"I was thinking of that," Barlow replied; "and it would be as well that you turned your faces homeward."
"We have received an order from our Chief that our lives are at the disposal of the Captain Sahib, and we will drive into the heart of a Mahratta force if needs be, but if it is the Sahib's command we will ride back from here," Jemla said.
"Yes; there is no need of a guard for the Gulab now--just that the _tonga_ carries her as far as she wishes it," Barlow concurred.
"Indeed we are not needed; those infidels come to worship their heathen gods, not to combat men, and Mandhatta is but a matter of twelve _kos_ now," Jemla affirmed.
When Captain Barlow, and Bootea in the _tonga_, drew out from the encampment to proceed on their way the Pindaris rode on in front, and then, at a command from Jemla, wheeled their horses into a continuous line facing the road, stirrup to stirrup, the horsemen sitting erect with their _tulwars_ at the salute. As Barlow passed a cry of, "Salaam, aleikum! the protection of Allah be upon you," rippled down the line. Then the horsemen wheeled with their faces to the north. Jemla swept a hand to his forehead and from his deep throat welled a farewell, "Salaam, bhai! (brother)."
The Jamadar's tribute from man to man, one encased in a dark skin and one in a white, was akin to the tribulation that would not be driven from Barlow's mind over the Gulab, that in their case made the matter of a skin colourisation the bar sinister. He rode in a brooding silence. And now the way was one of ascent toward the pass through the Vindhya mountains; a red gravelly undulating formation had given place to basaltic rocks. They passed from groups of _mhowa_ trees and left behind a wide shallow stream, its bed dotted with pools fringed by great _kowa_ trees, and its banks lined by a thick green cover of _jamun_ and _karonda_. Thorny _babul_ thrust their spiked branches out over the roadway, white with tufts of cotton torn by its thorns from bales, loose pressed, on their way to market in buffalo carts; "Babul the thief," the natives called this acacia. Higher up a torch-wood tree gleamed as if sprayed with gold, its limbs, lean and bare of foliage, holding at their extremities in wisp-like fingers bright, yellow, solitary blooms. From a _tendu_ tree a pair of droll little brown monkeys chattered and grimaced at the clattering cart.