“It is impossible, I tell you.”
“There is no such thing in a case like this, man,” cried Murray, angrily. “Have you not thought of what I feel?”
“Sir,” retorted Mr Braine, bitterly, “have you not thought of what I feel?”
“Forgive me,” said Murray, humbly. “I am half mad with rage and excitement. But, for pity’s sake, propose something upon which I can act. If I could be doing something, I could bear it better.”
“I can propose nothing,” said Mr Braine, sadly. “We are so surrounded by difficulties, so hedged in by danger, that we cannot stir. You must remember that any premature action on our part might hasten the catastrophe we want to avert.”
“But he would not dare—”
“Murray!” replied Mr Braine, with energy, as they stood there in the intense darkness, the speaker conscious that several of the rajah’s spearmen were close at hand, “he would dare anything in his blind belief that he is too powerful for the English government to attack him.”
“Then he must be taught.”
“And I,” continued Mr Braine, as if not hearing the interruption, “have been for years doing what seems now to recoil on my unhappy head, strengthening his belief in himself by training his people for him, and turning savages into decent, well-drilled soldiers, who have made him the dread of the country for hundreds of miles round.”
“Come on and tell Doctor Barnes,” said Murray at last, and they hurried back, almost brushing against two sentries standing among the trees, men who followed them silently, and then paused as they entered the gates, where they were joined by three more, looking shadowy and strange by the fireflies’ light.