Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/81

 India port. Her departure had led the Portuguese to redouble their exertions to secure the expulsion of their hated rivals. Makarrab Khan might have listened to their hostile suggestions if he had not found it more profitable to pluck the pigeon rather than drive it away. What would have happened if Hawkins had not cut the Gordian knot by deciding to leave for the Great Mogul's Court at Agra it is difficult to say. But Makarrab Khan was under a certain fear of the Portuguese, and if the furtherance of their designs had not stood in the way of his interests it is probable that he would have lent his sanction to their schemes.

As befitted his exalted and largely self-imposed rank Hawkins set out on his long journey into the interior with a large retinue. In his cavalcade, besides a number of personal attendants, were fifty horsemen—Pathans—"a people very much feared in these parts," as no doubt they were with cause, for they are amongst the fiercest of the wild races of the Indian frontier.

A strong guard was a necessity of the journey in the then state of India. Hawkins' route in part lay through a wild country which was the home of intractable tribes who subsist largely on plunder. Moreover, a veiled state of war existed in some districts in which the sovereignty of the Mogul power was not fully accepted. But Hawkins appears to have been concerned not so much about these ordinary perils of the road as with the enmity of the Portuguese. Rightly or wrongly he supposed that emissaries of the Goa government were awaiting the opportunity of his journey to assassinate him. An actual plot was laid to overwhelm his party with a force of three hundred native horsemen under a chief who had been employed for