‘When does this man take over charge? I’m alone just now, and I gather that I’m to stand fast under him.’

‘Would you have cared for a transfer?’ said Bullows keenly. Then, laying his hand on Tallantire’s shoulder: ‘We’re all in the same boat; don’t desert us. And yet, why the devil should you stay, if you can get another charge?

‘It was Orde’s,’ said Tallantire simply.

‘Well, it’s Dé’s now. He’s a Bengali of the Bengalis, crammed with code and case law; a beautiful man so far as routine and deskwork go, and pleasant to talk to. They naturally have always kept him in his own home district, where all his sisters and his cousins and his aunts lived, somewhere south of Dacca. He did no more than turn the place into a pleasant little family preserve, allowed his subordinates to do what they liked, and let everybody have a chance at the shekels. Consequently he’s immensely popular down there.’

‘I’ve nothing to do with that. How on earth am I to explain to the district that they are going to be governed by a Bengali? Do you—does the Government, I mean—suppose that the Khusru Kheyl will sit quiet when they once know? What will the Mahomedan heads of villages say? How will the police—Muzbi Sikhs and Pathans—how will they work under him? We couldn’t say anything if the Government appointed a sweeper; but my people will say a good deal, you know that. It’s a piece of cruel folly!’

‘My dear boy, I know all that, and more. I’ve represented it, and have been told that I am exhibiting “culpable and puerile prejudice.” By Jove, if the Khusru Kheyl don’t exhibit something worse than that I don’t know the Border! The chances are that you will have the district alight on your hands, and I shall have to leave my work and help you pull through. I needn’t ask you to stand by the Bengali man in every possible way. You’ll do that for your own sake.’

For Orde’s. I can’t say that I care twopence personally.’

‘Don’t be an ass. It’s grievous enough, God knows, and the Government will know later on; but that’s no reason for your sulking. You must try to run the district; you must stand between him and as much insult as possible; you must show him the ropes; you must pacify the Khusru Kheyl, and just warn Curbar of the Police to look out for trouble by the way. I’m always at the end of a telegraph-wire, and willing to peril my reputation to hold the district together. You’ll lose yours, of course. If you keep things straight, and he isn’t actually beaten with a stick when he’s on tour, he’ll get all the credit. If anything goes wrong, you’ll be told that you didn’t support him loyally.’

‘I know what I’ve got to do,’ said Tallantire wearily, ‘and I’m going to it. But it’s hard.’

‘The work is with us, the event is with Allah,—as Orde used to say when he was more than usually in hot water.’ And Bullows rode away.

That two gentlemen in Her Majesty’s Bengal Civil Service should thus discuss a third, also in that service, and a cultured and affable man withal, seems strange and saddening. Yet listen to the artless babble of the Blind Mullah of Jagai, the priest of the Khusru Kheyl, sitting upon a rock overlooking the Border. Five years before, a chance-hurled shell from a screw-gun battery had dashed earth in the face of the Mullah, then urging a rush of Ghazis against half a dozen British bayonets. So he became blind, and hated the English none the less for the little accident. Yardley-Orde knew his failing, and had many times laughed at him therefor.

‘Dogs you are,’ said the Blind Mullah to the listening tribesmen round the fire. ‘Whipped dogs! Because you listened to Orde Sahib and called him father and behaved as his children, the British Government have proven how they regard you. Orde Sahib ye know is dead.’

‘Ai! ai! ai!’ said half a dozen voices.