escort there rides behind me an army in myriads. My will is their law. In my heart is the lust of dominion and glory. Suppliant to my knee are come these merchants—thousands of them—from Lahore, Amritzar, Delhi, Lucknow, Benares, from a hundred cities of the plain are they come, begging of me the privilege to live, urgently praying that, for a price paid to me, they may have their lives, their wives, their children, their goods, all the things that were their own until I came, until in the name of the great gods and by might of the warriors whom the gods gave me as a sure sign of my divine agency, I had declared that the land with all its fatness of men and of beast and of grain, was mine. Whereupon I had killed many of the men (what matters it? they must soon rot), and am now permitting these to live, upon strict condition that they support myself and my army, even as is meet for the Heaven-born and his friends. And in this brown mud city of Khotan I shall erect a great palace ; shall hang it with silken rugs, for the Khotanese slaves are famous rug-makers ; and shall establish a harem of delight, for the women here are reputed fair above the women of all the land. Thus it was in the days that are now as dreams. Thus it is now. Thus it shall be again. When the great conquering lord is also a great administrator, able to make a system by which all the rupees shall closely come to his treasury, whence they may go out as sufficient largess to the small lords — then are these small lords men of honour, like the English officials of to-day, spurning the surreptitious silver. If the conqueror knows not the art of the exchequer, and has not the
IIIF Color HighRes
