Thus with the gigantic chess-board set; the possession of India
trembling in the balance; intellects of the highest development
pondering; Fate held the trump card, curiously, a girl; and not one of
the players had ever heard her name, the Gulab Begum.




CHAPTER II

The white sand plain surrounding Chunda was dotted with the tents of
the Mahratta force Sirdar Baptiste commanded. And the Sirdar, his soul
athirst for a go at the English, whom he hated with the same rabid
ferocity that possessed the soul of Nana Sahib, was busy. From
Pondicherry he had inveigled French gunners; and from Goa, Portuguese.
Also these renegade whites were skilled in drill. If Holkar and
Bhonsla did their part it would be Armageddon when the hell that was
brewing burst.

But Baptiste feared the Pindari. As he swung here and there on his
Arab the horse's hoofs seemed to pound from the resonant sands the
words "Amir Khan--Amir Khan! Pin-dar-is, Pin-dar-is!"

It was as he discussed this very thing with his Minister, Dewan Sewlal,
that Nana Sahib swirled up the gravelled drive to the bungalow on his
golden-chestnut Arab, in his mind an inspiration gleaned from something
that had been.

His greeting of the two was light, sporty; his thin well-chiselled face