The reign of the second rajah was no less fortunate than that of the first, while his wealth, which was drawn from other than Indian sources, continued to increase.
His life, as we know, was cut short by an assassin, a man from a neighbouring State, who translated into this violent deed the jealousy felt by many of the outlying peoples of the prosperity attained by Gumilcund under those who were spoken of far and near as her foreign rulers.
To the immediate friends and followers of the rajah his death was a terrible blow. They honoured him as a master: they loved him as a friend: they had been looking forward to the wonderful things which he would do in the future, and, in him, all their hopes were crushed; but, so far as the State was concerned, his work was done. Any one of the wise men he had been training could have governed it now, for every one within its borders was aware of the exceptional advantages of their position. And in fact, there existed at that time in Gumilcund such a social order as was scarcely to be found elsewhere. The State was prosperous, for all its resources had been wisely developed, and this prosperity was felt in every corner. There was no seamy side in Gumilcund. The back slums and dismal alleys that lie hidden in the centre of our own great Western towns were not to be found in its bright little capital. Idleness and beggary did not thrive in its streets, and they had long ago departed to find a home elsewhere. There were no intoxicants, and therefore there was little crime. Everyone who chose to work could find work to do; so, although there were inequalities of condition, there was no grinding poverty. Oppressive acts of any kind being promptly discovered and punished, the people had become tired of practising them. The women, too, were freer than in other parts of India, for although here, as elsewhere, they were shrouded in the graceful saree, they could move about the city at their pleasure. Taking it altogether, the State presented a curious example of what can be done by one-man government, when the people are pliable and the rulers wise and enlightened.
Of course such results could never have been reached had it not been for the tranquillity which the power of the British name, and the authority of her rulers, had given the district. In former days the very prosperity and quietness of the little State would have attracted towards it the hostility of its neighbours, which, indeed, the disastrous death of the late rajah proved. He had never been slow to recognize his obligation to the Paramount Power and to impress it upon his people; and this, combined it may be with the circumstance that the English had never been their actual rulers, but often their guests, was the cause of the love, amounting, in many cases, to reverence, with which English men and women were regarded in the city and territory of Gumilcund.
The sympathy was mutual. Little Gumilcund was tenderly regarded by the English. Even Lord Dalhousie, the great annexer, when the rajah wrote to him, that, being without heirs he had adopted a son, who, with the permission of the Governor-General, would succeed him, could not find it in his heart to decree the separation of Gumilcund from her native rulers. Had he known that the heir was, to all intents and purposes, an Englishman, the decision might have been different; but the rajah, in his letter, had given Tom the title which he would assume were his heirship to the estate recognised, stating that he was being trained and educated in England, and it was allowed to remain an open question. Under the English Resident the rajah's heir should govern the State, and if his rule proved as beneficent as that of his predecessors, his title would be confirmed.—If, on the other hand, he acted as so many young rajahs had done when they came to the supreme power, the rule would be taken from him and vested in an English Governor. So the Governor-General decreed, and then, having weightier matters to dispose of, he dismissed Gumilcund from his mind. Little could he have imagined that, in days to come, it would prove a bulwark of the dominion, which he had taken so much pains to build up, and a refuge, sorely needed for his distressed fellow-country people, in the midst of a hostile rebellious continent.
Returning from this digression, which was necessary if we would understand the position of the little State, the government of which our venturous young Englishman had come over to assume, I must briefly follow his further movements. He marched on quietly, for there was nothing to indicate that the convulsion which his friends had predicted was close at hand, and though he wished to reach Gumilcund, he was not in the least impatient.
Day after day, in this smiling tract of country, the same prospect met him. There were fields of green paddy and rustling sugar-cane, and sheets of feathery dal, with which the large blue-green leaves of the castor-oil plant contrasted curiously; and, interspersed with these, were tracts of marsh and jungle, and a few pleasant groves of mango and neem. April had opened. The heat was terrible in the day-time; but it was a dry heat, and Tom stood it marvellously well. For the most part they travelled at night or very early in the morning. During the forenoon, and in the awful noontide, their camp would be pitched either under a huge banyan tree by the wayside—whose dry, thirsty roots were hanging down raggedly to seek the soil, while its glorious over-canopy of leafage made a shelter from the sweltering sunlight—or in a grove on the outskirts of a village or town. Sometimes he slept, but oftener he thought and listened. How silent it was in these noontide hours! Now and then he would catch a rustle as a lizard or snake crept through the dry grass, or there would be a flutter overhead, where the little wild birds—parroquets and mynas—sought a precarious shelter, or a scream when some bird of prey swooped down upon them. But for the most part, even the vultures and the hawks, and the hideous flying-foxes, that hung in uncouth bags from the trees, were quiet. Man, meanwhile, was at peace, having no energy even for labour. Through the woods came no ring of hammer or axe: the tramp of the wanderer had ceased along the road, and long, swathed figures, motionless as the sheeted dead, lay under the trees and in the shadow of walls and houses. The whole earth lay weltering in a fiery bath. With the drawing on of evening there would be movement. Flocks of parroquets would rush out of the tree-tops screaming discordantly: birds of prey would prune their wings and set off slowly, with harsh cries, in search of food; and the confused murmur of a restless humanity would begin again.
Then the rajah's heir would emerge from his shelter, and, while his tent was being taken down, and his camels laden, would stroll into the nearest village. There he would often take his seat on the chiboutra, under a spreading tree, where the talkers met together to discuss, over their hookahs, such important matters as the price of grain and cattle. They welcomed him with the grave courtesy of Indians; but whether they spoke freely in his presence he could not tell. Except in one or two cases, when a Hindoo priest or a Moulvie from a distance had visited the district, he heard nothing which could lead him to suppose that there was any widespread spirit of disaffection, while English magistrates were often spoken of in his presence with a respect bordering on adoration. So he went on towards Gumilcund with an easier mind.