The Dewan rolled his bulbous eyes despairingly: "If Sindhia would send ten camel loads of gold to this accursed Musselman, we could sleep in peace," he declared. "If it were a woman Sindhia would," Nana Sahib sneered. Baptiste laughed. "It is a wisdom, Prince, for that is where the revenue goes: women are a curse in the affairs of men," the Dewan commented. "With four wives your opinion carries weight, Dewani," and Nana Sahib tapped the fat knee of the Minister with his riding whip. Baptiste turned to the Prince. "There will be trouble over these Pindaris; your friends, the English--eh, Nana Sahib--" As though the handsome aquiline face of the Peshwa's son had been struck with a glove it changed to the face of a devil; the lips thinned, and shrinking, left the strong white teeth bare in a wolf's snarl. Under the black eyebrows the eyes gleamed like fire-lit amber; the thin-chiselled nostrils spread and through them the palpitating breath rasped a whistling note of suppressed passion. "Sirdar," he said, "never call me Nana Sahib again. The English call me that, but I wait--must wait; I smile and suffer. I am Dandhu Panth, a Brahmin. The English so loved me that they tried to make an Englishman of me, but, by Brahm! they taught me hate, which is their lot till the sea swallows the last of the accursed breed and Mahrattaland is free!" Nana Sahib was panting with the intensity of his passion. He paced the floor flicking at his brown boots with his whip, and presently whirled to say with a sneering smile on his thin lips: "The English can teach a man just one thing--to die for his ideals." "Yes, Prince, of a certainty the Englishman knows how to die for his country," Baptiste agreed in a soldier's tribute to courage. "And for another nation's country," Nana Sahib rasped. "He is a born pirate, a bred pirate--we in India know that; and that, General, is why I am a Brahmin, because they alone will free Mahrattaland--faith, ideals. Forms! the gods to me are not more than show-pieces. That Kali spreads the cholera is one with the idea that the little red-daubed stone Linga gets the woman a male child, false; these things are in ourselves, and in Brahm. The priests sacrifice to Shiva, but I will sacrifice to Mahrattaland, which to me is the supreme God."