Sardar

“ Madhav cast a glance of unbounded resentment but, without taking any other notice of their entrance, continued pacing the chamber as before. The sardar and Bhiku seated themselves by the lamp, and taking out a little ganja from a bag which the latter carried in his waist, as well as a small and almost headless kalika, [1] began pounding the drug on his palm by the strong pressure of his thumb, preparatory to its ignition. The sardar trimmed the lamp and, while thus employed, observed sarcastically, "The Baboo seems particularly submissive tonight." ”

“ A blow-pipe, or long tube of wood or metal, through which poisoned [511] arrows were shot by blowing with the mouth.
Sarceled. In heraldry, cut through the middle.
Sardar. In the East Indies, a chief or leader is so called.
Sardinia. A former kingdom in the south of Europe, composed of the island of Sardinia, Piedmont, Savoy, and the territories of Genoa and Nice. It takes its name from the island of Sardinia, and was, in 1860, merged in the new kingdom of Italy. From 1798 to 1814 the continental part of Sardinia formed a portion of the French empire. ”

“ Five or six others spoke much in the same strain; and the Naybe concluded by saying, That he would send me in chains to Constantinople, unless I went to Hamazen, with his brother Emir Achmet, to the hot-wells there, and that this was the resolution of all the janizaries; for I had concealed my being a physician.
I had not yet opened my mouth. I then asked, If all these were janizaries; and where was their commanding officer? A well-looking, elderly man answered, “I am Sardar of the janizaries.”—“If you are Sardar, then,” said I, “this firman orders you to protect me. ”

“ Those who had embraced the religion of Govind did not fare much better than those who had adhered to their faith. As a rule they were from the class who had been forcibly converted to Mahomedanism by the Afghan, and the Sikhs despised them for having refused to die for their religion. Despite the strong democratic sentiment in the misls, which at first selected their chiefs, the position of sardar became hereditary in families. ”

“ Though, of course, equally given to superstition, the much stronger mind of the sardar did not so easily yield to such influences. Generally, their lawless and terrible profession renders people of this class habitually conversant with those scenes which are best calculated to give rise to fears of a superhuman character, and though they as firmly believe as other ignorant people in the existence of superhuman agencies, habit renders them less liable to their impressions. ”

“ He who takes us for his associates must abide by the consequences."
The scoundrel was preaching philosophy to the great man! And, dear reader, was he very wrong?
"But our connection has ceased," rejoined Mathur, angrily; "you know it well enough. Why do you seek me at this stormy hour?"
"Because," said the sardar, mournfully, "because this is the only hour when I can dare come out now. The police are after us, as you know." ”

“ Sardar Patel expressed the hope that the Indian States would bear in mind that the alternative to cooperation in the general interest was anarchy and chaos which would over-whelm great and small in a common ruin if the States and Provinces were unable to act together in the minimum of common tasks. ”

“ On Wednesday, the 26th, I encamped in the garden of Sardār K͟hān, which he had made in the neighbourhood of Peshawar. I walked round Ghorkhatrī, which is the worshipping-place of the jogīs in this neighbourhood, with the idea that I might see some faqirs from association with whom I might obtain grace. But that was like looking for the phœnix or the philosopher’s stone. A herd without any religious knowledge came to my view, from seeing whom I derived nothing but obscurity of mind. ”

“ She was one of the most artful and ambitious of her sex who ever figured in Sikh history, and became the ladder by which Ranjit Singh ascended to power: a masterful woman, the widow of a sardar—heir to a rival misl—killed while fighting against Maha Singh, she aimed, by bringing about a marriage alliance between her daughter and Ranjit Singh, to secure his support to her claims to the sardarship of the misl to which her husband would have succeeded. ”

“ Matangini had indeed fled. Profiting by the mutual quarrel [of the robbers who] were too deeply engaged in their own [life] and death struggle to remember her whom less brutal hearts could never forget, Matangini had stolen away unperceived to the door, which she had quietly unbarred, and it is to be doubted if far more clamorous proceedings on her part would have attracted the attention of combatants so busily engaged.
"Run, run after her," said the sardar, "she will ruin us."
"Yes, run" said Rajmohan. "But hark you, none but I lift a finger against my wife. ”

“ Madhav saw that his only chance lay in compliance. If they left him shut up, he could not guess how or when he could expect release. If he complied, it was probable that his note would cause enquiry and afford a clue to his friends by which they would trace out his place of confinement. Still he was determined to make a last effort.
"You expect money," he said to the sardar, "if you get the will from me; name the sum and I will double it, if you will let me go without giving up the paper." ”

“ It is as good as a night's affair, nay better, for we go shares with nobody."
"Bosh!" ejaculated Bhiku, his dull eyes glistening with joy, "but why will you not attempt it on the road when that lawyer carries it with him? How else can you get hold of it elsewhere!"
"Because you know that accursed wench, Rajmohan's wife, had overheard me talking to her husband about it," replied the sardar, "and has informed Madhav that we wanted it. He has warning and means to send the paper under good escort. And we are only two. ”

“ Bhiku quickly cut Rajmohan's bandages with his sword. "Het! clothes again!" muttered the robber as again he struck the hilt of his sword at a cane petara. [1] "but! out! wicked woman," said he highly exasperated and struck his weapon here and there on the bedstead. There was no Matangini on the bedstead.
"Here, Bhiku, bring the lamp here," roared the sardar once more, "the woman has hid herself beneath the taktaposh." Bhiku brought the lamp, trimming it well. Rajmohan followed ”

“ So all above us the stars soared and pulsed, over that silent, night-dark, land-locked harbour.
After a long time the water boiled, and we drank our hot tea and ate our sardines and bread and bits of remaining Nuoro sausage, sitting there alone in the intense starry darkness of that upper deck. I said [Pg 305] alone: but no, two ghoulish ship's cats came howling at us for the bits. And even when everything was eaten, and the sardine-tin thrown in the sea, still they circled and prowled and howled. ”

“ They are amusing, these peasant girls and women: so brisk and defiant. They have straight backs, like little walls, and decided, well-drawn brows. And they are amusingly on the alert. There is no eastern creeping. Like sharp, brisk birds they dart along the streets, and you feel they would fetch you a bang over the head as leave as look at you. Tenderness, thank heaven, does not seem to be a Sardinian quality. ”

“ They have saved the land from the wastes. No matter how the storms rage on the snow plains, it is ever warm in Sardanes. The city lieth in a valley, ringed round by a score of fire mountains, set there by the gods when the world began. And when the season of the great darkness falleth, the flare of the eternal flames lighteth the valley. With the light of twenty moons is Sardanes ever lighted. Wait and thou shalt see. ”

“ Do you feel the breath of the morning wind, the strong south-southeast? It is the fair one for Sardinia."
"The god of wishes himself, who breathes in and rules the wind, is sending it to you, descendants of Genseric. Follow it; it is the breath of victory that fills your sails. To battle! To battle! On to the sea! On to the sea! On to Sardinia!" a thousand voices shouted tumultuously. Full of passionate excitement, overflowing with warlike enthusiasm, the Vandals poured out of the Grove of Venus toward Carthage and the harbor. ”

“ Bahram Khan will probably remove his uncle quietly, and in order to still any unpleasant rumours, encourage raids on us, which will serve the further purpose of awakening the appetite for blood and loot. The Sardars will be got to believe that we have only drawn back in order to advance better, and that their one chance is to make the first move. They will cross the border, and our people will join them.”
“And we shall be thankful for the fort? North, in view of all this, what do you say to sending the ladies down to Bab-us-Sahel for a while?”
“I don’t know,” answered Dick hesitatingly. ”

“ It is like Cornwall, like the Land's End region. Here and there, in the distance, are peasants working on the lonely landscape. Sometimes it is one man alone in the distance, showing so vividly in his black-and-white costume, small and far-off like a solitary magpie, and curiously distinct. All the strange [Pg 130] magic of Sardinia is in this sight. Among the low, moor-like hills, away in a hollow of the wide landscape one solitary figure, small but vivid black-and-white, working alone, as if eternally. There are patches and hollows of grey arable land, good for corn. ”

“ All about us was the sea of great adventure, and below us, caught somewhere in its gleaming meshes, were the bones of nations and navies . . . . . nations and navies that gave youth its hope and made life something more than a hunger of the bowels. The unpeopled Sardinian coast unfolded gently before us, like something left over out of a world that was gone; a place that might well have had no later news since the corn ships brought the tidings of Actium.
"I shall never go to Sardinia," said Mrs. Ebbling. ”

“ Thus grew up the customs of the religion which thou hast seen, but ever the ancient fires eats deeper in the pit of the mountain, and ever a great fear lies in the hearts of all Sardanians that some time the fires of the other mountains will follow that fire and leave Sardanes the prey of the ice and snow and darkness that wait without her gates. ”

“ Everywhere in the country round, the wild Sardinian spring [2] was on its death-bed; the flowers of the asphodel, the golden balls of the broom were dropping; the roses showed pale in the thickets, the grass was already yellow; a hot odour of hay perfumed the heavy air. The Milky Way and the distant splendour of the horizon, which seemed a band of far off sea, made the night clear as twilight. The dark blue heaven and its stars were reflected in the scanty waters of the river. On its bank, Olì found two of her little brothers looking for crickets. ”

“ Through the plain winds a river, bright and slow; in many places the fruitful level is ruffled with thicket and coppice; and among the far fields the white walls of farms and hamlets glitter amid their boskage. When the clear sunlight fell on that still expanse of quiet earth, one might see, in those days, the stone towers and sparkling pinnacles of the royal city of Sarras, with a soft blue feather of smoke floating over it. ”

“ A good many fish are slipping through the net of the old European civilisation. Like that great whale of Russia. And probably even Sardinia. Sardinia then. Let it be Sardinia.
There is a fortnightly boat sailing from Palermo—next Wednesday, three days ahead. Let us go, then. Away from abhorred Etna, and the Ionian sea, and these great stars in the water, and the almond trees in bud, and the orange trees heavy with red fruit, and these maddening, exasperating, impossible Sicilians, who never knew what truth was and have long lost all notion of what a human being is. ”

“ All the inhabitants of the Punjab, sardars and people, were called upon to submit themselves peacefully to the authority of the British Government. "Over those who shall live as obedient and peaceful subjects the British Government will rule with mildness and beneficence, but if resistance to constituted authority shall again be attempted, if violence and turbulence are renewed, the Governor-General warns the people of the Punjab that the time for leniency will then have passed away, and that their offences will be punished with prompt and most vigorous severity." ”

“ In a terrible gorge at your side, the river Barrada, the ancient Pharpar, forces its way to the plain, and its waters, divided into twelve different channels, make all between you and those blue island-hills of the desert, one great garden, the boundaries of which your vision can barely distinguish. Its longest diameter cannot be less than twenty miles. You look down on a world of foliage, and fruit, and blossoms, whose hue, by contrast with the barren mountains and the yellow rim of the desert which incloses it, seems brighter than all other gardens in the world. ”

“ The hills seemed so untouched, dark-blue, virgin-wild, the hollow cradle of the valley was cultivated like a tapestry away below. And there seemed so little outlying life: nothing. No castles even. In Italy and Sicily castles perching everywhere. In Sardinia none—the remote, ungrappled hills rising darkly, standing outside of life.
As we went back it was growing dark, and the little band was about to leave off its brass noise. But the crowd still surged, the maskers still jigged and frisked unweariedly. Oh the good old energy of the bygone days, before men became so self-conscious. ”

“ Everywhere in the valley was the sound of life. Birds flashed back and forth among the foliage; goats leaped among the rocks; small ponies grazed in the meadows; men tilled the fields. From the distance up the valley came the hum and splashing of a small waterfall. A couple of miles away, at the right of the river, was a large square of buildings that gleamed white in the sunlight, where many people were moving about.
"Behold, Sardanes!" said Kard the Smith, advancing to the edge of the rock.
Rose Emer caught the word Sardanes and echoed it. ”