The stern, black-bearded kings who sit about the Council-board of India divided on the step, with the inevitable result of driving the Very Greatest of All the Viceroys into the borders of hysteria, and a bewildered obstinacy pathetic as that of a child.
“The principle is sound enough,” said the weary-eyed Head of the Red Provinces in which Kot-Kumharsen lay, for he too held theories. “The only difficulty is——”
“Put the screw on the District officials; brigade Dé with a very strong Deputy Commissioner on each side of him; give him the best assistant in the Province; rub the fear of God into the people beforehand; and if anything goes wrong, say that his colleagues didn’t back him up. All these lovely little experiments recoil on the District-Officer in the end,” said the Knight of the Drawn Sword with a truthful brutality that made the Head of the Red Provinces shudder. And on a tacit understanding of this kind the transfer was accomplished, as quietly as might be for many reasons.
It is sad to think that what goes for public opinion in India did not generally see the wisdom of the Viceroy’s appointment. There were not lacking indeed hireling organs, notoriously in the pay of a tyrannous bureaucracy, who more than hinted that His Excellency was a fool, a dreamer of dreams, a doctrinaire, and, worst of all, a trifler with the lives of men. “The Viceroy’s Excellence Gazette,” published in Calcutta, was at pains to thank “Our beloved Viceroy for once more and again thus gloriously vindicating the potentialities of the Bengali nations for extended executive and administrative duties in foreign parts beyond our ken. We do not at all doubt that our excellent fellow-townsman, Mr. Grish Chunder Dé, Esq., M. A., will uphold the prestige of the Bengali, notwithstanding what underhand intrigue and peshbundi may be set on foot to insidiously nip his fame and blast his prospects among the proud civilians, some of which will now have to serve under a despised native and take orders too. How will you like that, Misters? We entreat our beloved Viceroy still to substantiate himself superiorly to race-prejudice and colour-blindness, and to allow the flower of this now our Civil Service all the full pays and allowances granted to his more fortunate brethren.”
III
“When does this man take over charge? I’m alone just now, and I gather that I’m to stand fast under him.”
“Would you have cared for a transfer?” said Bullows keenly. Then, laying his hand on Tallantire’s shoulder: “We’re all in the same boat; don’t desert us. And yet, why the devil should you stay, if you can get another charge?”
“It was Orde’s,” said Tallantire simply.
“Well, it’s Dé’s now. He’s a Bengali of the Bengalis, crammed with code and case law; a beautiful man so far as routine and deskwork go, and pleasant to talk to. They naturally have always kept him in his own home district, where all his sisters and his cousins and his aunts lived, somewhere south of Dacca. He did no more than turn the place into a pleasant little family preserve, allowed his subordinates to do what they liked, and let everybody have a chance at the shekels. Consequently he’s immensely popular down there.”
“I’ve nothing to do with that. How on earth am I to explain to the district that they are going to be governed by a Bengali? Do you—does the Government, I mean—suppose that the Khusru Kheyl will sit quiet when they once know? What will the Mahomedan heads of villages say? How will the police—Muzbi Sikhs and Pathans—how will they work under him? We couldn’t say anything if the Government appointed a sweeper; but my people will say a good deal, you know that. It’s a piece of cruel folly!”