The sympathy was mutual. Little Gumilcund was tenderly regarded by the English. Even Lord Dalhousie, the great annexer, when the rajah wrote to him, that, being without heirs he had adopted a son, who, with the permission of the Governor-General, would succeed him, could not find it in his heart to decree the separation of Gumilcund from her native rulers. Had he known that the heir was, to all intents and purposes, an Englishman, the decision might have been different; but the rajah, in his letter, had given Tom the title which he would assume were his heirship to the estate recognised, stating that he was being trained and educated in England, and it was allowed to remain an open question. Under the English Resident the rajah's heir should govern the State, and if his rule proved as beneficent as that of his predecessors, his title would be confirmed.--If, on the other hand, he acted as so many young rajahs had done when they came to the supreme power, the rule would be taken from him and vested in an English Governor. So the Governor-General decreed, and then, having weightier matters to dispose of, he dismissed Gumilcund from his mind. Little could he have imagined that, in days to come, it would prove a bulwark of the dominion, which he had taken so much pains to build up, and a refuge, sorely needed for his distressed fellow-country people, in the midst of a hostile rebellious continent. Returning from this digression, which was necessary if we would understand the position of the little State, the government of which our venturous young Englishman had come over to assume, I must briefly follow his further movements. He marched on quietly, for there was nothing to indicate that the convulsion which his friends had predicted was close at hand, and though he wished to reach Gumilcund, he was not in the least impatient.