for immediate war, beginning upon me.
Everybody talked very big about wanting to fight, but nobody really
cared about it. The army have plenty of money left for the present,
and want to spend it, and the secret messengers sent to see whether the
Granthis generally would join in a rising against the English were not
encouraging. It'll be just as well for Antony to know that they look
forward to a shindy before very long, but they ain't equal to kicking
it up in cold blood just yet. The council had no illusions as to the
possibility of the Agpuris making head against us without allies, and
your old friend Dwarika Nath, who has come back as Diwan, was very
strong on the need of prudence."

"The old reprobate!" cried Gerrard. "Master and man are pretty well
matched."

"So I should guess. At last they did me the honour to call me into
consultation. There was no parade of tenderness for my feelings, but
they did make it clear that while every man of them would have made it
his particular business to see that you underwent the longest and most
uncomfortable death that could be had, they considered me not half a
bad sort. Therefore they did their best to frighten me into promising
them all sorts of concessions in Antony's name, and all I could do was
to invite them to kill me at once, since that would be far less painful
to my feelings than the consequences that would follow if I attempted
to negotiate treaties on my own responsibility. At the same time I
dropped a hint that since the murder of a British officer was a
prominent count in the bill Nisbet was presenting, it would undoubtedly
be an extenuating circumstance if the said officer could be produced
alive and only superficially damaged. We wrangled a good bit, but at
last I agreed to act as mediator on the basis of the execution of
Kharrak Singh's murderers, the retention by the Rani of her _jaghirs_
or their equivalent in cash, and a settlement of the frontier
question--all of them bitter pills for the Agpuris to swallow, but
indispensable, I assured them, if their professions of goodwill were to
be accepted."

"The execution of Kharrak Singh's murderers! You were pretty cool to
demand that, and they must have been mad, or pretty well desperate, to
grant it."

"Why, you have picked out the easiest condition of the lot. His
official murderers, I mean. They confessed, four of them--what they
were paid for doing it I don't know--and I saw them blown from g