your born brother! A footpad that kills an old granny in a
woollen mutch with a dirty bludgeon, and that for a shilling-piece and
a paper of snuff--there is all the warrior that you are."

When I would attack him thus (or somewhat thus) he would smile, and sigh
like a man misunderstood. Once, I remember, he defended himself more at
large and had some curious sophistries, worth repeating, for a light
upon his character.

"You are very like a civilian to think war consists in drums and
banners," said he. "War (as the ancients said very wisely) is _ultima
ratio_. When we take our advantage unrelentingly, then we make war. Ah!
Mackellar, you are a devil of a soldier in the steward's room at
Durrisdeer, or the tenants do you sad injustice!"

"I think little of what war is or is not," I replied. "But you weary me
with claiming my respect. Your brother is a good man, and you are a bad
one--neither more nor less."

"Had I been Alexander----" he began.

"It is so we all dupe ourselves," I cried. "Had I been St. Paul, it
would have been all one; I would have made the same hash of that career
that you now see me making of my own."

"I tell you," he cried, bearing down my interruption, "had I been the
least petty chieftain in the Highlands, had I been the least king of
naked negroes in the African desert, my people would have adored me. A
bad man, am I? Ah! but I was born for a good tyrant! Ask Secundra Dass;
he will tell you I treat him like a son. Cast in your lot with me
to-morrow, become my slave, my chattel, a thing I can command as I
command the powers of my own limbs and spirit--you will see no more that
dark side that I turn upon the world in anger. I must have all or none.
But where all is given I give it back with usury. I have a kingly
nature: there is my loss!"

"It has been hitherto rather the loss of others," I remarked, "which
seems a little on the hither side of royalty."

"Tilly-vally!" cried he. "Even now, I tell you, I would spare that
family in which you take so great an interest: yes, even now--to-morrow
I would leave them to their petty welfare, and disappear in that forest
of cut-throats and thimble-riggers that we call the world. I would do it
to-morrow!" says he. "Only--only----"

"Only what?" I asked.

"Only they must beg it on their bended knees. I think in public, too,"
he added, smiling. "Indeed, Mackellar, I doubt if there be a hall big
enough to serve my purpose for that act of reparation