“Surely you young people have not been quarrelling,” Harper remarked, as he threw himself into a seat, and offered his friend a cigar.
“Oh dear no; but Flo has got an idea into her little head that the natives are going to rise en masse, and massacre us all.”
“By Jove, they will have tough work, then,” laughs the lieutenant. “They had an example this morning of what we can do. If there had been the slightest sign of insubordination on the parade, we should have mowed them down with grape and canister.”
“Don’t talk quite so loud, Master Charlie,” his wife remarked. “There are two of the bearers at the end of the verandah, and they seem to be listening.”
“All the better, my dear. Nothing like impressing these black wretches with a sense of our superiority. What say you, Walter?”
“Well it depends a great deal upon what we consider ourselves superior in.”
“Superior in!” exclaimed his friend. “Surely you are not going to estimate your countrymen so low as to suppose for a moment that we could be inferior to the natives in any one respect.”
“I am not quite clear on that point,” answered Gordon, thoughtfully. “I think that the great error of the English has been in treating the natives as if they were not possessed of common intelligence. Depend upon it, it is a mistaken policy, which we shall some day rue.”
“Nonsense, old fellow. You are a greenhorn yet in the country, and in a very short time these sentimental ideas will be knocked out of you. There is no doubt that the canaille of India is bitter against us, but the upper classes are loyal to the backbone—take Dhoondu Pdnt as an example.”
“You mean the man who is known as Nana Sahib of Bhitoor?”