Then we sat down on clean white cushions, and I was at the King’s right hand.  Three minutes later he was telling me that the state of the maize crop was something disgraceful, and that the railway-companies would not pay him enough for his timber.  The talk shifted to and fro with the bottles, and we discussed very many stately things, and the King became confidential on the subject of Government generally.  Most of all he dwelt on the shortcomings of one of his subjects, who, from all I could gather, had been paralyzing the executive.

‘In the old days,’ said the King, ’I could have ordered the Elephant yonder to trample him to death.  Now I must e’en send him seventy miles across the hills to be tried, and his keep would be upon the State.  The Elephant eats everything.’

‘What be the man’s crimes, Rajah Sahib?’ said I.

’Firstly, he is an outlander and no man of mine own people.  Secondly, since of my favour I gave him land upon his first coming, he refuses to pay revenue.  Am I not the lord of the earth, above and below, entitled by right and custom to one-eighth of the crop?  Yet this devil, establishing himself, refuses to pay a single tax; and he brings a poisonous spawn of babes.’

‘Cast him into jail,’ I said.

‘Sahib,’ the King answered, shifting a little on the cushions, ’once and only once in these forty years sickness came upon me so that I was not able to go abroad.  In that hour I made a vow to my God that I would never again cut man or woman from the light of the sun and the air of God; for I perceived the nature of the punishment.  How can I break my vow?  Were it only the lopping of a hand or a foot I should not delay.  But even that is impossible now that the English have rule.  One or another of my people’—­he looked obliquely at the Director-General of Public Education—­’would at once write a letter to the Viceroy, and perhaps I should be deprived of my ruffle of drums.’

He unscrewed the mouthpiece of his silver water-pipe, fitted a plain amber mouthpiece, and passed his pipe to me.  ’Not content with refusing revenue,’ he continued,’this outlander refuses also the begar’ (this was the corvee or forced labour on the roads) ’and stirs my people up to the like treason.  Yet he is, when he wills, an expert log-snatcher.  There is none better or bolder among my people to clear a block of the river when the logs stick fast.’

‘But he worships strange Gods,’ said the Prime Minister deferentially.

‘For that I have no concern,’ said the King, who was as tolerant as Akbar in matters of belief.  ’To each man his own God and the fire or Mother Earth for us all at last.  It is the rebellion that offends me.’

‘The King has an army,’ I suggested.  ’Has not the King burned the man’s house and left him naked to the night dews?’

’Nay, a hut is a hut, and it holds the life of a man.  But once, I sent my army against him when his excuses became wearisome:  of their heads he brake three across the top with a stick.  The other two men ran away.  Also the guns would not shoot.’