The
confoundingly easy victory of Narayan hung heavily on his mind.
His faith in the holy hermitess and the seven goddesses was a good
deal shaken by the shameful capitulation of the Sisters, who had
surrendered at the first blow from a mere mortal. But during the
dark hours of the night he had had time to think it over, and to
shake off the uneasy feeling of having unwillingly misled and
disappointed his European friends.
Sham Rao still looked confused when he shook hands with us at parting,
and expressed to us the best wishes of his family and himself.
As to the heroes of this truthful narrative, they mounted their
elephants once more, and directed their heavy steps towards the
high road and Jubbulpore.
God's Warrior
The direction of our pilgrimage of self-improvement lay towards the
north-west, as was previously decided. We were very impatient to
see these status in statu of Anglo-India, but.... Do what you may,
there always will be a but.
We left the Jubbulpore line several miles from Nassik; and, to
return to it, we had to go back to Akbarpur, then travel by doubtful
Local-Board roads to the station Vanevad and take the train of Holkar's
line, which joins the Great Indian Peninsular Railway.
Meanwhile, the Bagh caves were quite close to us, not more than
fifty miles off, to the east from Mandu. We were undecided whether
to leave them alone or go back to the Nerbudda. In the country
situated on the other side of Kandesh, our Babu had some "chums,"
as everywhere else in India; the omnipresent Bengali Babus, who
are always glad to be of some service to you, are scattered all
over Hindostan, like the Jews in Russia.
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