They had come back to cantonments again and were rapidly overtaking the now empty tumbrils going home, for the parade was over. Further down the road, raising a cloud of dust from their shackled feet, the eighty-five were being marched jailward under a native escort.
"Well," said the civilian dryly, "I would give a great deal to know what those simple babes really thought of us."
"Hate us stock and block for the time. I should," replied Jim Douglas. They were passing the tumbrils at the moment, and one of the guard, in sergeant's uniform, looked up in joyful recognition.
"Huzoor It is I, Soma."
The civilian looked at his companion oddly when, after a minute or two spent in answering Soma's inquiries as to where and how the master was to be found, Jim Douglas rode alongside once more.
"Out a bit, eh?" he said dryly.
"Very much out; but they are a queer lot. Do you remember the story of the self-made American who was told his boast relieved the Almighty of a great responsibility? Well, he is only responsible for one-half of the twice-born. The other is due to humanity, to heredity, what you will! That is what makes these high-caste men so difficult to deal with. They are twice born. Yes! they are a queer lot."
He repeated the remark with even greater fervor twelve hours later, when, about midnight, he started on his return ride to Delhi. For though he had spent the whole day in listening, he had scarcely heard a word of blame for the scene which had roused him to wrath that morning. The sepoys had gone about their duties as if nothing had happened; and despite the undoubted presence of a lot of loose characters in the bazaar, there had been no disturbance. He laughed cynically to himself at the waste of a day which would have been better spent in horse dealing. This, however, settled it. If this intolerable tyranny failed to rouse action there could be no immediate danger ahead. To a big cantonment like Meerut, the biggest in Northern India, with two thousand British troops in it, even the prospect of a rising was not serious; at Delhi, however, where there were only native troops, it might have been different. But now he felt that a handful of resolute men ought to be able to hold their own anywhere against such aimless invertebrate discontent. He felt a vague disappointment that it should be so, that the pleasant cool of night should be so quiet, so peaceful. They were a poor lot who could do nothing but talk!
As he rode through the station the mess-houses were still alight, and the gay voices of the guests who had been dining at a large bungalow, bowered in gardens, reached his ears distinctly.
"It's the Sabbath already," said one. "Ought to be in our beds!"