"Then he must remain a Mahratta," she said, "until he is able to make his way to join the English in Madras or Calcutta."
"You are an obstinate woman, and always have been so; else you would not have left your people to go to be servant among the whites. However, I will do what I can for you, for the sake of my mother's sister and of our kinship."
On the way up the hills Soyera stopped, several times, to pick berries. When they halted she went aside and pounded them, and then boiled them in some water in a lota--a copper vessel--Sufder lent her for the purpose, and dyed the child's head and body with it, producing a colour corresponding to her own.
The party, which was composed of men from several towns and villages, broke up the next morning.
"Have you money?" Sufder asked her, as she was about to start alone on her journey.
"Yes; my savings were all lodged for me, by Major Lindsay, with some merchants at Bombay; but I have twenty rupees sewn up in my garments."
"As to your savings, Soyera, you are not likely to see them again, for we shall make a clean sweep of Bombay. However, twenty rupees will be useful to you, and would keep you for three or four months, if you needed but, as you are going to my wife, you will not want them.
"Take this dagger. When you show it to her, she will know that you come from me; but mind, she is, like most women, given to gossip; therefore I warn you not to let her into the secret of this child's birth, for if you did so, half the town would know it in the course of a day or two.
"Now, I must go back with my men to join a party who are on their way to fight the English. I should have gone there direct, but met the others starting on this marauding expedition, which was so much to the taste of my men that I could not restrain them from joining. I shall see you at Jooneer, as soon as matters are finished with the English; then I shall, after staying a few days there, rejoin Scindia, in whose service I am."
Soyera started on her way. At the villages through which she passed, she was questioned as to where she came from; and replied that she had been living down near Bombay but, now that the English were going to fight the Mahrattas, she was coming home, having lost her husband a few months before.