"Not so, Sirdar Sahib," expostulated the trader, plucking up a little courage by virtue of the name he was about to invoke. "What I have, I have from the Nawab--the Nawab Mushim Khan--given in honest trade. Shall I then suffer ill-treatment at the Nawab's very gates?" "The Nawab. Ha--ha!" jeered the leader, spitting again. "Walk, fat infidel dog. Dost hear?" And a buffet on the side of the head, which nearly felled him, convinced the unfortunate trader that this was no time for further expostulation; and, accordingly, panting, wheezing, stumbling, he strove his painful utmost to keep pace up the steep hill with his perilous and unwelcome escort. His attendants were undergoing but little ill-treatment. They were young and lithe, and gave no trouble; moreover, they had little or nothing to lose, so feared nothing. Ibrahim, who happened to be a _mullah_, and whom the other had subsidised for the supposed protection of his own company, to whom no violence whatever had been offered, was leading his steed tranquilly over the rough, stony slope, chatting and laughing familiarly with the band; and at the sight the unhappy Chand Lall's soul grew more bitter within him. Why had he been so ready to accept this plausible rogue's benevolent sanctity, he thought, as now fifty instances occurred to him of delays, slight at the time, but on colourable pretext, to retard him more and more--to increase subtly and imperceptibly more and more the distance between him and the armed force with which he had obtained permission to travel. Bitterly he reproached himself. He saw through it now--in fact, he did not believe that Ibrahim was a _mullah_ at all; but _mullah_ or not, certain it was that he was the confederate and decoy of the ferocious and predatory gang who had so daringly swooped down upon himself and his goods, almost within call of the Political Agent's armed escort. On they fared, higher and higher, until at length, utterly exhausted, Chand Lall realised that he lay powerless and beyond all reach or hope of aid in one of the fastnesses of his captors, away in the most savage and frowning recesses of the mountain world. And then something in the very hopelessness of it all as he saw the fruits of a long and toilsome expedition utterly thrown away, moved the wretched man to a sort of desperation. He threatened. "See you," he said, "I am not a man who can be smuggled away and no inquiries made. I am not a man who can be ill-treated with impunity. I am a man of consequence, and of importance to the _Sirkar_. I am a friend of the Nawab--" He stopped short. There was that in the look of the leader--to whom he had addressed these words--which seemed to freeze the half delirious desperation within him.