d Zemindar kept up a little army for the purpose of fighting his
neighbors, just as our Barons used to do in the happy olden times people
talk of. We have put down private fighting, and the consequence is these
men's occupations are gone, and they flock to great towns and there live
as best they can, ready to commit any crime whatever for the sum of a
few rupees.

"There is Nana Sahib."

Isobel looked round and saw a carriage with a magnificent pair of
horses, in harness almost covered with silver ornaments, drive up to a
place that had been kept vacant for it. Four natives were sitting in it.

"That is the Rajah," the Doctor said, "the farther man, with that
aigrette of diamonds in his turban. He is Oriental today, but sometimes
he affects English fashions. He is a very cheery fellow, he keeps pretty
well open house at Bithoor, has a billiard table, and a first rate
cellar of wine, carriages for the use of guests--in fact, he does the
thing really handsomely."

"Here is my opera glass," Mrs. Hunter said. Isobel looked long and
fixedly at the Rajah.

"Well, what do you think of him?" the Doctor asked as she lowered it.

"I do not know what to think of him," she said; "his face does not
tell me anything, it is like looking at a mask; but you see I am not
accustomed to read brown men's characters, they are so different from
Europeans, their faces all seem so impassive. I suppose it is the way in
which they are brought up and trained."

"Ages of tyranny have made them supple and deceitful," the Doctor
said, "but of course less so here than among the Bengallies, who, being
naturally unwarlike and cowardly, have always been the slaves of some
master or other.

"You evidently don't like the Nana, Miss Hannay. I am rather glad you
don't, for he is no great favorite of mine, though he is so generally
popular in the station here. I don't like him because it is not natural
that he should be so friendly with us. We undoubtedly, according to
native notions, robbed him of one of the finest positions in India
by refusing to acknowledge his adoption. We have given him a princely
revenue, but that, after all, is a mere trifle to what he would have had
as Peishwa. Whatever virtues the natives of this country possess, the
forgiving of injuries is not among them, and therefore I consider it
to be altogether unnatural that he, having been, as he at any rate and
everyone round him must consider, foully wronged, should go out of his