Jim Douglas looked at them for a moment, returned the salaam of the men driving the oxen and forking the straw, then turned his horse toward the cantonment again.
"It is nothing to them; that's one comfort," he said. "But they will have to suffer for it in the end, I expect. Who will believe when the time comes that this"--he gave a backward wave of his hand--"went on unwittingly of that?"
His companion, following his look ahead, to where, in the far distance, a faint cloud of dust, telling of many feet, hung on the horizon, said suddenly, as if the sight brought remembrance: "By George! Douglas, how steady the sepoys stood! I half expected a row."
"Steadier than I should," remarked the other grimly. "Well, I hope Smyth is satisfied. To return from leave and drive your regiment into mutiny in twelve hours is a record performance."
His hearer, who was a civilian, gave a deprecating cough. "That's a bit hard, surely. I happen to know that he heard while on leave some story about a concerted rising later on. He may have done it purposely, to force their hands."
Jim Douglas shrugged his shoulders. "Did he warn you what he was about to do? Did he allow time to prepare others for his private mutiny? My dear Ridgeway, it was put on official record two months ago that an organized scheme for resistance existed in every regiment between Calcutta and Peshawur; so Smyth might at least have consulted the colonels of the other two regiments at Meerut. As it is, the business has strained the loyalty of the most loyal to the uttermost; and we deserve to suffer, we do indeed."
"You don't mince matters, certainly," said the civilian dryly.
"Why should anybody mince them? Why can't we admit boldly--the C.-in-C. did it on the sly the other day--that the cartridges are suspicious? that they leave the muzzle covered with a fat, like tallow? Why don't we admit it was tallow at first. Why not, at any rate, admit we are in a hole, instead of refusing to take the common precaution of having an ammunition wagon loaded up for fear it should be misconstrued into alarm? Is there no medium between bribing children with lollipops and torturing them--keeping them on the strain, under fire, as it were, for hours, watching their best friends punished unjustly?"
"Unjustly?"
"Yes. To their minds unjustly. And you know what forcible injustice means to children--and these are really children--simple, ignorant, obstinate."