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 "sarai"[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 Musalmans, 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.
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