out a multitude of questions: "How many men are there in the
fort?" said he; "how many women? Is it victualled? have they
ammunition? Did you see Gahagan Sahib, the commander? did you kill
him?"

All these questions Jeswunt Row Holkar puffed out with so many
whiffs of tobacco.

Taking a chillum myself, and raising about me such a cloud that,
upon my honour as a gentleman, no man at three yards' distance
could perceive anything of me except the pillar of smoke in which I
was encompassed, I told Holkar, in Oriental language of course, the
best tale I could with regard to the fort.

"Sir," said I, "to answer your last question first--that dreadful
Gujputi I have seen--and he is alive: he is eight feet, nearly, in
height; he can eat a bullock daily (of which he has seven hundred
at present in the compound, and swears that during the siege he
will content himself with only three a week): he has lost, in
battle, his left eye; and what is the consequence? O Ram Gunge" (O
thou-with-the-eye-as-bright-as-morning and-with-beard-as-black-as-
night), "Goliah Gujputi--NEVER SLEEPS!"

"Ah, you Ghorumsaug (you thief of the world)," said the Prince
Vizier, Saadut Alee Beg Bimbukchee--"it's joking you are;"--and
there was a universal buzz through the room at the announcement of
this bouncer.

"By the hundred and eleven incarnations of Vishnu," said I,
solemnly (an oath which no Indian was ever known to break), "I