With anyone else Jim Douglas might have refused this cool demand, for it was little else, that he should defend his statement against a man who in himself was a refutation of it, who was a type of the most reckless, dare-devil courage and dash; but the thought of that umpire, ready to give an overwhelming thrust at any time, roused his temper and pugnacity.
"I'm not conscious of being in one myself," said the Major, turning with a swing and a brief "How do, Douglas." He was the most martial of figures in the last-developed uniform of the Flamingoes, or the Ring-tailed Roarers, or the Aloo Bokhâra's, as Hodson's levies were called indiscriminately during their lengthy process of dress evolution. "And what is more, I don't understand what you mean, sir!"
"General Nicholson does, I think," replied the other. "But I will go further than I did, sir," he added, facing the General boldly: "I only said that the natives thought we were in a blind funk. I now assert that they had a right to say so. We never stirred hand or foot for a whole month."
"Oh! I give you in Meerut," interrupted Hodson hastily. "It was pitiable. Our leaders lost their heads."
"Not only our leaders. We all lost them. From that moment to this it seems to me we have never been calm."
"Calm!" echoed Hodson disdainfully. "Who wants to be calm? Who would be calm with those massacred women and children to avenge."
"Exactly so. The horrors of those ghastly murders got on our nerves, and no wonder. We exaggerated the position from the first; we exaggerate the dangers of it now."
"Of taking Delhi, you mean?" interrupted Nicholson dryly.
Jim Douglas smiled. "No, sir! Even you will find that difficult. I meant the ultimate danger to our rule----"
"There you mistake utterly," put in Hodson magnificently. "We mean to win--we admit no danger. There isn't an Englishman, or, thank Heaven, an Englishwoman----"