Part 31 (1/2)

”My mother reproaches me as a degenerate son of my father, and sides with the Brahmins, who hate me and my rule.”

”Because you wish to improve your people,” said Hulton.

”Exactly. And because I wish to be friends with the Company, and march with the times. She wishes to do what my father would have done, she tells me--oppose the advance of the Company and help to drive them back into the sea, and go back to the old days of tyranny, superst.i.tion, and vice.”

”Which would be folly. She cannot have any idea of the British power.”

”She is a woman,” said the Rajah sadly--”one of our women, brought up in ignorance and seclusion. Help to drive the English into the sea! It is absurd.”

”Yes,” said Hulton; ”absurd. As the enemy of the Company, the result would be that your raj would be lost. As the Company's friend, you will always reign and your country will progress.”

”All this I know,” said the Rajah; ”but, as I told you, my mother sides with the Brahmins, who feel that under the new order of things they will lose their horrible, tyrannical hold upon the common people, and keep them in ignorance and slavery no longer.”

”And what about the Rajah of Singh?”

”I fear it is by the invitation of people near me that he has declared war. It is hard, when one tries for the good, to find enemies springing up on all sides.”

”And friends too,” said Hulton.

”Yes,” said the Rajah, smiling, ”and brave friends. Yesterday I was in despair, for I thought the help I had asked from the Company would never come. Now I live again, and am content.”

”Is the Rajah of Singh very strong?”

”Just about as strong as I should be were all here faithful to me; but there are so many that I cannot trust. With you here, though, I feel his equal.”

”I'm afraid,” said Hulton quietly, ”that the Rajah, your enemy, will lose his possessions, for in declaring war against you he has declared war against the Company; and if we are not enough to defeat him, more and more will be sent until the task is done.”

”You make me live again,” said the Rajah excitedly. ”I always felt that the English would see justice done, and it would be an injustice for another to take the country I inherited from my fathers.”

”Certainly it would, and you have nothing to fear, sir.”

”You will not be offended if I speak and say something that is in my mind?”

”Of course not, sir. What is it?”

”I thought the number of troops my English friends have sent were very few.”

”Yes, but they are highly-trained men, sir; and there are the guns. But I understood, on leaving Roumwallah, that more troops with heavier guns were to follow.”

”It is good,” said the Rajah, smiling with satisfaction.

Then coffee and pipes were brought, in which Hulton and the Rajah indulged; and in good time the elephant was brought round, and, after many expressions of friends.h.i.+p on the part of the Rajah, his guests returned to the old palace which had been turned into a barrack for the time.

”Well,” said Wyatt before d.i.c.k retired for the night, ”how are you, O festive one?”

”Tired out, and want to go to sleep,” said d.i.c.k, yawning.

”Oh, come! none of that nonsense,” cried Wyatt. ”Here have you been feasting on cake and wine, drinking sublime coffee, and smoking rose-water hubble-bubbles, while I have been hard at work, shaking the men down into their quarters, and giving orders about the stowing of the baggage; and now, when I want to hear a little about your sports and pastimes, what's what, and the rest of it, you yawn in my face and want to go to sleep.”

”Can't help it.”