"Sahib, he could not adopt him. The custom was in those days that when the old king died, the new king must be one of his line. Thus the gadi would pass to his brother's son, a Meena. No Rajput could inherit. Nevertheless, he treated the boy as his child. And then, Sahib, one day when the boy came back from seeing the Emperor at Delhi, he killed the king and all his relatives, and the whole army. It was like this, Sahib. It was the Kinaghat festival, when the king and all his people used to go down to the river without arms, and sprinkle water for the dead. It was the old custom, Sahib, and no one had ever made use of it for an evil purpose. But the Rajput secretly gathered his men behind a hill, and when the king and his people had cast aside their arms, and were performing the holy rite, the Rissaldar and other Rajputs fell upon them and killed them all, so that there was not a Meena left alive within a great distance of the place of slaughter. That is how the Rajput became the master, and the Meena his servant." The Subadar's solemn "Again Huzoor" as he introduced each new phase in the tragedy was inimitable, but there was nothing tragic or resentful in his way of telling it. It was a tale comfortable to Meena pride, and therefore it was believed as legends are believed all over the world which make life easier and give one a stiffer back or a more honourable ancestry. The Subadar told me that the books of the Meena bards had been confiscated. They are locked up in the fort at Ranatbawar, and no one may enter. If any one reads them, the Rajput dynasty will pass away, and the Meena will be restored; therefore the Rajputs would like to destroy them, but there is some ancient inhibition. The chronicles are put away in an iron chest under the ground; yet, as the Subadar explained, the record is indestructible. It has lived in men's memories and hearts, new epics have been written, and the story is handed down from father to son. Another Meena told me the story is written "in the Political Agent's Book at Jaipur." This, I think, was by way of reference rather than confirmation, for it could never have entered any of their heads that one could doubt the genuineness or authenticity of the tale. When the usurper was crowned a Meena was called in from afar to put the tilak, or caste mark, on the king's forehead. And here the fairy story comes in again, for the tilak was imprinted on the king's brow by the Meena's toe. This is still the custom, the Subadar assured me, and he explained that it was a humiliation imposed upon the king by the priests as an atonement for his bad faith. The priest persuaded the king that the only way that he could hope to keep his throne was by receiving the tilak from the toe of the Meena, and he appeased his vanity by pretending that the Meena, by raising his toe, signified submission, just as the Yankee talks about turning up his toe to the daisies.