So she took her sitar and sat in the window-seat and sang a song of old days that had been sung by a girl of her profession in an armed camp on the eve of a great battle—the day before the Fords of the Jumna ran red and Sivaji fled fifty miles to Delhi with a Toorkh stallion at his horse’s tail and another Lalun on his saddle-bow. It was what men call a Mahratta laonee, and it said:—
Their warrior forces Chimnajee
Before the Peishwa led,
The Children of the Sun and Fire
Behind him turned and fled.
And the chorus said:—
With them there fought who rides so free
With sword and turban red,
The warrior-youth who earns his fee
At peril of his head.