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, Serjeant 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 shipshape 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, it's big! It's big, I tell you!
But there's so much to be done in every place--Bashkai, Khawak,
Shu, and everywhere else.
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