ssible, and to fight
if necessary. Perhaps we need not inquire into the arrangements
the Government had commissioned Colonel Starr to make. They were
arrangements of a kind frequently submitted to the princes of
independent States in India when they are troublesome, and their
result is that a great many native States are governed by English
political residents, while a great many native princes attend
parties at Government House in Calcutta. The Maharajah of Chita
had been very troublesome indeed. Twice in the year his people had
raided peaceful villages under British protection, and now he had
killed a missionary. It was quite time to 'arrange' the Maharajah
of Chita, and Colonel Starr, with two guns and three hundred
troops, had been sent to do it.

His Highness, however, seemed indisposed to further his social
prospects in Calcutta and the good of his State. For the twenty-four
hours they had been in camp under his walls the Maharajah had
taken no more notice of Colonel Starr and his three hundred
Midlanders than if they represented so many jungle bushes. To all
Colonel Starr's messages, diplomatic, argumentative, threatening,
there had come the same unsatisfactory response--the Maharajah of
Chita had no word to say to the British Raj. And still the gates
were shut, and still only the pipal-trees looked over the wall, and
only the cannon looked through.

By the time evening came Colonel Starr was at the end of his
patience. He was not, unfortunately, simultaneously at the end of
his investigations. He did not yet know the position or the
contents of the arsenal, the defensibility of the walls, the water
supply, or the number of men under arms in that silent, impassive
red city on the hill. The reports of the peasantry had been
contradictory, and this ordinary means of ascertaining these things
had failed him, while he very particularly required to know them,
his force being small. The Government had assured Colonel Starr
that the Maharajah of Chita would be easy to arrange; that he was a
tractable person, and that half the usual number of troops would be
ample, which made His Highness's conduct, if anything, more
annoying. And Colonel Starr's commissariat, even in respect to
'tinned rock,' had not been supplied with the expectation of
besieging Lalpore. The attack would be uncertain, and the Colonel
hesitated the more because his instructions had been not to take
the place if he could avoid it. So