It pleased Charteris to emphasize the dark side of the case as he and Gerrard shook hands and parted, half a day's journey beyond the spot fixed upon for the scene of the former's first steps in the art of government.
"There's something jolly dramatic about all your chances depending on me," he said. "I might hold back your reports, or send on forged ones instead, or ruin you in about a hundred different ways." All Gerrard's communications with Ranjitgarh were to pass through Darwan, lest Partab Singh should intercept them on the shorter route. "When I am inclined to feel hipped, I shall spend a happy hour or so in devising uncomfortableness for you, my boy."
"And how you would enjoy explaining to Miss Cinnamond the way in which you had eliminated your hated rival!" said Gerrard.
"Well, why not? All the old fellows in the Ages of Chivalry, that she talks of, did that sort of thing all day long, so why should she blame in a poor beggar of a Bengali what she would pass over in a baron bold?"
"Her age of chivalry is about as near the truth as the idyllic pictures of blameless Hindus that they hold up in Parliament, I fancy. Well, Bob, we can't say you haven't told me what to expect. If I do call upon you for help, you'll know it's a mere matter of form."
"Of course. It's quite impossible that I should get to you in time, you realise that? But I'll tell you what I will do for you, with the greatest pleasure. When you are safely dead, I'll avenge you in style. The smoking ruins of Agpur shall be your funeral pyre, as the old fellow said to the Dey of Algiers."
"Most consoling to me. Well, good-bye, Bob!"
"Good-bye, Hal, and good luck to you!" and they rode upon their separate ways.
For a time Gerrard's progress through Agpur territory was uneventful. It was not necessary to obtain provisions from Darwan, for they were forthcoming from the country traversed, though with accompaniments of vexatious delay and unfulfilled promises that showed the headmen had no fear of being taken to task for not making the traveller's way easy. The Granthi escort required ruling with a rod of iron, for they were prone, after their usual fashion, to prey upon the people, and it was no part of Colonel Antony's plan to provide Partab Singh with a colourable grievance. A few severe examples were necessary before the half-trained troopers realised that their new commander was in earnest, but when once the idea had been fixed in their minds that to seize the property of even the poorest cultivator without payment meant dismissal in disgrace, they began to take a pride in his very severity.
As for the people of the country, they regarded this new-fangled behaviour with suspicion at first, as probably a cloak for deeper designs of plunder on the part of Gerrard himself, but learned gradually to regard him as well-meaning, though certainly mad. Here and there a farmer or headman would open his heart to him, letting in light on many dark places in Partab Singh's administration, while from the elders who gathered round his tent-door at night when he was encamped near a village he learned what was the popular estimate of the ruler himself. One story was told with bated breath again and again, establishing Partab Singh's character in the minds of his people as a man of the nicest honour. A few years before, the Rajah had slain with his own hand every woman and girl in his zenana, as the result of some discovery, the nature of which no one durst even conjecture, and had since brought home to his blood-stained halls a young bride of purest Rajput descent from beyond Nanakpur, who had borne him a son, commonly reported to be the apple of his eye. There had been an elder son, but no one knew whether he was alive or dead, though a gruesome tale was whispered of his father's having ordered his eyes to be torn out. A faithful foster-brother was said to have sacrificed himself to save him, and to have died in the prison after his eyes had been duly exhibited to the Rajah as those of his son, while the prince made his escape in the servant's clothes, but the truth of this was not vouched for. Altogether, life seemed to be rather lightly regarded in the Agpur royal family, though Gerrard gathered that Partab Singh was held by connoisseurs to have failed to vindicate to the utmost his insulted honour. If the occasion were grave enough to warrant the massacre of every living thing in the zenana, it called also for the death of the avenger by his own hand as a finishing touch, but it was universally allowed that this could hardly be expected in the case of a man who had left himself no heir. Much was said also as to Partab Singh's lavish treatment of his soldiers and his presumable intention in training them, his encouragement of merchants and crusade against large landholders, who were either persecuted out of existence or compelled to reside in Agpur under his own eye, and the fortune he was heaping up for his one precious son. Thus the voluminous reports forwarded to Darwan for transmission to Ranjitgarh were by no means deficient either in detail or interest.