Once more an emissary of Ram Lal strode to my side as I rolled off the
saddle into the cool grass at sunrise in a very impracticable-looking
country. The road had been steeper and less defined during the last two
hours of the ride, and as I crossed one leg high over the other lying on
my back in the grass, the morning light caught my spur, and there was
blood on it, bright and red. I had certainly come as fast as I could; if
I should be too late, it would not be my fault. The agent, whoever he
might be, was a striking-looking fellow in a dirty brown cloth _caftan_
and an enormous sash wound round his middle. A pointed cap with some
tawdry gold lace on it covered his head, and greasy black love-locks
writhed filthily over his high cheek bones and into his scanty tangled
beard; a suspicious hilt bound with brass wire reared its snake-like
head from the folds of his belt, and his legs, terminating in
thick-soled native shoes, reminded one of a tarantula in boots. He
salaamed awkwardly with a tortuous grin, and addressed me with the
northern salutation, "May your feet never be weary with the march."
Having been twenty-four hours in the saddle, my feet were not that
portion of my body most wearied, but I replied to the effect that I
trusted the shadow of the greasy gentleman might not diminish a
hairsbreadth in the next ten thousand years.
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