"
Barlow was startled. "Did you know then that I was a Sahib--how did
you know?"
"Because thou wert placed in my hand in the way of protection."
Then Barlow surmised that of all outside his own caste there could be
but one, and he knew that she was in the camp, for he had seen her.
"It was a woman."
"A rare woman; even I, Chief of the Pindaris--and we are not bred to
softness--say that she is a pearl."
"They call her the Gulab," Barlow ventured.
"She is well named the Gulab; the perfume of her is in my nostrils
though it mixes ill with the camel smell. Without offence to Allah I
can retain her for it is in the Koran that a man may have four wives
and I have but two."
"But the Gulab is of a different faith," Barlow objected and a chill
hung over his heart.
The Pindari laughed. "The Sahibs have agents for the changing of
faith, those who wear the black coat of honour; and a _mullah_ will
soon make a good Musselmani of the beautiful little infidel. Of
course, Sahib, there is the other way of having a man's desire which is
the way of all Pindaris; they consider women as fair loot when the
sword is the passport through a land.
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