In 1810 two army officers of the East India Company, Captain Charles Christie and Lieutenant Henry Pottinger disguised as Tartar horse-dealers for a Hindu merchant, anchored near the village of Sonmiani in Sindh. Their mission, prompted by fear of invasion of British Indian territories by European powers, was to survey the previously unknown area of Baluchistan and research the possibility of European armies passing through the lands that lay beyond Persia. It is against this background that the story unfolds.