and he was one of the finest swimmers in the service. A
crocodile took me, just as I was half-way across, and nipped off
my right leg as clean as a surgeon could have done it, just above
the knee. What with the shock and the loss of blood, I fainted,
and should have drowned if Holder had not caught hold of me and
paddled for the bank. I was five months in hospital over it, and
when at last I was able to limp out of it with this timber toe
strapped to my stump I found myself invalided out of the army and
unfitted for any active occupation.
"I was, as you can imagine, pretty down on my luck at this time,
for I was a useless cripple though not yet in my twentieth year.
However, my misfortune soon proved to be a blessing in disguise.
A man named Abelwhite, who had come out there as an indigo-
planter, wanted an overseer to look after his coolies and keep
them up to their work. He happened to be a friend of our
colonel's, who had taken an interest in me since the accident.
To make a long story short, the colonel recommended me strongly
for the post and, as the work was mostly to be done on horseback,
my leg was no great obstacle, for I had enough knee left to keep
good grip on the saddle. What I had to do was to ride over the
plantation, to keep an eye on the men as they worked, and to
report the idlers. The pay was fair, I had comfortable quarters,
and altogether I was content to spend the remainder of my life in
indigo-planting. Mr. Abelwhite was a kind man, and he would
often drop into my little shanty and smoke a pipe with me, for
white folk out there feel their hearts warm to each other as they
never do here at home.
"Well, I was never in luck's way long. Suddenly, without a note
of warning, the great mutiny broke upon us. One month India lay
as still and peaceful, to all appearance, as Surrey or Kent; the
next there were two hundred thousand black devils let loose, and
the country was a perfect hell. Of course you know all about it,
gentlemen,--a deal more than I do, very like, since reading is
not in my line. I only know what I saw with my own eyes. Our
plantation was at a place called Muttra, near the border of the
Northwest Provinces. Night after night the whole sky was alight
with the burning bungalows, and day after day we had small
companies of Europeans passing through our estate with their
wives and children, on their way to Agra, where were the nearest
troops. Mr. Abelwhite was an obstinate man. He had it in his
head that the affair had been exaggerated, and that it would blow
over as suddenly as it had sprung up. There he sat on his
veranda, drinking whiskey-pegs and smoking cheroots, while the
country was in a blaze about him. Of course we stuck by him, I
and Dawson, who, with his wife, used to do the book-work and the
managing. Well, one fine day the crash came. I had been away on
a distant plantation, and was riding slowly home in the evening,
when my eye fell upon something all huddled together at the
bottom of a steep nullah. I rode down to see what it was, and
the cold struck through my heart when I found it was Dawson's
wife, all cut into ribbons, and half eaten by jackals and native
dogs. A little further up the road Dawson himself was lying on
his face, quite dead, with an empty revolver in his hand and four
Sepoys lying across each other in front of him. I reined up my
horse, wondering which way I should turn, but at that moment I
saw thick smoke curling up from Abelwhite's bungalow and the
flames beginning to burst through the roof. I knew then that I