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Updated: June 26, 2025
All the planters were convinced that the heart and the brain of the disaffection was to be found in Malpura. So Dermot determined to return there and expose the whole matter to Fred Daleham at last, charging him on his loyalty not to give the faintest inkling to Chunerbutty.
Long before dawn Noreen, refreshed by sleep and quite recovered from the fatigues and alarms of the previous day, was up to superintend the early meal that her servants prepared for the departing company. No one but her brother was returning to Malpura, the others were to scatter to their own gardens when Dermot had finished with them.
Noreen had suffered in health in the hot weather, and her brother was seriously concerned at the thought of her being obliged to remain in Malpura throughout the Monsoon.
A Bengali Brahmin by birth, the son of a minor official in the service of a petty rajah of Eastern Bengal, he had chosen engineering instead of medicine or law, the two professions that appeal most to his compatriots. A certain amount of native money was invested in the company that owned the Malpura garden; and the directors apparently thought it good policy to employ an Indian on it.
You were right about him, Major; and I was a fool.... Is it true you've been attacked up in Ranga Duar?" he continued. "Are you wounded, Major Dermot?" broke in the girl anxiously. "No, Miss Daleham. I'm quite safe and sound." Then he told them briefly what had happened. When he had finished he asked them when the trouble began at Malpura. "Three days ago," replied Fred.
As far as he could judge they were a long way from Malpura, and it seemed to him that Badshah was not heading directly for the garden. But he had sufficient confidence in the animal's intelligence to refrain from interfering with him again.
When he found that Fred was beginning to arrange for her return to Malpura and that instigated by Chunerbutty he refused to consider the advisability of her remaining away until conditions were better in the Terai, Dermot persuaded him to replace his untrustworthy Bengali house-servants by reliable Mussulman domestics, warlike Punjaubis, whom the soldier procured.
The day passed all too quickly for these exiled Britons, whose one bright spot of amusement and companionship it was in the week. The setting sun gave the signal for departure. After exchanging good-byes with their guests, the Malpura party mounted their ponies and cantered home.
This was not surprising to any one who knows the extraordinary power of this priestly caste among all Hindus. There was evidence of constant communication between the Bengalis on the other estates and Malpura, which pointed to the latter as being the headquarters of the promoters of disaffection.
The pangs of hunger reminded him that he had had no food since the early morning cup of tea at the planter's bungalow where he had passed the night, for he had hoped to breakfast at Malpura. It occurred to him that his companion must be in the same plight. "Are you hungry, Miss Daleham?" he asked. "Hungry? I don't know. I haven't had time to think about food," she replied. "But I'm very thirsty."
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