"You mean——" asked Roy, his numbed interest faintly astir, "that it was to have been part of the same game as the trouble down there?"
"God has given me ears—and wits, Hazúr," was the cautious answer. "That would be pukka bundobast,[38] for war and trouble to come at one stroke in the hot season, when so many of the white soldier-lóg are in the Hills. Does your Honour suppose that merely by chance the Amir read in his paper of riots in India, and said in his heart, 'Wah! Now is the time for lighting little fires along the Border'?"
"N-no—I don't suppose——"
"Does your Honour suppose Hindus and Moslems—outside a highly educated few—are truly falling on each other's necks, without one thought of political motive?"
"No, my friend—I do not suppose."
"Yet these things are said openly among our people: and too few, now, have courage to speak their thought. For it is the loyal who suffer—shurrum ki bhát![39] Is it surprising, Hazúr, if we, who distrust this new madness, begin to ask ourselves, 'Has the British Raj lost the will—or the power—of former days to protect friends and smite enemies'? If the noisy few clamouring for Swaráj make India once more a battlefield, your people can go. We Sikhs must remain, with Pathans and Afghans—as of old—hammering at our doors——"
At sight of the young Englishman's pained frown, he checked his expansive mood. "To the Sahib I can freely speak the thoughts of my heart; but this is not talk to make a sick man well. God is merciful. Before all is lost—the British Raj may yet arise with power, as in the great days...."
But his talk, if unpalatable, was more tonic than he knew; because Roy's love for India went deeper than he knew. The justice of Jiwán Singh's reproach; the hint at tragic severance of the two countries mingled within him, waked him effectually from semi-torpor; and the process was as painful as the tingling renewal of life in a frozen limb. By timely courage, on the spot, the threat to India had been staved off: but it was there still—sinister, unsleeping, virtually unchecked.
'Scotched—not killed.' The voice of Lance sounded too clearly in Roy's brain; and the more intimate pain, deadened a little by illness, struck at his heart like a sword....