Harold Lamb

“ I can look a gun in the eye and take a share in a toe and heel mix-up without worrying any, but a knife sets my skin to creeping. Evidently the native was in the compartment to rob and meant to have something for his trouble. It would not do to let him know I was awake, and only a fool would charge into a knife. A straight-from-the-shoulder wallop will knock out most natives, because they never learn the why and wherefore of a fist. But you can't hit out when you're lying on your back with your eyes shut. ”

“ Who would? The whole thing looked queer—the pahari bird coming into the compartment like that, and then going through a daily dozen head-bobbing. And it turned out later that my hunch was a good one. "Is there any more to the lesson?"
Moorcroft began to talk like a professor. I wished later I had paid more attention to what he said.
The main point of it was that he was warning me not to meddle with anything that turned up under my nose in India. When they wanted to, the Hindus could arm themselves with weapons that left white men no chance at all. ”

“ The Hindus are adept at mesmerizing the spectators; we do not realize what they are up to, and they never explain. We have never attempted to measure their powers, because we have been too busy making money. ”

“ Moorcroft named over poisons that could kill a man daily for a couple of years, and stimulants like bhang and hasheesh that could make a native give one whoop and run out and slaughter any Europeans who happened along, and feel blissful doing it. ”