"Indeed!"
"Yes; and if I had caught him, how changed would have been the whole face of affairs in this country!"
"How so?"
"This gentleman was the contractor for the British army; and, if I had got hold of him, the army could not have been supplied."
"But why was he worth more alive than dead?" I asked, with a laugh, in which the native gentleman heartily joined.
"Because," returned the Rajah, coolly, "if we had secured him alive we would have made him feed us with the supplies bought with his own money; which should also have paid the reward for his capture. This, by the way, was claimed by several who brought in heads, alleging that each was the head of the Lallah the contractor; but the attempted imposition was discovered, and the perpetrators were themselves decapitated."
Unlike Hindoos and Mussulmans, who drink in secret, Lall Singh drank neat brandy openly; and, rising from his chair, he administered unto himself a couple of glasses—or rather a tumbler half-filled—on this occasion. He could take more than two bottles of brandy without being in the least intoxicated. This was owing, of course, to the circumstance that he consumed considerable quantities of bhang; just in the same way that an opium-eater is rarely or never affected by drinking deeply of wine.
The Rajah's visitor, the Lallah Jooteepersâd, had a grievance, and a rather substantial one. He had claimed from the Government fifty-seven lacs of rupees (half a million and seventy-thousand pounds sterling) as the balance due to him for feeding the armies employed during the two Seik campaigns; and the Government had threatened to prosecute him, in one of their own courts, for an attempt to make an overcharge of forty thousand rupees, or four thousand pounds.
"And if they understand the principles of good government thoroughly," said the Rajah, "they will convict you, imprison you for life, and confiscate all your possessions, real and personal. That is the way the Lahore Durbar would have settled so large a claim. But the Indian Government has not the courage to act in that way."
"But I have not attempted to make an overcharge; and if my agents have done so, let it be deducted, if it be incorrect," said the Lallah.