“Well, there you are, you see. He would have had us remain in Ethiopia, no doubt.”
“Not a bit of it! He wouldn’t allow native states inside our boundaries, but he would never advance a step beyond them unless he was forced. The times I’ve heard him say that! If he comes, ’twill be to make the Khans keep their treaties, that’s all.”
“Pray, my dear, don’t agitate yourself so excessively. Ain’t Bayard here to make the Khans keep their treaties, and will they do it? And if they won’t do it for him, whom they call their father and mother, will they do it for the first arrogant old party that comes behaudering [swaggering] along? And when they won’t—what then?”
“Why, Sir Harry will make ’em, or know the reason why.”
“Precisely; he’ll break ’em, and say that was his orders.”
“But if ’twas his orders, sure he must do it?”
“D’ye think any orders would induce Bayard to do it? He’d be broke first himself, and that’s what will happen, you mark my words. The G.-G. wants Khemistan, and means to get it.”
He spoke so warmly that Eveleen’s voice was quite timid—she could not bear to hint at disagreement when Richard was for once talking to her as a reasonable being—as she suggested meekly, “But if the Khans made the treaties, oughtn’t they keep them?”
“Well, ain’t Bayard trying to make ’em? As he says, if the fools would only consult their own interests, they would be on his side. The treaties leave ’em quite free to govern the country according to their own ideas—though that don’t commend itself to you, eh? But there they are, and if they would behave themselves in their external relations, Maryport himself couldn’t lay a finger on ’em. But they won’t—very far from it.”
“Sure they ought be punished, then.”