of knowledge, but disdaining action; one of those
opulent travellers, haughty and cynical, who move incessantly from place
to place, and are of no country.

This artist, this philosopher, this man was, however, still cherishing
the hope instilled into him from his earliest days.

Prince Dakkar returned to Bundelkund in the year 1849. He married a
noble Indian lady, who was imbued with an ambition not less ardent than
that by which he was inspired. Two children were born to them, whom
they tenderly loved. But domestic happiness did not prevent him from
seeking to carry out the object at which he aimed. He waited an
opportunity. At length, as he vainly fancied, it presented itself.

Instigated by princes equally ambitious and less sagacious and more
unscrupulous than he was, the people of India were persuaded that they
might successfully rise against their English rulers, who had brought
them out of a state of anarchy and constant warfare and misery, and had
established peace and prosperity in their country. Their ignorance and
gross superstition made them the facile tools of their designing chiefs.

In 1857 the great sepoy revolt broke out. Prince Dakkar, under the
belief that he should thereby have the opportunity of attaining the
object of his long-cherished ambition, was easily drawn into it. He
forthwith devoted his talents and wealth to the service of this cause.
He aided it in person; he fought in the front ranks; he risked his life
equally with the humblest of the wretched and misguided fanatics; he was
ten times wounded in twenty engagements, seeking death but finding it
not, when at length the sanguinary rebels were utterly defeated, and the
atrocious mutiny was brought to an end.

Never before had the British power in India been exposed to such danger,
and if, as they had hoped, the sepoys had received assistance from
without, the influence and supremacy in Asia of the United Kingdom would
have been a thing of the past.

The name of Prince Dakkar was at that time well-known. He had fought
openly and without concealment. A price was set upon his head, but he
managed to escape from his pursuers.

Civilisation never recedes; the law of necessity ever forces it onwards.
The sepoys were vanquished, and the land of the rajahs of old fell
again under the rule of England.

Prince Dakkar, unable to find that death he courted, returned to the
mountain fastnesses of Bundelkund. There, alone in the worl