The Hindoo chief was mounted upon a white charger, which was a guide to the Moguls in what direction to shoot their arrows. The four horsemen now uniting galloped towards the enemy, and when within ten yards of them, discharged their barbed reeds, turned and retreated. This they repeated several times, until the enemy, galled by these attacks, spurred forward in pursuit. The Moguls again separated, and plunged into the neighbouring thicket. The Hindoos being thus disunited rode onward in disorder, and frequently mistook one another for foes. Arrows were occasionally shot from the wood, and not knowing whence the mischief came, their confusion increased. In several instances they rode each other down, the enemy meanwhile occasionally shouting to delude them, and then instantly galloping to another position.
This strange fight was continued for some time, until a number of the idolators being slain, their leader ordered those who were near him to halt, and after a while, with some difficulty he mustered the rest of his detachment, nineteen of whom were killed or missing. The night was too dark to allow of pursuing the Moguls with any reasonable chance of securing them; the Hindoos therefore retraced their way slowly back to their camp to prepare their comrades against surprise.
“Well,” said the Mogul leader, as the enemy slowly retired, “I told you we should multiply. Night is the best season in the world to enable the few to outdo the many. They’ll have a rare tale to tell when they get to their tents. They have left a few of their companions behind them, whom they’ll find cold enough and not over fragrant in the morning. But it will not do for four to stand against a hundred by daylight, we must therefore retire towards the advancing forces. Within a week these worshippers of dumb divinities shall quit yonder fortress or fight for it; and though the dogs are brave enough, yet they have no great skill at warfaring.”
“But what say you,” asked Dost Nasir, “to their Rajpoots—fellows that fight under a saffron robe till their throats are cut, not indeed so much to their own satisfaction as to that of their slayers?”
“Why, I say of their Rajpoots, that they are brave just as a woman is when spirit has turned her brain. She’ll then rave and sputter in spite of stripes; but when her fit of valour subsides, her spirit becomes as puny as a lizard’s. I never knew a really brave man wantonly throw away his life. Excite a coward beyond the boundary-line of his fears, and he foams and snaps like a mad dog; but fury is not valour.”
“It may be,” replied Dost Nasir; “but a Rajpoot’s fury is a nasty thing to come in contact with. And the rascals are so ready in the use of their cimetars that they chop off heads as dexterously as your cooks decollate ortolans for a dainty feeder. I never knew a fight tame where those yellow-robed warriors appeared among the enemy’s ranks.”
“Well, if there be any among those adorers of chiselled stones now before yonder town, you shall have an opportunity of seeing that such drunken valour will not prevent our forces from obliging them to slink back to their homes, or making a dunghill beneath the walls of Gualior with the flesh of idol-worshippers.”
While this conversation was going on, the four Moguls were getting into the heart of the jungle, in order to obviate the pursuit which they apprehended the enemy would commence on the morrow. Having deviated considerably from the regular travelling route, and being unacquainted with the locality, they got into a pathless forest. This was a dilemma from which they must use their wits to be delivered, and with this prudent resolution they cast themselves upon the protection of Him to whom the path of the wilderness is as familiar as that of the populous country.
CHAPTER II.
When the Moguls had got into the heart of the forest, beyond the probable reach of pursuit, they halted, picketed their horses in a small grassy glen, and casting themselves beneath the shelter of a leafy tree, threw their saddle-cloths over their shoulders, and soon sank into profound repose. In the morning they rose and pursued their way. The chief was a broad-shouldered man, above the middle height, exceedingly muscular, with a handsome good-humoured countenance, somewhat roughened by constant exposure to various changes of atmosphere. His limbs were so sinewy, that it appeared as if ropes were twisted round his bones, and covered with a skin as firm and flexible as was requisite to compact such bones and muscles. He had a large laughing eye, but so brilliant that, when the round animated features subsided from their wonted joyousness into sudden gravity, it seemed as if its quick intense scrutiny could reach the very depths of the soul. His mouth was small, and the lips generally a little protruded, giving an arch expression to his features, that made the beholder think they were ever the home of good-humour. His head was somewhat diminutive, or rather it appeared so in consequence of the prodigious size of his neck, which was perfectly Atlantean. It was bare to his shoulders, and showed a capacity of strength almost superhuman. He mounted his horse with a bound as light as that of the grasshopper; and his steed, a noble Persian charger, was evidently proud of its burthen. His companions were fine men, but utterly insignificant by the side of their chief.