Even as the tiger slinks in dread
from a pack of the red wild-dogs, so a regular force might well dread
these flying horsemen.
And it was Amir Khan that Nana Sahib, and the renegade French
commander, Jean Baptiste, dreaded and distrusted. Overtures had been
made to him without result. He was a wonderful leader. He had made
the name of the Pindari feared throughout India. He was the magnet
that held this huge body of fighting devils together.
Thus with the gigantic chess-board set; the possession of India
trembling in the balance; intellects of the highest development
pondering; Fate held the trump card, curiously, a girl; and not one of
the players had ever heard her name, the Gulab Begum.
CHAPTER II
The white sand plain surrounding Chunda was dotted with the tents of
the Mahratta force Sirdar Baptiste commanded. And the Sirdar, his soul
athirst for a go at the English, whom he hated with the same rabid
ferocity that possessed the soul of Nana Sahib, was busy. From
Pondicherry he had inveigled French gunners; and from Goa, Portuguese.
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