The usurer's boys, it is true, forced the utmost from the land, and sent all save bare sustenance across the seas; but the home guided by Jaimul's unswerving hand was gone, the Târadevi's tribe of budding soldiers drifted away to learn the lawlessness born of change. Perhaps the yellow English gold which came into the country in return for the red Indian wheat more than paid for these trivial losses. Perhaps it did not. That is a question which the next Mutiny must settle.
[FOR THE FAITH.]
I.
An old man dreaming of a past day and night as he sat waiting, and these were his dreams.
* * * * *
Darkness, save for the light of the stars in the sky and the flare of blazing roof-trees on earth. Two shadowy figures out in the open, and through the parched silence of the May night a man's voice feeble, yet strenuous in appeal.
"Dhurm Singh?"
"Huzoor!"
The kneeling figure bent closer over the other, waiting.
"The mem sahiba, Dhurm Singh."