Loll Mahommed has not seen the
fort as I have. Pass the gate if you please, and for what? to fall
before the fire of a hundred pieces of artillery; to storm another gate,
and then another, and then to be blown up, with Gahagan's garrison in
the citadel. Who talks of courage? Were I not in your august presence,
O star of the faithful, I would crop Loll Mahommed's nose from his face,
and wear his ears as an ornament in my own pugree! Who is there here
that knows not the difference between yonder yellow-skinned coward and
Gahagan Khan Guj--I mean Bobbachy Bahawder? I am ready to fight
one, two, three, or twenty of them, at broad-sword, small-sword,
single-stick, with fists if you please. By the holy piper, fighting is
like mate and dthrink to Ga--to Bobbachy, I mane--whoop! come on, you
divvle, and I'll bate the skin off your ugly bones."
This speech had very nearly proved fatal to me, for when I am agitated,
I involuntarily adopt some of the phraseology peculiar to my own
country; which is so un-eastern, that, had there been any suspicion as
to my real character, detection must indubitably have ensued. As it was,
Holkar perceived nothing, but instantaneously stopped the dispute. Loll
Mahommed, however, evidently suspected something, for, as Holkar, with a
voice of thunder, shouted out, "Tomasha (silence)," Loll sprang forward
and gasped out--
"My lord! my lord I this is not Bob--"
But he could say no more.
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