The voices died into silence. Nicholson and Nehal
Singh faced each other over the dead body.
"Thou seest," Nehal Singh said. "There is no turning back."
"No, there is no turning back." The Englishman drew himself upright.
The light of unchangeable resolution illuminated his face and made
him, unarmed and dressed in the rigid simplicity of his uniform, a
fine and impressive contrast to the brilliant bearing of his opponent.
"Not that"--pointing to Behar Singh and speaking in clear, energetic
English--"not that has made retreat impossible. It was already
impossible before. Nehal Singh, I came here to plead with you. I
respected you and pitied you too much to allow you to bring disaster
upon yourself without an effort to save you. You say you came among us
inexperienced save in dreams. It is true. Only a dreamer could have
hoped to find perfection. We are a great people, Rajah; we have always
been great, and we shall always be.
"And if there be corruption among us, it shall be weeded out. In times
of peace, vice and folly grow fast. Scoundrels, idlers, boasters and
fools grow side by side with prosperity; they are the weeds which
spring up on an over-cultivated soil. But war is the uprooting time of
corruption, it is the harvest-time of what is best and noblest in a
people. And that time has come. You, like your father, have learned to
despise and hate us. Perhaps you are right. You have mingled with the
scum which rises to the surface of still waters.
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