towards the close of the 'forties of the nineteenth
century, and the place the city of Ranjitgarh, capital of the great
native state of Granthistan, which was not yet a British possession,
but well on the way to becoming one. This ultimate destiny was
entirely undesired by the powers that were, who had just appointed
Colonel Edmund Antony--a fanatical upholder of native rights, according
to his enemies--as British Resident and protector of the infant prince
occupying the uneasy throne. The task of regenerating Granthi society
from the top, much against its will, and welding its discordant
elements into a peaceful, prosperous, and contented buffer state (the
thing was known, though not as yet the name) against encroaching
Ethiopia on the north, promised to be no easy one, but Colonel Antony
was undertaking it confidently, with the support of two or three of his
brothers and a picked band of assistants drawn from the army and Civil
Service. That moral suasion might be duly backed up by physical force,
ten thousand British and Indian troops, under the command of a
Peninsular veteran, General Sir Arthur Cinnamond, were garrisoning the
citadel of Ranjitgarh and holding the lines of Tej Singh in the
suburbs. The city thus overawed Colonel Antony was wont to call the
wickedest place in Asia, in blissful ignorance of the sins not only of
distant Gamara, but of towns much nearer home. Its streets were filled
with a swaggering disbanded soldiery that had faced the might of
England and the Company in four pitched battles during the last decade,
shameless women peered from its every lattice, and its defence of
religion took the form of frequent bloodthirsty "cow rows," but he saw
in its wickedness no insuperable bar to the success of his policy. In
twelve years or so the British would retire, leaving a reformed nation
to govern itself. Meanwhile, in order to emphasise the transient
nature of the occupation, a Mohammedan tomb served as the English
church, and a single house of moderate size was made to accommodate the
Resident and all his assistants, becoming the scene of as much hard
work and high endeavour as might have sufficed to redeem an empire.

On an inner courtyard of the Residency there looked out a number of
small rooms, each of which was shared by two young men, who had much
ado to bestow themselves and their possessions in the limited space and
the section of verandah that appertained to it. One room was much lik