As had been planned, some of the decoits had come as recruits to the
Pindari standard. This created no suspicion, because free-lance
soldiers, adventurous spirits, from all over India flocked to a force
that was known to be massed for the purpose of loot. It was an easy
service; little discipline; a regular Moslem fighting horde, holding
little in reverence but the daily prayer and the trim of a spear, or
the edge of a sword. Amir Khan was the law, the army regulation, the
one thing to obey. As to the matter of prayers, for those who were not
followers of the Prophet, who carried no little prayer carpet to kneel
upon, face to Mecca, there was, it being a Rajput town, always the
shrine of Shiva and his elephant-headed son, Ganesh, to receive
obeisance from the Hindus. And those who had come as players,
wrestlers, were welcomed joyously, for, there being no immediate matter
of a raid and throat-cutting, and little of disciplinary duties, time
hung heavy on the hands of these grown-up children.
Hunsa was remembered by several of the Pindaris as having ridden with
them before; and he also had suffered an apostacy of faith for he now
swore by the Beard of the Prophet, and turned out at the call of the
_muezzin_, and testified to the fact that there was but one god--Allah.
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