You and I have always agreed that if they were
once roused there was no saying what they would do, but I don't.
think either of us dreamt of anything as bad as this."
"I don't know," Bathurst said quietly; "one has watched this cloud
gathering, and felt that if it did break it would be something
terrible. No one can foresee now what it will be. The news that
Delhi is in the hands of the mutineers, and that these have massacred
all Europeans, and so placed themselves beyond all hope of pardon,
will fly though India like a flash of lightning, and there is no
guessing how far the matter will spread. There is no use disguising
it from ourselves, Doctor, before a week is over there may not be a
white man left alive in India, save the garrisons of strong places
like Agra, and perhaps the presidential towns, where there is always
a strong European force."
"I can't deny that it is possible, Bathurst. If this revolt spreads
though the three Presidencies the work of conquering India will
have to be begun again, and worse than that, for we should have
opposed to us a vast army drilled and armed by ourselves, and led
by the native officers we have trained. It seems stupefying that
an empire won piecemeal, and after as hard fighting as the world
has ever seen, should be lost in a week."
The Doctor spoke as if the question was a purely impersonal one.
"Ugly, isn't it?" he went on; "and to think I have been doctoring
up these fellows for the last thirty years--saving their lives,
sir, by wholesale.
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