that Sher Singh keeps his word and does not arrange a suttee?" "You and I, of course. We attend the funeral, naturally, with all our sowars, to show due honour to the deceased. By the bye, that reminds me, we should be rather an easy prey after firing the volleys. The front rank had better load with ball, and reserve their fire, and only the rear rank fire with blank.
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