“Confound the meddling scoundrel!” he said to himself, as he surprised the horse with a sharp cut of the whip. “Just when things were going on as I wished. I had quite set my mind on it, and though I am sure Bathurst would never have spoken to her till he had told her himself about that unfortunate failing of his, it would have been altogether different coming from his own lips just as he told it to me. Of course, my lips were sealed and I could not put the case in the right light. I would give three months' pay for the satisfaction of horsewhipping that fellow Forster. Still, I can't say he did it maliciously, for he could not have known Bathurst was intimate there, or that there was anything between them. The question is, am I to tell Bathurst that she has heard about it? I suppose I had better. Ah, here is the Major,” and he drew up his horse.
“Anything new, Major? You look put out.”
“Yes, there is very bad news, Doctor. A Sowar has just brought a letter to me from the Colonel saying that the General has got a telegram that the 19th Native Infantry at Berhampore have refused to use the cartridges served out to them, and that yesterday a Sepoy of the 34th at Barrackpore raised seditious cries in front of the lines, and when Baugh, the adjutant, and the sergeant major attempted to seize him he wounded them both, while the regiment stood by and refused to aid them. The 19th are to be disbanded, and no doubt the 34th will be, too.”
“That is bad news indeed, Major, and looks as if this talk about general disaffection were true. Had there been trouble but at one station it might have been the effect of some local grievance, but happening at two places, it looks as if it were part of a general plot. Well, we must hope it will go no farther.”
“It is very bad,” said the Major, “but at any rate we may hope we shall have no troubles here; the regiment has always behaved well, and I am sure they have no reason to complain of their treatment. If the Colonel has a fault, it is that of over leniency with the men.”
“That is so,” the Doctor agreed; “but the fact is, Major, we know really very little about the Hindoo mind. We can say with some sort of certainty what Europeans will do under given circumstances, but though I know the natives, I think, pretty nearly as well as most men, I feel that I really know nothing about them. They appear mild and submissive, and have certainly proved faithful on a hundred battlefields, but we don't know whether that is their real character. Their own history, before we stepped in and altered its current, shows them as faithless, bloodthirsty and cruel; whether they have changed their nature under our rule, or simply disguised it, Heaven only knows.”
“At any rate,” the Major said, “they have always shown themselves attached to their English officers. There are numberless instances where they have displayed the utmost devotion for them, and although some scheming intriguers may have sown the seeds of discontent among them, and these lies about the cartridges may have excited their religious prejudices, and may even lead them to mutiny, I cannot believe for an instant that the Sepoys will lift their hands against their officers.”
“I hope not,” the Doctor said gravely. “A tiger's cub, when tamed, is one of the prettiest of playthings, but when it once tastes blood it is as savage a beast as its mother was before it. Of course, I hope for the best, but if the Sepoys once break loose I would not answer for anything they might do. They have been pretty well spoilt, Major, till they have come to believe that it is they who conquered India and not we.”