with the words, 'Watch, the time is coming,' and have then gone
before I could be questioned. Then, in another disguise, I have
gone through the bazaar, and said in talk with many that the Sepoys
were unclean and outcast, for that they had bitten cartridges anointed
with pig's fat, and that the Government had purposely greased the
cartridges with this fat in order that the caste of all the Sepoys
should be destroyed. When I had set men talking about this I left;
it will be sure to come to the Sepoys' ears."

The Rajah nodded. "Come again tomorrow at noon; you will have your
reward then and further orders; but see that you keep silence;
a single word, and though you hid in the farthest corner of India
you would not escape my vengeance."

Man after man entered. Some of them, like the first, were in
mendicant's attire, one or two were fakirs, one looked like a well
to do merchant. With the exception of the last, all had a similar
tale to tell; they had been visiting the various cantonments of
the native army, everywhere distributing chupaties and whispering
tales of the intention of the Government to destroy the caste of the
Sepoys by greasing the cartridges with pig's fat. The man dressed
like a trader was the last to enter.

"How goes it, Mukdoomee?"

"It is well, my lord; I have traversed all the districts where we
dwelt of old, before the Feringhee stamped us out and sent scores
to death and hundreds to prison. Most of the latter whom death has
spared are free now, and with many of them have I talked. They are
most of them old, and few would take the road again, but scarce one