for India! Peachey, man,’ he says, chewing
his beard in great hunks, ‘we shall be Emperors
—Emperors of the Earth! Rajah
Brooke will be a suckling to us. I’ll treat
with the Viceroy on equal terms. I’ll ask
him to send me twelve picked English—
twelve that I know of—to help us govern a
bit. There’s Mackray, Sergeant-pensioner at
Segowli—many’s the good dinner he’s given
me, and his wife a pair of trousers. There’s
Donkin, the Warder of Tounghoo Jail;
there’s hundreds that I could lay my hand
on if I was in India. The Viceroy shall do
it for me. I’ll send a man through in the
spring for those men, and I’ll write for a
dispensation from the Grand Lodge for what
I’ve done as Grand-Master. That—and all
the Sniders that’ll be thrown out when the
native troops in India take up the Martini.
They’ll be worn smooth, but they’ll do for
fighting in these hills. Twelve English, a
hundred thousand Sniders run through the
Amir’s country in driblets—I’d be content
with twenty thousand in one year—and we’d
be an Empire. When everything was ship-shape,
I’d hand over the crown—this crown
I’m wearing now—to Queen Victoria on my
knees, and she’d say:—“Rise up, Sir Daniel
Dravot.” Oh, its big! It’s big, I tell you!
But there’s so much to be done in every