CHAPTER XXVII

And next day when Barlow, sitting his horse, still riding as the
Afghan, went forth, his going was somewhat like the departure of a
Nawab. Chief Kassim and a dozen officers had clanked down the marble
steps from the palace with him and stood lined up at the gates raising
their deep voices in full-throated salaams and blessings of Allah upon
his head.

The horsemen of the guard, spears to boot-leg, fierce-looking riders of
the plain, were lined up four abreast. The _nakara_ in the open court
of the palace was thundering a farewell like a salute of light
artillery.

The _tonga_ with Bootea had gone on before with a guard of two
out-riders.

All that day they travelled to the south, on their left, against the
eastern sky, the lofty peaks of the Vindhya mountains holding the gold
of the sun till they looked like a continuous chain of gilded temples
and tapering pagodas. For hours the road lay over hard basaltic rocks
and white limestone; then again it was a sea of white sand they
traversed with its blinding eye-stinging glare.

At night, when they camped, Barlow had a fresh insight into the fine
courtesy, the rough nobility that breeds into the bone of men who live
by the sword and ride where they will. The Pindaris built their