mother, and we love him much.  Yet, if Dearsley Sahib does not return to this place at all, we will speak the truth.  There was a palanquin, for the up-keep of which we were forced to pay nine-tenths of our monthly wage.  On such mulctings Dearsley Sahib allowed us to make obeisance to him before the palanquin.  What could we do?  We were poor men.  He took a full half of our wages.  Will the Government repay us those moneys?  Those three men in red coats bore the palanquin upon their shoulders and departed.  All the money that Dearsley Sahib had taken from us was in the cushions of that palanquin.  Therefore they stole it.  Thousands of rupees were there—­all our money.  It was our bank-box, to fill which we cheerfully contributed to Dearsley Sahib three-sevenths of our monthly wage.  Why does the white man look upon us with the eye of disfavour?  Before God, there was a palanquin, and now there is no palanquin; and if they send the police here to make inquisition, we can only say that there never has been any palanquin.  Why should a palanquin be near these works?  We are poor men, and we know nothing.’

Such is the simplest version of the simplest story connected with the descent upon Dearsley.  From the lips of the coolies I received it.  Dearsley himself was in no condition to say anything, and Mulvaney preserved a massive silence, broken only by the occasional licking of the lips.  He had seen a fight so gorgeous that even his power of speech was taken from him.  I respected that reserve until, three days after the affair, I discovered in a disused stable in my quarters a palanquin of unchastened splendour—­evidently in past days the litter of a queen.  The pole whereby it swung between the shoulders of the bearers was rich with the painted papier-mache of Cashmere.  The shoulder-pads were of yellow silk.  The panels of the litter itself were ablaze with the loves of all the gods and goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon—­lacquer on cedar.  The cedar sliding doors were fitted with hasps of translucent Jaipur enamel and ran in grooves shod with silver.  The cushions were of brocaded Delhi silk, and the curtains which once hid any glimpse of the beauty of the king’s palace were stiff with gold.  Closer investigation showed that the entire fabric was everywhere rubbed and discoloured by time and wear; but even thus it was sufficiently gorgeous to deserve housing on the threshold of a royal zenana.  I found no fault with it, except that it was in my stable.  Then, trying to lift it by the silver-shod shoulder-pole, I laughed.  The road from Dearsley’s pay-shed to the cantonment was a narrow and uneven one, and, traversed by three very inexperienced palanquin-bearers, one of whom was sorely battered about the head, must have been a path of torment.  Still I did not quite recognise the right of the three musketeers to turn me into a ‘fence’ for stolen property.