And a moment later Tallantire heard Debendra Nath Dé, who brotherliwise had followed his kinsman’s fortune and hoped for the shadow of his protection as a pleader, whisper in Bengali, “Better are dried fish at Dacca than drawn swords at Delhi. Brother of mine, these men are devils, as our mother said. And you will always have to ride upon a horse!”
That night there was a public audience in a broken-down little town thirty miles from Jumala, when the new Deputy Commissioner, in reply to the greetings of the subordinate native officials, delivered a speech. It was a carefully thought out speech, which would have been very valuable had not his third sentence begun with three innocent words, “Hamara hookum hai—It is my order.” Then there was a laugh, clear and bell-like, from the back of the big tent, where a few border landholders sat, and the laugh grew and scorn mingled with it, and the lean, keen face of Debendra Nath Dé paled, and Grish Chunder, turning to Tallantire, spake: “You—you put up this arrangement.” Upon that instant the noise of hoofs rang without, and there entered Curbar, the District Superintendent of Police, sweating and dusty. The State had tossed him into a corner of the province for seventeen weary years, there to check smuggling of salt, and to hope for promotion that never came. He had forgotten how to keep his white uniform clean, had screwed rusty spurs into patent-leather shoes, and clothed his head indifferently with a helmet or a turban. Soured, old, worn with heat and cold, he waited till he should be entitled to sufficient pension to keep him from starving.
“Tallantire,” said he, disregarding Grish Chunder Dé, “come outside. I want to speak to you.” They withdrew. “It’s this,” continued Curbar. “The Khusru Kheyl have rushed and cut up half a dozen of the coolies on Ferris’s new canal-embankment; killed a couple of men and carried off a woman. I wouldn’t trouble you about that—Ferris is after them and Hugonin, my assistant, with ten mounted police. But that’s only the beginning, I fancy. Their fires are out on the Hassan Ardeb heights, and unless we’re pretty quick there’ll be a flare-up all along our Border. They are sure to raid the four Khusru villages on our side of the line; there’s been bad blood between them for years; and you know the Blind Mullah has been preaching a holy war since Orde went out. What’s your notion?”
“Damn!” said Tallantire thoughtfully. “They’ve begun quick. Well, it seems to me I’d better ride off to Fort Ziar and get what men I can there to picket among the lowland villages, if it’s not too late. Tommy Dodd commands at Fort Ziar, I think. Ferris and Hugonin ought to teach the canal-thieves a lesson, and——No, we can’t have the Head of the Police ostentatiously guarding the Treasury. You go back to the canal. I’ll wire Bullows to come into Jumala with a strong police-guard, and sit on the Treasury. They won’t touch the place, but it looks well.”
“I—I—I insist upon knowing what this means,” said the voice of the Deputy Commissioner, who had followed the speakers.
“Oh!” said Curbar, who, being in the Police, could not understand that fifteen years of education must, on principle, change the Bengali into a Briton. “There has been a fight on the Border, and heaps of men are killed. There’s going to be another fight, and heaps more will be killed.”
“What for?”
“Because the teeming millions of this district don’t exactly approve of you, and think that under your benign rule they are going to have a good time. It strikes me that you had better make arrangements. I act, as you know, by your orders. What do you advise?”
“I—I take you all to witness that I have not yet assumed charge of the district,” stammered the Deputy Commissioner, not in the tones of the “more English.”
“Ah, I thought so. Well, as I was saying, Tallantire, your plan is sound. Carry it out. Do you want an escort?”