"They started before dark, sahib, with the four other baggage animals. Two of them we shall find when we halt for food, when the sun gets high. They will have pitched a tent in the shade of some tree, and will have the meal cooked in readiness for us. The other two will have gone forward to the point where we shall rest for the night. They have another tent, and will have the evening meal in readiness. So it will be each day. They will travel by night, we by day. At the end of three days we shall have reached a point where care will be a necessity, and will then travel in a body."
"But from whom have we reason to fear danger?" Percy asked.
"We do not fear danger," the Sikh replied, "but we prepare to meet it. In the first place there are robbers—bands of men who acknowledge no master, such as deserters from the army, fugitives who have excited the enmity of some powerful chief, and criminals who have escaped justice. Such men form bands, rob villages, plunder well-to-do peasants, and waylay, rob, and murder travellers. These are the ordinary foes; all those who journey have to prepare for them, and they are not really dangerous to a well-armed party. Then, again, there are the bands by profession robbers, but who are for the time hired by some powerful or wealthy sirdar who wishes to gratify a private spite. Openly perhaps he would not dare to move, and he therefore remains in the background, and hires bands of robbers to do his business. Such bands are far more formidable than those composed of ordinary marauders, for they are of a strength proportioned to the object they have to accomplish, and may even number hundreds.
"It is these against whom we have to take precautions. My lord your uncle has powerful enemies, and these doubtless employ spies, and are made aware of all that passes in his stronghold. Should they have learned that he was expecting your arrival, they would of course see that your capture would be a valuable one, as they could work on him through you. At any rate the departure of my band is sure to be noticed, and though we travelled by a circuitous route we may probably have been tracked to Loodiana. Besides, they might think that I had some important mission to the British Resident there, and that I may be the bearer of some letter that might enable them to work my master's ruin, and so will spare no pains to wrest it from me.
"For the first three days we do not follow the route leading to my lord's stronghold, consequently there is little fear of an ambush; but during the last five days of the journey, when we are making for the fortress, we shall have to sleep with one eye open, to travel by unfrequented roads, and for the most part by night. The colonel would have come himself to meet you, but in the first place his visit to Loodiana would be seized upon by his enemies as a proof that he was leagued with the British, and in the second his presence is required in the castle, where, so long as he is present, there is little fear of any sudden surprise or attack, but were he away some traitor might corrupt a guard or open a gate, and thus let in the troops of an enemy."
"But there is no civil war, Nand Chund. How then could a chief venture to attack my uncle?"
"There is no war," the Sikh repeated, "but the sirdars never hesitate to collect their followers and attack a rival when they have a chance. Even in the days of Runjeet Singh this was so; for although his hand was a heavy one, it was easy to bribe those about him to place the matter in a favourable light, and a handsome present would do the rest. But since the Lion has passed away there has been no power in the land. The government has been feeble, and the great sirdars have done as it pleases them, so there is everywhere rapine and confusion. Those who are strong take from those who are weak; the traders who prospered and grew rich in the old days now fly the land or bury their wealth, and assume the appearance of poverty; the markets are deserted, and towns flourishing under Runjeet are now well-nigh deserted."
"But why have they a special animosity against my uncle?"
"First because he is a European, secondly because he is wealthy, thirdly because those who fly from the extortion or the tyranny of others find a refuge with him, lastly because the district under his charge is flourishing and prosperous while others are impoverished. Merchants elsewhere clamour for the rights that he gives those under his protection, and for taxes as light as those imposed by him in his district."
"But I thought that all Europeans had been deprived of commands," Percy said.