In the affrighted eyes of the Hindus Barlow could
read their dread of the Pindaris; they would cringe at the roadside and
salaam, as fearful were they as if a wolf-pack swept down the highway.
The jamadar would laugh in his deep throat, and twist his black
moustache with forefinger and thumb, and call the curse of Mahomet upon
these worshippers of stone images and foul gods. He loved to ride
stirrup to stirrup with the Englishman, and Barlow found delight in the
man's broad conception of life; the petty things seemed to have no
resting place in his mind, unless perhaps as a matter for ridicule.
The sweep of a country with free rein and a sharp sword, and always the
hazard of loot or death was an engrossing subject. Even the enemy who
fought and bled and died, were like themselves--by Allah! men; but the
merchants, the shop-keepers, and the money-lenders, who cringed and
paid tribute when the Pindaris drove at them in a raid, were pigs,
cowardly dogs who robbed the poor and gave only to the accursed
Brahmins and their foul gods. He would dwell lovingly upon the feats
of courage of the Rajputs, lamenting that such fine men should be
excluded from heaven, dying as they did such glorious deaths, sword in
hand, because of their mistaken infidelity; they were souls lost
because of being led away from a true god, the one god, Allah, through
false priests.
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