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With great promptitude Surji Rao took the road to meet the English and sell his information, but this possibility occurred to the Maharajah soon enough to send men after him to frustrate it. 'There shall be at least enough sound cartridges in his bargain for that, said His Highness grimly.
Surji Rao thought it was not quite enough, however, and took various means to obtain more, means that would never be thought of anywhere but in countries where the sun beats upon the plots of Ministers and ferments fanaticism in the heads of the people. He talked to the Rajput chiefs, and persuaded them they were not difficult to persuade that Dr.
Surji Rao was the fattest man in the State, so fat that it was said he sat down only twice a day; but he lay awake on sultry nights for so many weeks reflecting upon this, that he grew obviously, almost ostentatiously, thin.
To this he added such an extremely dolorous expression of countenance that it was impossible for the Maharajah, out of sheer curiosity, to refrain from asking him what was the matter. 'My father and my mother! I grow poor with thinking that the feet of strangers are in the palace of the King, and what may come of it. The Maharajah laughed and put his arm about the shoulders of Surji Rao.
'I will give you a tub of melted butter to grow fat upon again, and two days to eat it, though indeed with less on your bones you were a better Rajput. What should come of it, Surji Rao? The Minister sheathed the anger that leapt up behind his eyes in a smile. Then he answered gravely 'What should come of it but more strangers? Is it not desired to make a road for their guns and their horses?
This was his duty, and whether the harvests had been good and the cattle many, or whether the locusts and the drought had made the people poor, Surji Rao did his duty. If ever he should fail, there hung a large and heavy shoe upon the wall of the Maharajah's apartment, which daily suggested personal chastisement and a possible loss of dignity to Surji Rao. Dr.
He persuaded as many of the chiefs as dared, to remonstrate with the Maharajah, and to follow his example of going about looking as if they were upon the brink of some terrible disaster. Surji Rao's wife was a clever woman, and she arranged such a feeling in the Maharajah's zenana, that one day as Dr.
He went about that in the same elaborate and ingenious way. His arrangements required time, but there is always plenty of time in Rajputana. He became friendly with Dr. Roberts, and encouraged the hospital. He did not wish in any way to be complicated with his arrangements. Nobody else became friendly. Surji Rao took care of that.
Roberts was making serious demands upon the Treasury, and proposed to make others more serious still. Worse than that, he was supplanting Surji Rao in the confidence and affection of the Maharajah.
Roberts sent to ask whether Sunni might go with him, but to this the Maharajah replied by an absolute 'No. So the missionary stayed. It was Surji Rao who brought the final word to the Maharajah. 'My father and my mother! he said, 'it is no longer possible to hold the people back. It is cried abroad that this English hakkim has given the people powder of pig's feet.
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