“I mun go back,” he said. “Look for me ere midnight, Walter.”
Without another word of explanation he bared his sword and wheeled his powerful horse.
“Make way, there!” he bellowed. “Out of my path, swine! Quickly, ye sons of pigs, I am not to be stayed!”
Thinking the Hathi-sahib had gone mad the troopers who rode with Jahangir’s emissary scattered right and left. Mowbray, though vexed by the untoward incident, promptly endeavored to rob it of grave significance by ordering half a dozen of his own Rajputs to follow Sainton-sahib and help him if necessary.
Before the nawab who headed their escort quite realized what was happening, Roger had vanished. The last glimpse Mowbray obtained of his gigantic countryman was when Sainton, sitting bolt upright on his charger and holding his sword aloft like a steel torch, disappeared in the cloud of dust created by the passage of himself and his small troop.
“Out of my path, swine.”
Now, the high-placed official was vastly offended by Roger’s rude and peremptory words, and some little time elapsed before Mowbray’s apologies, couched in the most polite Persian, were accepted. There was nothing for it but to credit the Colossus with a touch of the sun, and add thereto a hint of his passionate attachment for the buxom Countess.
Even then Walter’s difficulties were not exhausted. Fra Pietro, speaking very firmly, said that his place was with his people, and he would be glad if some arrangement were made whereby he could return to them.