They impressed Nehal Singh deeply; his mind was filled
with a wonder and pleasure which did something toward soothing the
first bitter disappointment that the evening had brought him.
But above all else, he wondered at himself and the rapidity of the
fate which in two short weeks had swept him out of his solitude into
the very vortex of a world unknown to him save through his books. He
asked himself what power it was that had flung aside caste, religion,
education, like a child's sandcastle before the onrush of a mighty
tide. Caste, religion, hatred of the foreigner, these things had been
sown deep into him, had been fostered and trained like precious
plants, and now they were dead at the first contact with European
ideas. They were gone as though they had never been. He had made no
resistance. He had drifted with the stream, regardless of the
entreating, threatening hands held out to him; yielding to a divine
power stronger than himself, stronger far than the implanted
principles of his life.
His wonder, though he did not know it, was shared by the Englishman at
his side. Travers, accustomed as he was to look upon human theories
and principles as buyable and saleable appendages, could not suppress
a mild surprise at the rapidity with which this Hindu prince had
assimilated the ideas and mental attitude of another hemisphere.
Possibly it could be traced back to the parrot-like propensities of
all inferior races, but Travers, much as the solution appealed to him,
could not accept it.
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