"Because thou art young, and wast born in time of peace. I saw the year that was to end the English rule. Men said it was ended, indeed, and that all could now take their neighbour's cattle. This I saw ploughing, and I was minded to fight too, being a young man. My father sent me to Gurgaon to buy cattle, and I saw the tents of Van Corlin Sahib(1) in the wheat, and I saw that he was going up and down collecting the revenue, neither abating nor increasing it, though Delhi was all afire, and the Sahibs lay dead about the fields. I have seen what I have seen. This Raj will not be talked down; and he who builds on the present madness of the Sahib-log, which, O Naik, covers great cunning, builds for himself a lock-up. My father's uncle has seen their country, and he says that he is afraid as never he feared before. So Strickland Sahib's boy will come back to this country, and his son after him. Naik, have they named him yet?" "The butler spoke to my household, having heard the talk at table, and he says that they will call him Adam, and no jaw-splitting English name. Ud-daam. The padre will name him at their church in due time."(1) Van Cortland? "Who can tell the ways of Sahibs? Now, Strickland Sahib knows more of the Faith than ever I had time to learn-prayers, charms, names, and stories of the Blessed Ones. Yet he is not a Musalman," said Imam Din, thoughtfully. "For the reason that he knows as much of the gods of Hindustan, and so rides with a rein in each hand. Remember that he sat under the Baba Atall, a fakir among fakirs, for ten days: whereby a man came to be hanged for the murder of the dancing-girl on the night of the great earthquake," said the Naik. "True - it is true - and yet . . . they are one day so wise, the Sahibs, and another so foolish. But he has named the child well: Adam. Huzrut Adam! Ho! ho! Father Adam we must call him." "And all who minister to the child," said the Naik, quietly, but with meaning, "will come to great honour."