The Keepers of the People

1399At dinner in the palace every one save the Princess Agnes was joyful; and the talk ran on incidents of the fighting, and the courage of the Varandals. The Princes were joyful above them all; for the people had come well out of the sternest trial.

1400It was drawing to an end, when Lord Lisdor said, “What, by the way, are you going to do with the prisoners? How many are there?”

1401“About six hundred,” said Prince Ralph.

1402“That’s rather a lot to manage; I suppose you’ll set them to work in your mines. Or shall you set them in a village of their own, and give them Varandal wives?”

1403“I see that after all, in spite of their defeat, the Russians are destined to prove beneficial to this country. Even the Culture of the Cossacks, slight as it probably is, will be the beginning of a higher development of this degraded people. Some of them are sure to be able to read and write, and many of them have doubtless imbibed the teaching of Tolstoi. It is but a little Culture, yet I rejoice at it, don’t you?” said the Princess Agnes to him.

1404“Culture; oh, ah, yes; Culture,” said Lord Lisdor politely.

1405“If you had only thought of having the dead Russians buried among the cornfields, instead of wasting them in those trenches in the plain, Prince Ralph!” said Althea with a gentle regret. “They should be dug up at once.”

1406The others smiled; Princess Agnes frowned at her; but looking at her steadily, Althea went on, “But these prisoners, if they go to the mines, will be teaching their guards all sorts of unnecessary things, alphabets and dicing; and if they go to live in a village, their children will be so ugly.”

1407“I will have no Mongol strain among the Varandals,” said Prince Raleigh.

1408“You’ll find it very hard to prevent,” said Lord Lisdor: “six hundred men, soldiers, don’t you know?”

1409“It would have been a very good thing,” said Dr. Brand, “if Sayers had let his men kill off that six hundred, when he had them penned in that gorge. I went among them to-day; and found the bulk of them diseased.”

1410“Humanity is never really an attribute of your profession, Dr. Brand, though it is supposed to be,” said the Princess Agnes to him. “But you might remember that you were an Englishman once.”