malevolent flames drew more than fire-fighters. Policemen came to Cabral Island, and after policemen there were soldiers, and then Aires and Camoens da Gama were taken, manacled and under armed escort, not directly to prison, but to the beautiful Bolgatty Palace on the island of the same name, where in a high cool room they were made to kneel on the floor at gunpoint while a cream-suited, balding Englishman with thick, pebbly eye-glasses and a walrus moustache stared out of the window at Cochin harbour with his hands clasped lightly behind his back, and talked, as it seemed, to himself. 'No one, not even the Supreme Government, knows everything about the administration of the Empire. Year by year England sends out fresh draughts for the first fighting-line, which is officially called the Indian Civil Service. These die, or kill themselves by overwork, or are worried to death, or broken in health and hope in order that the land may be protected from death and sickness, famine and war, and may eventually become capable of standing alone. It will never stand alone, but the idea is a pretty one, and men are willing to die for it, and yearly the work of pushing and coaxing and scolding and petting the country into good living goes forward. If an advance be made all credit is given to the native, while the Englishmen stand back and wipe their foreheads. If a failure occurs the Englishmen step forward and take the blame. Overmuch tenderness of this kind has bred a strong belief among many natives that the native is capable of administering the country, and many devout Englishmen believe this also, because the theory is stated in beautiful English with all the latest political colours.' 'Sir, you can have no doubt of my personal gratitude,' Aires began, but a sepoy, a common Malayali, slapped him across the face, and he fell silent. 'We shall administer the country, whatever you say now,' shouted Camoens, defiantly. He, too, was slapped: once, twice, thrice. Blood trickled from his mouth. 'There are other men who hope to administer the country in their own way,' said the man at the window, still addressing his remarks to the harbour. 'That is to say, with a garnish of Red Sauce. Such men must exist among three hundred million people, and, if they are not attended to, may cause trouble and even break the great idol called Pax Britannica, which, as the newspapers say, lives between Peshawur and Cape Comorin.' The man turned to face them, and of course he was a man well known to them: a well-read man with whom Camoens had enjoyed discussing Wordsworth's views on the French Revolution, Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan', and Kipling's almost schizophrenic early stories of the Indiannesses and Englishnesses that struggled within him; with whose daughters Aires had danced at I the Malabar Club on Willingdon Island; whom Epifania had entertained at her table; but who wore, now, an oddly absent look. He said, 'This Resident, this Englishman, at least, is disinclined on this occasion to take the blame. Your clans are guilty of arson, riot, murder and bloody affray and therefore, in my view, though you took no direct part, so are you. We--by which pronoun you will naturally understand me to be referring to your own local authorities--are going to make sure that you suffer for it. You will be spending very little time with your families for the next many years.' In June 1925 the da Gama brothers were sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment. The unusual severity of the judgment led to some speculation that the family was being paid back for Francisco's involvement with the Home Rule Movement, or even Camoens's comic-opera efforts at importing the Soviet Revolution; but for most people such speculations had been rendered superfluous, even offensive, by the hideous discoveries at the Gama Trading Company estates in the Spice Mountains, the unarguable evidence that the Menezes and Lobo gangs had lost their heads completely. In a torched cashew orchard the
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