"Yes, Captain Sahib, we Pindaris ride north, and east, and south, and west; we are almost as free as the eagles of the air, claiming that our home is where our cooking-pots are. We do not trust to ramparts such as Fort Chitor where we may be cooped up and slain--such as the Rajputs have been three times in the three famed sacks of Chitor--but also, Sahib, this is all wrong." The Chief halted and swept an arm in an encompassing embrace of the tent-studded plain. "We are not a nation to muster an army because now the cannon that belch forth a shower of death mow horsemen down like ripened grain. It was the dead Chief's ambition, but it is wrong." Barlow was struck with the wise logic of this tall wide-browed warrior, it _was_ wrong. Massed together Pindaris and _Bundoolas_ assailed by the trained hordes of Mahrattas, with their French and Portuguese gunners and officers, would be slaughtered like sheep. And against the war-trained Line Regiments of the British foot soldiers they would meet the same fate. "You are right, Chief Kassim," Barlow declared; "even if you cut in with the winning side, especially Sindhia, he would turn on you and devour you and your people." "Yes, Sahib. The trade of a Pindari, if I may call it so, has been that of loot in this land that has always been a land of strife for possession. I rode with Chitu as a jamadar when we swept through the Nizam's territory and put cities under a tribute of many _lakhs_, but that was a force of five thousand only, and we swooped through the land like a great flock of hawks. But even at that Chitu, a wonderful chief, was killed by wild animals in the jungle when he was fleeing from disaster, almost alone." They were now close to the palace, and as they entered, just within the great hall Kassim said: "There will be nothing to say on thy part, Captain Sahib; the officers will come even now to the audience and it is all agreed upon. Thou wilt be given an assurance to take back to the British, for by chance the others have great confidence in me, even more in a matter of diplomacy than they had in the dead leader, may Allah rest his soul!"