'The strongest would come to the front,' said Tom.
'The strongest, yes; and think of the sea of bloodshed and misery through which we should have to wade before that was proved. They know it very well, these preachers. I caught one, a Moulvie of great sanctity, preaching rebellion to my soldiers. Before I sent him to Yama I asked him this question: who is to govern us all, I said, when the English have gone? I asked it in the presence of the poor fools he had been trying to delude. If he could answer me I said I would spare him. There were three different religions amongst them, and he knew that if he pronounced for one the votaries of the other would tear him to pieces. So he stood dumb and was led away to death. No,' said the Dewan, 'however it may be in the future, those amongst us who are wise know that for the present the Paramount Power is needed. We may regret the necessity; but we should feel gratitude rather than aversion towards the strong hand that, by compelling our mutual animosities to be still, gives us time for such internal development as can alone make us great and prosperous. That at least is our attitude, and my master will maintain it—of this I am certain. Yes, even if his own soldiers desert him.'
In after days, when Sindia and his State were put to the test, Tom remembered those brave words well.
He paid one more important visit before going on to Gumilcund. It was to Jhansi, a little state and town lying to the south of Gwalior, which was one of the kingdoms, tributary now to the English, formed out of the ruins of the Peishwa's dominion after the Mahratta War. The late rajah was the last representative of the reigning family. His widow survived him. She was beautiful, talented, and strong. Her energy and ambition, held all her life long in reserve, were ready to leap forth when the moment for their exercise should come. She would govern the state—she a woman, and govern it as none of the voluptuaries who preceded her had done!
Her dream was destined to disappointment. The petition which she presented to the Paramount Power praying for the succession, first to herself and after her to her adopted son, was rejected. But the Government of India would not be unjust. A pension should be allotted to the widow of the rajah, and she should be permitted to reside in her own palace at Jhansi.
The Ranee gnashed her teeth. Had Jhansi been strong and rich she would have flung the Governor-General's pension in his face, and dared him to do his worst. As it was she bided her time. Yearning for vengeance with the fierce, concentrated passion of the strong in mind and helpless in body, she sat at home, brooding over her wrongs, but doing nothing. Her guaranteed income, so petty to her magnificence, was, in the course of time, reduced. The late rajah had left debts. The present governor refused to settle them. The Ranee stated, mildly enough, her inability to pay, and the governor of the province decreed that her pension should be mulcted of a certain yearly sum until the amount due from the late rajah's estate had been paid. And still the Ranee said nothing. Being too weak to rebel, she was too proud to murmur. But the sore in her spirit grew. Sitting with bowed head in the retirement of her palace, she heard of the worship in Hindoo temples being stopped for lack of funds, of priests and Brahmins wandering homeless through the land, and of kine being slaughtered in the very heart of the stainless city; but still she made no sign. Then, at last, the year of prophecy, with its strange portents, dawned. Flat cakes, the sacrament of union in life and in death, were carried from village to village. From one to another, through the crowded bazaars and markets, and into the temples defrauded of their gains, there flew a mysterious whisper of impending change. It penetrated to the palace where the Ranee sat, nursing her vengeance, and with a rapture, such as she had never hoped to know, her darkened spirit leapt to meet it. Destruction—death—torrents of blood—a great dominion established on strength and cemented by terror, passing away for ever. What could it mean but that the hour for which she had so long and so hopelessly craved had come? And now the Ranee put on a smiling face. She welcomed the English to her palace, and entertained them royally. 'We must bow to the will of the Supreme,' she said, when one and another expressed surprise at her changed attitude. She would even confer gravely with the English authorities on the emergencies of the time, and recommend measures for their security. But all the time she was adding to her bodyguard, and secretly drawing the discontented about her, and exercising her magnetic power of fascination on the troops.
Such was the state of Jhansi when the rajah's heir came knocking at the Ranee's door.
She had heard of his probable accession, and of his progress through Central India, and she was exceedingly anxious to see him; as soon, therefore, as he gave in his name he was admitted.
It was evening, the Ranee's reception-hour. This the captain of her lately enrolled bodyguard, a man of splendid stature and dull, forbidding face, told the visitor. Following him, he wound his way through some narrow passages, until a heavy curtain before a closed door pulled them up. The captain threw the curtain aside and opened the door, and a curious spectacle presented itself to Tom. He was in a large hall, paved and lined with marble, and lighted by beautiful perforated windows, through which streamed softly the golden light of evening. It fell on a motley crowd, barefooted and dressed in every variety of Eastern costume.
To Tom's eyes, dazzled by the sudden change, there seemed to be nothing but a confusion of swaying forms and faded colours. Halting for a moment to recover himself, he saw that the crowd which was spread thinly over the hall concentrated at its upper end. Thither his conductor led him, the throng parting right and left to allow him free passage. In front of him was a marble daïs, raised a few steps above the level of the hall. To this he lifted his eyes and found himself in the immediate presence of a woman of queenly figure. It was the Ranee. He thought, as he looked at her, that he had never seen a finer sight. None, indeed, knew better than the Ranee of Jhansi the effect of the senses upon the imagination; no one has ever been more skilful in use of the arts by which such influence as she desired was won.