When John Raby, waking at Belle's touch to find the floods had come, remarked that the people would be taken by surprise, he said truly. The corollary he drew from this premise--that he was to be congratulated on good luck--was not so sure. For there are times when the unforeseen acts as a spur to those who, when prepared, often lack the courage of action. And this was the case with a large body of the malcontents whom Shunker Dâs, aided of late by his lieutenant Râm Lâl, had been diligently instructing in the necessity for resistance at the proper time. But a vague formula of this sort is a very different thing in the eyes of the stolid law-abiding peasant, from the resolution that to-day, this hour, this minute, they had to set aside their inherited endurance, their ancestral calm, and fight. So, had the floods come in due course and after due warning, it is more than probable that even Râm Lâl's reckless desire for revenge would have failed to excite the people to the organised attack on the new dam towards which all Shunker's machinations had tended, and in which he saw at least temporary ruin to his enemy's plans. Fate, however, provided the element of surprise, and, to these slow-brained rebels, seemed to leave no choice beyond instant revolt or instant submission. Aided by Râm Lâl's envoys the news that the river was rising travelled fast; down the depression of cultivated land along which--given a high flood-mark--the water might be expected: nor was the assertion wanting that such a flood-mark had already been reached during the past two days, and its benefits neutralised by Raby _sahib's_ unholy contrivance. By dawn bands of the restless had begun to drift about from village to village, eager to discuss the position, and by degrees gaining a certain coherence of intention. Even those who hung back from the idea of active interference joining the crowd out of curiosity and so increasing the quantity of human tinder ready for ignition by the smallest spark. Before noon Khân Mahomed Lateef Khân, looking out from his ruined tower, saw a cloud of dust beyond his bare brown fields and ere long was in parley with a recruiting band. "Not I," swore the old man fiercely; "these are not days for honest blows. My son--God smite those who smote him!--could tell you so much; and his son must learn his father's wisdom. Ye are fools! Let every one of you give one rupee after the manner of a wedding, and go purchase the slithering lies of a pleader. Then may ye have justice in the _sahibs'_ courts; not otherwise. Besides, look ye, Shunker is in this, and his jackal Râmu; and by the twelve Imaums I hate them worse than Raby _sahib!_" "Râm Lâl hath cause," retorted a villainous-looking goldsmith, hailing from the village where Belle had been pelted by the children. "We Hindus, Khân _sahib_, are peace-lovers till they touch our women."