So, as Amir Khan waits yonder where his body lies to be taken
on his way to the arms of Allah in Paradise, they who have the welfare
of our people at heart have selected one to lead, and one and all, the
jamadars and the hazaris, have decreed that I shall, unworthily, sit
upon the _ghuddi_ (throne) that was Amir Khan's, though with us it is
but the back of a horse. And we have taken under advisement the
message thou brought. It has come in good time for the Mahrattas are
like wolves that have turned upon each other. Sindhia, Rao Holkar,
both beaten by your armies, now fight amongst themselves, and suck like
vampires the life-blood of the Rajputs. And Holkar has become insane.
But lately, retreating through Mewar, he went to the shrine of Krishna
and prostrating himself before his heathen image reviled the god as the
cause of his disaster. When the priests, aghast at the profanity,
expostulated, he levied a fine of three hundred thousand rupees upon
them, and when, fearing an outrage to the image these infidels call a
god, they sent the idol to Udaipur, he way-laid the men who had taken
it and slew them to a man.
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