As for the people of the country, they regarded this new-fangled behaviour with suspicion at first, as probably a cloak for deeper designs of plunder on the part of Gerrard himself, but learned gradually to regard him as well-meaning, though certainly mad. Here and there a farmer or headman would open his heart to him, letting in light on many dark places in Partab Singh's administration, while from the elders who gathered round his tent-door at night when he was encamped near a village he learned what was the popular estimate of the ruler himself. One story was told with bated breath again and again, establishing Partab Singh's character in the minds of his people as a man of the nicest honour. A few years before, the Rajah had slain with his own hand every woman and girl in his zenana, as the result of some discovery, the nature of which no one durst even conjecture, and had since brought home to his blood-stained halls a young bride of purest Rajput descent from beyond Nanakpur, who had borne him a son, commonly reported to be the apple of his eye. There had been an elder son, but no one knew whether he was alive or dead, though a gruesome tale was whispered of his father's having ordered his eyes to be torn out. A faithful foster-brother was said to have sacrificed himself to save him, and to have died in the prison after his eyes had been duly exhibited to the Rajah as those of his son, while the prince made his escape in the servant's clothes, but the truth of this was not vouched for. Altogether, life seemed to be rather lightly regarded in the Agpur royal family, though Gerrard gathered that Partab Singh was held by connoisseurs to have failed to vindicate to the utmost his insulted honour. If the occasion were grave enough to warrant the massacre of every living thing in the zenana, it called also for the death of the avenger by his own hand as a finishing touch, but it was universally allowed that this could hardly be expected in the case of a man who had left himself no heir. Much was said also as to Partab Singh's lavish treatment of his soldiers and his presumable intention in training them, his encouragement of merchants and crusade against large landholders, who were either persecuted out of existence or compelled to reside in Agpur under his own eye, and the fortune he was heaping up for his one precious son. Thus the voluminous reports forwarded to Darwan for transmission to Ranjitgarh were by no means deficient either in detail or interest.