"It is a rare plan," said I, "and a deep one, while the game seems easy to play. I can find no fault with it; but will not the Feringhees be prepared for us, and meet us wherever we show our faces?" "No!" cried he, vehemently, "they will not! cunning as they are, I will be before them in the field. They now think that, glutted with plunder, we shall remain quietly here, and be fools enough to wait for another Dussera before we are again on the move: but they are wrong to a man: and here has lain the cause of my apparent secrecy with you. I could not proclaim it in my durbar that I had planned another expedition; some prating fool would have blabbed of it at his home, and the news would have flown over the country in a week. No! I have kept it secret, except from a few, and they are my chief leaders, every one of whom has a thousand men at his back. Hear me,--I am determined, by the favour of Alla, to move hence at the head of a larger army than the last has been, in a space of time under two months. Say, will you come? I will give you the command of a thousand horse, for I love you, and depend upon you. Can you return from Jhalone in that time? I have no wish to detain you here; a man's home is dear to him wherever it is, and you are right to return to it: yet tell me that you will join me within two months, and what I have promised I will perform." "I will," cried I; "may your condescension increase, your slave will take advantage of your bounty. In less than two months, though I travel night and day, I will come, and bring more men with me." "The more the better," said Cheetoo. "Take the best horse from my stable if you wish it, he cannot be in better hands than your own; and as you will want camels, take too as many as you require from my own fleet ones: load them lightly and they will keep up with you. And now go--I am weary in mind and body, and need repose; you, I doubt not, will start with the morning's dawn. Go, and may peace be with you!"