However, I am now going out to see them, and have only been waiting for your return.

Six hundred men is but a small body; but it is a beginning, and I have no doubt that others will join Nana, later on.

But I am not sufficiently sure of their sentiments to open the matter to them, and it is essential that no suspicion of Nana's intention to leave the town should get about.

There might be a riot in the city and, possibly, some of the captains, who have not received the promotion which they regard as their due, might try to gain Scindia's favour by arresting him." On the following day a messenger arrived from Nana, requesting Sufder to place himself with his troop, and such other captains as he could rely upon, on the road a mile west of Poona.

He himself would leave the town quietly, with a small body of his friends, and join them there.