heathed the anger that leapt up behind his eyes in a
smile. Then he answered gravely--

'What should come of it but more strangers? Is it not desired to
make a road for their guns and their horses? And talk and
treaties, and tying of the hand and binding of the foot, until at
last that great Jan Larrens[6] himself will ride up to the gate of
the city and refuse to go away until Your Highness sends a bag of
gold mohurs to the British Raj, as he has done before.'

[6] John Lawrence, afterwards Lord Lawrence and Viceroy of India.

'I do not think I will make the road,' said the Maharajah
reflectively.

'King, you are the wisest of men, and therefore your own best
counsellor. It is well decided. But the Rajputs are all sons of
one father, and even now there is grief among the chief of them
that outcasts should be dwelling in the King's favour.'

'I will not make the road,' said the Maharajah. 'Enough!'

Surji Rao thought it was not quite enough, however, and took
various means to obtain more, means that would never be thought of
anywhere but in countries where the sun beats upon the plots of
Ministers and ferments fanaticism in the heads of the people. He
talked to the Rajput chiefs, and persuaded them--they were not
difficult to persuade--that Dr. Roberts was an agent and a spy of
the English Government at Calcutta, that his medicines were a sham.
When it was necessary, Surji Rao said that the medicines were a
slow form of poison, but generally he said they were a sham. He
persuaded as many of the chiefs as dared, to remonstrate with the
Maharajah, and to follow his example of going about looking as if
they were upon the brink of some terrible disaster. Surji Rao's
wife was a clever woman, and she arranged such a feeling in the
Maharajah's zenana, that one day as Dr. Roberts passed along a
corridor to His Highness's apartment, a curtain opened swiftly, and
some one in the dark behind spat at him. Amongst them they managed
to make His Highness extremely uncomfortable. But the old man
continued to decline obstinately to send the missionary back.

Then it became obvious to Surji Rao that Dr. Roberts must be
disposed of otherwise. He went about that in the same elaborate
and ingenious way. His arrangements required time, but there is
always plenty of time in Rajputana. He became friendly with Dr.
Roberts, and encouraged the hospital. He did not wish in any way
to be complicated with his arrangem