bjects, who, from all I could gather, had been paralysing the
executive.

'In the old days,' said the King, 'I could have ordered the Elephant
yonder to trample him to death. Now I must e'en send him seventy
miles across the hills to be tried, and his keep would be upon the
State. The Elephant eats everything.'

'What be the man's crimes, Rajah Sahib?' said I.

'Firstly, he is an outlander and no man of mine own people. Secondly,
since of my favour I gave him land upon his first coming, he refuses
to pay revenue. Am I not the lord of the earth, above and below,
entitled by right and custom to one-eighth of the crop? Yet this
devil, establishing himself, refuses to pay a single tax; and he
brings a poisonous spawn of babes.'

'Cast him into jail,' I said.

'Sahib,' the King answered, shifting a little on the cushions, 'once
and only once in these forty years sickness came upon me so that I
was not able to go abroad. In that hour I made a vow to my God that I
would never again cut man or woman from the light of the sun and the
air of God; for I perceived the nature of the punishment. How can I
break my vow? Were it only the lopping of a hand or a foot I should
not delay. But even that is impossible now that the English have
rule. One or another of my people'--he looked obliquely at the
Director-General of Public Education--'would at once write a letter
to the Viceroy, and perhaps I should be deprived of my ruffle of
drums.'

He unscrewed the mouthpiece of his silver water-pipe, fitted a plain
amber mouthpiece, and passed his pipe to me. 'Not content with
refusing revenue,' he continued, 'this outlander refuses also the
_begar_' (this was the corvee or forced labour on the roads) 'and
stirs my people up to the like treason. Yet he is, when he wills, an
expert log-snatcher. There is none better or bolder among my people
to clear a block of the river when the logs stick fast.'

'But he worships strange Gods,' said the Prime Minister
deferentially.

'For that I have no concern,' said the King, who was as tolerant as
Akbar in matters of belief. 'To each man his own God and the fire or
Mother Earth for us all at last. It is the rebellion that offends
me.'

'The King has an army,' I suggested. 'Has not the King burned the
man's house and left him naked to the night dews?'

'Nay, a hut is a hut, and it holds the life of a man. But once, I
sent my army against him when his excuses became wearisome: of their
heads he