MANTRAS. 
35 
with a band of resolute fellows, who were generally 
well provided with money from plunder, he should 
certainly better his condition, and remain the more 
secure from discovery. If he were taken back to the 
regiment, he knew he should be shot ; and it therefore 
seemed to him the least of two evils to hazard his 
life in the attempt to obtain wealth, rather than run 
the risk of forfeiting it for having violated the articles 
of war : he consequently placed himself under the 
command of the Rohillah chief, who mustered, when 
occasion called all his associates together, a band of 
seventy followers, ready to accompany him wherever 
he might choose to lead them, however desperate 
the enterprize. 
When it was considered no longer prudent to re- 
main in their present retreat, where some successful 
robberies had been committed, to the considerable 
augmentation of the deserter’s store, they quitted the 
Patan ruin, and retraced their steps towards Rohil- 
cund, in the jungles of which they would be more secure 
from the vigilance of judicial authorities. The soldier 
continued to assume the costume of the party with 
whom he had associated himself, and it would have 
been found a matter of no ordinary difficulty to detect 
him in such a disguise. Upon passing through the 
village where he had encountered the Yogue, as already 
stated, he found the old man as usual at the door of 
his miserable abode, with his eyes fixed upon the 
sun, and muttering his daily mantras* to the wood- 
en or stony god of his barbarous idolatry. The 
Englishman deposited a few rupees in his withered 
* Mantras are certain forms of prayer. 
