"Well, Uncle, somehow they never do get beaten. I don't know how it is. I suppose that it is just obstinacy. Look how we thrashed the French here, and they were just as well drilled as our soldiers, and there were twice as many of them." The Rajah nodded. "One secret of our success, Dick, is that the English get on better with the natives here than the French do--I don't know why, except what I have heard from people who went through the war. They say that the French always seemed to look down on the natives, and treated even powerful allies with a sort of haughtiness that irritated them, and made them ready to change sides at the first opportunity; while the British treated them pleasantly, so that there was a real friendship between them." Dick, finding that the conversation now turned to the time when his mother and uncle were girl and boy together, left them and went downstairs. He found some twenty horses ranged in the courtyard, while their riders were sitting in the shade, several of them being engaged in cooking. These were the escort who had ridden with the Rajah from Tripataly--for no Indian prince would think of making a journey, unless accompanied by a numerous retinue. Scarcely had he entered the yard than Rajbullub came up, with the officer in command of the escort, a fine-looking specimen of a Hindoo soldier. He salaamed, as Rajbullub presented him to Dick. The lad addressed him at once in his own tongue, and they were soon talking freely together. The officer was surprised at finding that his lord's nephew, from beyond the sea, was able to speak the language like a native. First, Dick asked the nature of the country, and the places at which they would halt on their way. Then he inquired what force the Rajah could put into the field, and was somewhat disappointed to hear that he kept up but a hundred horsemen, including those who served as an escort. "You see, Sahib, there is no occasion for soldiers. Now that the whites are the masters, they do the fighting for us. When the Rajah's father was a young man, he could put two thousand men under arms, and he joined at the siege of Trichinopoly with twelve hundred. But now there is no longer need for an army. There is no one to fight. Some of the young men grumble, but the old ones rejoice at the change. Formerly, they had to go to the plough with their spears and their swords beside them, because they never knew when marauders from the hills might sweep down; besides, when there was war, they might be called away for weeks, while the crops were wasting upon the ground. "As to the younger men who grumble, I say to them, 'If you are tired of a peaceful life, go and enlist in a Company's regiment;' and every year some of them do so.