Caste by W. A. Fraser
page 224 of 259 (86%)
page 224 of 259 (86%)
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harem might bring a horde of cut-throat Mahrattas down on them with a
snipping off of official heads. On the fourth day, and now they were on a good trunk road that ran to Indore, and branching to the left, that crossed the Nerbudda River at Mandhatta, they were constantly passing pilgrims on their way to the Temple of Omkar. 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. "Mark thou, Sahib," Jemla said once, "I do not hold that it is a merit |
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