He seized my hands, cried, and implored me to turn him off.

What could this mean?
I could not divine; neither could he explain, further than that he had come to a determination that I must send either him or Baraka to the right-about; and his first idea was that he, and not Baraka, should be the victim.

Baraka's jealousy about his position had not struck me yet.
I called them both together and asked what quarrel they had, but could not extract the truth.

Baraka protested that he had never given, either by word or deed, the slightest cause of rupture; he only desired the prosperity of the march, and that peace should reign throughout the camp; but Bombay was suspicious of him, and malignantly abused him, for what reason Baraka could not tell.

When I spoke of this to Bombay, like a bird fascinated by the eye of a viper, he shrank before the slippery tongue of his opponent, and could only say, "No, Sahib--oh no, that is not it; you had better turn me off, for his tongue is so long, and mine so short, you never will believe me." I tried to make them friends, hoping it was merely a passing ill-wind which would soon blow over; but before long the two disputants were tonguing it again, and I distinctly heard Bombay ordering Baraka out of camp as he could not keep from intermeddling, saying, which was true, he had invited him to join the expedition, that his knowledge of Hindustani might be useful to us; he was not wanted for any other purpose, and unless he was satisfied with doing that alone, we would get on much better without him.