The sun stood a hand’s span above the horizon; it was time to make camp, although Fairbrother had hoped to reach Mattapallee that evening, five miles distant. Knowing the road as they did, however, it would be enough to find a place to bed down. In the next village there was more than one good billet, and he decided to send the baboo ahead with Corporal Smale to make arrangements. If there were any need to exchange words between now and reaching the village he’d rely on the approver or the rahbar. He didn’t entirely trust the approver – how could he? – but one false move and he’d put a bullet in him without hesitation, which he’d had the baboo tell him in no uncertain terms before they’d set a single foot on the road. And if for any reason he wasn’t able to keep his word, then Corporal Smale – or else Corporal Spence (another of the roughriders) – was to carry out the sentence. The approver – Banji Lal – had shown no terror at the threat, and Fairbrother had concluded that either he was a man of honour, if of a peculiar kind, or else wholly possessed of the Hindoo’s fatalism. Whatever it was, Banji Lal had so far been an exemplary support.

The baboo found them comfortable quarters in what until lately had been a police post but was now in the care of an enterprising old sipahi. They were in the Nizam’s territory, although there was no customs house until Mattapallee and the ferry on the Krishna, for the road from the border led only there. It made no difference to Fairbrother’s method, except that if they came to call on the police for help they would have to do so as travellers, and thereby take their luck, rather than within the presidency as agents of the government and therefore able to command assistance.

Not that he expected to have need. Indeed, he intended to rest himself and his party well here, for after crossing the Krishna they’d have to be doubly vigilant. It was a stretch of road that had apparently seen many murders, and if Sleeman and his predictive system was right, there must surely be one if not two thug bands active now between there and the crossing into Chintal.

And restful this place would certainly be for the night. Fairbrother even had his own room, with a door he could bar and a window likewise.

They’d not been long there, however, the sun not yet quite set, when they had a visitor – visitors. There were always visitors, as this evening, but always intent on selling them something. This particular one, older than most and carrying just a basket of dried coconut, told the baboo when the other sellers were out of earshot that he wished to speak to the huzoor.

The baboo scolded him, telling him he’d get no more money for his coconut than offered, but the man spoke softly and said he wished to tell the huzoor something to his advantage: ‘I am a poor but honest farmer. I was one time a sipahi in the army of the Angreze.’