Gul Ali laughed complacently. “True—quite true. It is not well for subjects to grow rich, for they become troublesome. If they heap up wealth, it must be for their masters.”
“Since this is the last time I shall see the face of your Highnesses, let me beg once more that you will look at this matter differently. It is all of a piece with your imposing tolls designed to kill the traffic on the river. A wealthy people is an honour and a strong support to princes, and the making of money by honest means should be encouraged, not hindered.” The black looks bent on Colonel Bayard made him pause, and he added, with some emotion, “Your Highnesses will not hear me, I see. But let me entreat you to listen to the General, though his tongue be strange, and he neglect the forms of ceremony I have always been careful to use. Should he propose an interview, speak to him plainly of what is in your hearts. He will do this in any case, for it is not his custom to disguise his meaning.”
Gul Ali rode off hastily upon a side-issue. “It is not well to meet the envoys of the Farangis in consultation nowadays,” he said. “There was a certain Ethiopian Sardar who did so.”
The taunt was a bitter one—and worse, deserved,—for at the outset of the Ethiopian disasters the British Envoy, struggling desperately in the toils cast about him, had stooped to invite the foremost of his assailants to a conference, with the intention of making him a prisoner. In the remotest corners of Asia stray Englishmen were to rue the attempt for many a day, though the Envoy had paid with his life for trying to use the weapons of men better acquainted with them than he. But it had been cast in Colonel Bayard’s teeth before, and he met it with a bold counter-attack.
“True, Khan Sahib, and it was not the Sardar who suffered. Had the treachery been his, would it have surprised you?”
“Nay, but it was the Elchi Sahib’s!” came in chorus.
“And he paid the penalty. But has such treachery never been known in Khemistan?”
“Never on the part of a Farangi!” promptly.
“I thank your Highnesses in the name of my country. Has it ever been known of any Farangi anywhere?”
“Never until now. But what one Farangi has done, another may do.”