“Rubbish! Don’t be impatient. A soldier can’t learn his duties in a month; and when he has learned them, it requires incessant practice to keep up to the mark; and will need,” he continued sadly, “to work hard; and, by the way, pay all the attention you can to your sword practice and fencing. I would not miss any of the pistol practice either.”
I looked at him curiously, for there seemed to be a meaning underlying his words.
“You need not worry about the riding-school; you can’t help getting on well in that. What are you looking at?”
“You don’t think there is going to be war, do you?”
“I think a soldier ought always to be ready in case there is,” he replied evasively.
“Yes; but not war out here. You don’t think Russia means—”
“Hallo! Who has been talking to you about Russia? No, Vincent, my boy, I do not; but I should not be surprised if we have a bit of trouble in one of the provinces before long. I hope not; but we are always having a little affair with some native prince. However, if we do, it may not affect us. Our troop may be a thousand miles away. India is a big place.”
“Yes, and isn’t it wonderful that so few Englishmen should keep so many millions of the natives in subjection?”
“In some respects, yes, my lad; in others, no. The great power comes from the fact that India embraces many nations who do not all think alike, neither are they of the same religion; and hence if we had trouble with one nation, the possibility is that we could bring some of the others to fight upon our side. But matters are not as they should be, Vincent; and I cannot help having forebodings now and then. We do not treat the people as we should. There is a little too much of the iron heel of the despot on their necks.”
I thought of Barton’s treatment of the syce, and of many similar incidents wherever I had been since I came out, and then forgot every one but the fact that the post had come in, and with it a letter from my father, enclosing two others from my mother and sister.