protection of any mounted gentleman that happened to be going the
same way. The Mogul officer said not a word in reply, resolved to
have no companions on the road. They persisted--his nostrils began
again to swell, and putting his hand to his sword, he bid them all be
off, or he would have their heads from their shoulders. He had a bow
and quiver full of arrows over his shoulders,[9] a brace of loaded
pistols in his waist-belt, and a sword by his side, and was
altogether a very formidable-looking cavalier. In the evening another
party that lodged in the same "sarâi"[10] became very intimate with
the butler and groom. They were going the same road; and, as the
Mogul overtook them in the morning, they made their bows
respectfully, and began to enter into conversation with their two
friends, the groom and butler, who were coming up behind. The Mogul's
nostrils began again to swell, and he bid the strangers be off. The
groom and butler interceded, for their master was a grave, sedate
man, and they wanted companions. All would not do, and the strangers
fell in the rear. The next day, when they had got to the middle of an
extensive and uninhabited plain, the Mogul in advance, and his two
servants a few hundred yards behind, he came up to a party of six
poor Musalmâns, sitting weeping by the side of a dead companion. They
were soldiers from Lahore,[11] on their way to Lucknow, worn down by
fatigue in their anxiety to see their wives and children once more,
after a long and painful service. Their companion, the hope and prop
of his family, had sunk under the fatigue, and they had made a grave
for him; but they were poor unlettered men, and unable to repeat the
funeral service from the holy Koran-would his Highness but perform
this last office for them, he would, no doubt, find his reward in
this world and the next. The Mogul dismounted--the body had been
placed in its proper position, with its head towards Mecca. A carpet
was spread--the Mogul took off his bow and quiver, then his pistols