of the
arrears of pay; but it is indeed true that the treasury is all but
empty, and it will never be full while Wallidad Khan is collector of the
revenue, and such pitiful nassars are brought to the king as were
brought to-day. Imagine, Azim Ali, a bent old dodderer who claimed
kinship with the Lord of the World, and offered him two rupees!"

"It is indeed pitiful," said the jamadar. "What is to be said to the
sowars? They will assuredly plunder the shops if they get no pay, and
the general has said that all plunderers shall be hanged."

"What, indeed? Is it not hard that our men, who have been enduring the
heat and burden, throwing away their lives in fighting the English,
should be worse off than such brigands as the men whom this Asadullah
has brought into the city? The general forbids plunder: well, he is a
friend of mine, and must be obeyed. But these new-comers, have they not
plundered? What have they done but load themselves with the loot of
villages, and snapped up ill-defended convoys--enterprises of little
difficulty and less danger? There is great talk of this old freebooter
as a man of high courage: hai! it is false. Do I not know of him? They
call him lion; a more fitting name would be pariah dog. He is not a man
to risk his skin. And yet, forsooth, he comes into Delhi at the head of
these three hundred, and the king slobbers over him, and without doubt
he will squeeze from the treasury what rupees he can, and then, when the
word comes to fight, he will shelter himself behind us who know what
fighting is, and expect his full share of plunder when the English are
beaten. Hai! it is a shame and a scandal."

"True, most noble subahdar; it is enough to make our men rise up and
claim that all who enter thus with full hands should share what they
have among us."

"And what they could not keep but for us; for are there not princes in
the city who, were these men left undefended, would swoop down like
hawks upon them and strip them of all they have? Without us, trained
soldiers, would not the English assuredly catch them and hang them up?
Is this thing to be endured? Here are we, lodged within a shout's
distance of them, and we starve while they live on the fat of the land."

Minghal knew the man he was talking to. He was a simple ruffian, who
grew more and more indignant as his superior artfully stimulated his
discontent.

"It would not be a matter of surprise to me," Minghal continued, "were
the men to ri