Chapter XXIV.
Friends and Enemies.
“All right, Dick, my boy; but I don’t believe it.”
“But I tell you the Wazir was as civil as could be, and went out of his way to explain to me that he felt now that he had been in the wrong; that he had heard such reports about our confiscating different territories that, as an old servant of the queen-mother, he felt bound to oppose our coming.”
“Well,” said Wyatt, “I’ll give him credit for that; he did oppose us most thoroughly.”
“But,” continued Dick, “he says he sees clearly now how wrong he was in his judgment, and that he intends to do everything he can to assist the Rajah in his efforts to be friendly to the Company.”
“Wise man,” said Wyatt, laughing. “He began to feel that his head was getting shaky.”
“Then you believe in him now?”
“Yes, to be a cunning old sham, Dick, whom I would not trust in the slightest degree. There’s a nice—triumvirate don’t you call it?—the queen, or begum, or whatever she calls herself; that old Brahmin high-priest fellow, Ganga Ree; and the Wazir. They hate us like poison, and if they can get the people to rise against us and kill us, you may depend upon it they will.”
“I’m afraid some of this is prejudice,” said Dick gravely, “for I can quite understand these people disliking us as strangers who, as they thought, meant to seize the country. But, as the Wazir says, they know better now.”