of lightning, and there is no guessing how far the matter
will spread. There is no use disguising it from ourselves, Doctor,
before a week is over there may not be a white man left alive in
India, save the garrisons of strong places like Agra, and perhaps the
presidential towns, where there is always a strong European force."

"I can't deny that it is possible, Bathurst. If this revolt spreads
though the three Presidencies the work of conquering India will have to
be begun again, and worse than that, for we should have opposed to us a
vast army drilled and armed by ourselves, and led by the native officers
we have trained. It seems stupefying that an empire won piecemeal, and
after as hard fighting as the world has ever seen, should be lost in a
week."

The Doctor spoke as if the question was a purely impersonal one.

"Ugly, isn't it?" he went on; "and to think I have been doctoring up
these fellows for the last thirty years--saving their lives, sir, by
wholesale. If I had known what had been coming I would have dosed them
with arsenic with as little remorse as I should feel in shooting a
tiger's whelp. Well, there is one satisfaction, the Major has already
done something towards turning the courthouse into a fortress, and I
fancy a good many of the scoundrels will go down before they take it,
that is, if they don't fall on us unawares. I have been a noncombatant
all my life, but if I can shoot a tiger on the spring I fancy I can hit
a Sepoy. By Jove, Bathurst, that juggler's picture you told me of is
likely to come true after all!"

"I wish to Heaven it was!" Bathurst said gloomily; "I could look without
dread at whatever is coming as far as I am concerned, if I could believe
it possible that I should be fighting as I saw myself there."

"Pooh, nonsense, lad!" the Doctor said. "Knowing what I know of you, I
have no doubt that, though you may feel nervous at first, you will get
over it in time."

Bathurst shook his head. "I know myself too well, Doctor, to indulge in
any such hopes. Now you see we are going out tiger hunting. At present,
now, as far as I am concerned, I should feel much less nervous if I knew
I was going to enter the jungle on foot with only this spear, than I do
at the thought that you are going to fire that rifle a few paces from
me."

"You will scarcely notice it in the excitement," the Doctor said. "In
cold blood I admit you might feel it, but I don't think you will when
you see the tiger sp