"I repeat that you are not to give him the least inkling of what I am going
to say," replied Dermot in a quiet but stern voice. "As I have already told
you, I am speaking officially."

The boy was impressed and a little awed by his manner.

"Oh, certainly, sir. I give you my word that I shan't mention it to him."

"Very well. The fact is, gentlemen, that we are on the track of a vast
conspiracy against British rule in India, and have reason to believe that
the activity of the disloyalists in Bengal has spread to this district. We
suspect that the Brahmins who, very much to the surprise of any one
acquainted with the ways of their caste, are working as coolies on your
gardens, are really emissaries of the seditionists."

"By George, is that really so, Major?" asked a young planter in a doubting
tone. "We have a couple of these Bengalis on our place, and they seem such
quiet, harmless chaps."

"The Major is quite right. I know it," said one of the oldest men present.
"I confess that it didn't occur to me as strange that Brahmins should take
such low-caste work until he told me. But I have found since, as others of
us have, that these men are the secret cause of all the trouble and unrest
that we have had lately among our coolies, to whom they preach sedition and
revolution."

Several other estate managers corroborated his statement.

"But surely, sir, you don't suspect Chunerbutty of being mixed up in this?"
asked Daleham. "He's been a friend of mine for a long time. I lived with