"He shall have his hands and feet cut off, and be placed at the entrance of the Khyber Pass with a written notice to deter all Feringhees from entering our country again."
"And has the scoundrel sworn this?"
"By every word in the Holy Kulma, the creed of our Prophet, he has. Ackbar the Sirdar is the very incarnation of Eblis—the evil spirit who betrayed Adam to transgression, and yet seeks to do injury to all his race," continued Taj Mohammed with gleaming eyes and a glow in his dusky cheek, for he and Ackbar Khan were politically rivals and mortal enemies.
"I have heard that this fellow Ackbar is somewhat slippery if not more; but if he has ventured to conceive such projects, we should have him tied to the mouth of a nine-pounder," exclaimed Polwhele, adding sundry adjectives and expletives, in which young Englishmen are apt to indulge in moments of excitement, and again the reproving eye of the Wuzeer fell on him.
"Do not talk thus, Sahib," said he sententiously; "know you not, that the tongue is a precious jewel, and hence it is a thousand pities we should pollute it?"
"But would he dare to assassinate the Envoy?" asked Polwhele, angrily.
"Tell me, Sahib, what Ackbar Khan would not dare?" responded the other, quietly.
"Egad that is true, but I hope that our troops will ere long show all those fellows who plot mischief that we have not come 'thus far into the bowels of the land' for nothing," replied Polwhele, laughing; "and to-morrow I, for one, shall begin with the Ghazeeas among yonder hills, Khan."
"The Siah Sung is full of deep and dark caverns, Sahib," said the friendly Afghan; "the Ghazeeas are cunning; so beware alike of surprise and ambush."
"Oh that will be my look-out and Burgoyne's," replied Polwhele, confidently.