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In the evening we were visited by the Dewan, the head and front of all our Sikkim difficulties, whose influence was paramount with the Rajah, owing to the age and infirmities of the latter, and his devotion to religion, which absorbed all his time and thoughts.
Two gold-laced, scarlet-clad servants were perched on the back of the car, waving large peacock-feather fans over their monarch. A line of carriages followed, conveying the Dewan, the Durbar officials, the Ministers of the State and the leading nobles of Lalpuri.
He would not commit himself as to making a decoity, for when they had seized upon the Chief for the crime Ajeet could not then say that the Dewan had instigated it; there would be only Hunsa's word for this, and, of course, he would deny that the Minister was the father of the scheme.
It so happened that when Nana Sahib swung up the gravelled drive to the Sirdar's bungalow on a golden chestnut Arab, Sewlal was there. But when, presently, Baptiste's durwan came in to say that Jamadar Hunsa of the new troops was sending his salaams to the Dewan, the latter gasped.
It might be, as the Gulab had said, Sindhia's Dewan, but there was the English officer there at that time; and the message of friendship may have been a message of deceit and the true object the slaying of Amir Khan who was looked upon as a great leader.
We will go upon a decoity, which is our duty, and leave the ordeal and all else in the hands of Bhowanee." Perhaps it was the customs official that told Dewan Sewlal about the Akbar Ka Diwa, the Lamp of Akbar, the ruby that was so called because of its gorgeous blood-red fire, as being in the iron box of the merchant.
The Tupgain Lama having only spiritual authority, and being bound to celibacy, the temporal authority devolved on the second son, who was heir apparent of Sikkim; he, however, having died, an illegitimate son of the Rajah was favoured by the Dewan as heir apparent. The bride was brought from Tibet, and the marriage party were feasted for eighteen days at the Rajah's expense.
Nor is this merely a superstition of the ignorant. We remember how, in the year 1899, when it was said that great calamities were due, the Dewan of Mysore promised to place the matter of preparing for these calamities before the Maharajah. For was it not the five thousandth year of Kali yuga? Now it does not occur to one in ten thousand to ask whether this is really so.
I made the acquaintance of the officer commanding them last night." "Ah! What is he like?" enquired the Dewan, interested. "Inquisitive, but a fool like all these officers," replied the engineer contemptuously. "He noticed Narain Dass on our garden and saw that he was a Bengali. He learned that others of us were employed on our estate and was surprised that Brahmins should do coolie work.
Then he turned to irrigation, and stated that the large irrigation works commenced in former years were advancing towards completion. And here the Dewan alluded to a matter of the greatest importance, and to which I shall again return further on.
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